Susan Orr, SCI's director of communications and media, was named as the 2026 Pearl of Hope Award recipient by Sojourner House and Sojourner House MOMS. The regional nonprofit, which provides substance-use recovery and housing services for families in the Pittsburgh region, is recognizing Orr for “her extraordinary compassion, leadership, and more than two decades of dedication to women, children and families.”
James Joshi (professor, Department of Informatics and Networked Systems) has been elected as the Transactions Operations Committee (TOC) chair for the IEEE Computer Society for 2026. With this role, Joshi will also serve on the IEEE Computer Society Publications Board.
Addy Agastheeswaran, a computer science student at SCI, is the co-founder of Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS), a new student organization dedicated to creating a supportive community for members to learn, connect, and grow in a field where they are historically underrepresented.
In the joint program offered by SCI and the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences’ Department of English, students get hands-on experiences assisting communities through a blend of storytelling and technology. One example is through the Computing Technologies for Cultural Preservation capstone, which sent students to Ecuador to document Ecuadorian Indigenous cultures.
The second talk in the 2025-26 Dean’s Spotlight Series, featuring the University of Michigan’s Dr. Lu Wang, explored how AI tools are evaluated as trustworthy and how they can be improved by future research.
Morgan Frank, an assistant professor in the Department of Informatics and Networked Systems at the University of Pittsburgh, said using AI to connect employers and job seekers is not necessarily new.
ISP PhD Student Zhengbo Zhou received the Magna Cum Laude Science Poster Award for his paper “Long Range History of Prior Mammograms for Breast Cancer Risk Prediction” at the 111th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
Michael Keslar, a member of SCI's Board of Visitors, divisional chief information officer for the Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (BNY), and president of BNY Pennsylvania delivered the address at the College’s 21st annual Winter Commencement on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025.
A new course for the spring 2026 semester empowers students to use AI literacy as a core competency for informed citizenship, bridging technology, values, and how that technology intersects with the human world around us.
Behnam Rahdari (IS ’25) studies how AI tools and human interaction connect in the healthcare world, exploring how tech and people can collaborate for a better clinical future.
Sasha Kotarski, SCI's communications and media manager, was one of three inaugural winners of the Helen Fallon Young Communicator Award at the Women’s Press Club of Pittsburgh’s 71st Annual Dinner and Scholarship Awards.
Dr. Xulong Tang, an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science, is participating in a five-year $5 million NSF ExpandQISE Track 2 Grant. The project, titled “ExpandQISE: URI-PQI Collaboration - Application of Quantum Fundamentals to Advance Research and Workforce Development,” is led by the University of Rhode Island in collaboration with the Pittsburgh Quantum Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Pittsburgh.
SCI Alumni Board member Jonathan Hanobik (CS ’18, ’23G) shares insights into how the SCI Mentorship Program helps students navigate the professional world with an alumni network at their side.
Nate Homitsky (SCI ’07, KGSB ’16), IT Vice President at Aerotech, notes that partnerships between corporate organizations and the University are much more than professional networking opportunities: they're learning experiences that bring valuable context to students' education.
In the first 2025-26 Dean’s Spotlight Series talk, Cornell University’s Elaine L. Westbrooks explored the changing world of academic publishing, AI tools, and how libraries continue to be a cornerstone for information accessibility and community.
Annual Reports
Explore SCI in-depth by viewing our annual public reports over the years! Gain a deeper insight into our departments, programs, initiatives and events, and more.
