News
SCI Peer Advisor Spotlight: Joy Gimei (SCI ‘24)
March 29, 2024
Jessica Hammer Explores Transformational Gameplay at Dean’s Spotlight Series 2024
March 26, 2024
Jessica Hammer is an associate professor of learning sciences and the director of the Human-Computer Interaction Institute’s (HCII) Center for Transformational Play at Carnegie Mellon University. Hammer discussed her research on transformational games during the third of four Dean’s Spotlight Series lectures this academic year on March 25.
SCI Dean for DEI and Alumna to Co-Chair CSCW 2024
March 26, 2024
The School of Computing and Information (SCI)’s associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion, Rosta Farzan, and Claudia López have been named general co-chairs of the 27th Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW) conference, one of the top Human-Computer Interaction conferences worldwide. Dr. López is a former information science doctoral student advised by Dr. Peter Brusilovsky. CSCW is set to occur in San José, Costa Rica this fall on November 9-13, 2024.
SCI Projects Awarded 2023-24 Pitt Momentum Funds
March 21, 2024
This year, three projects by faculty members at the School of Computing and Information (SCI) have received Momentum Funds from the University of Pittsburgh Office of Research! The Momentum Funds consist of three tiers of grants designed to support projects focused on scholarship, multidisciplinary work, and research by Pitt faculty. This year, 27 awards were granted to Pitt faculty across the University. SCI projects include:
Assistant Professor Xiaowei Jia Receives the NASA Early Career Investigator Grant
March 20, 2024
Dr. Xiaowei Jia (assistant professor, Department of Computer Science) received an Early Career Investigator Grant from NASA's Earth Science Division for his project “Towards Generalizable, Fair, and Knowledge Guided Machine Learning for Monitoring Earth Systems.” The grant was issued for $300,000, with the project estimated to last three years.
SCI’s 3Sixty Program Offers Students New Perspectives in its First Iteration
March 12, 2024
Seven Hackett, a junior majoring in film and media studies, had never coded before stepping into Computing for the Humanities. It ended up being her favorite course out of the three she took this summer.
“[The coding] was probably my favorite because I never did anything with that,” Hackett said. “So now I feel like I have this secret weapon that I can just pull out and be like ‘guys, do you know I know how to code?’ which is so cool.”
SCI Students Take Home First-Place Prize at Hacking4Humanity
Feb. 28, 2024
As the use of digital technologies becomes more widespread, so can the potential for its harmful effects, like online hate speech. Hacking4Humanity, a hackathon open to undergraduate and graduate students, aims to mitigate these harms.
Assistant Professor Longfei Shangguan Receives an NSF CAREER Award to Democratize Earable Computing Research
Feb. 28, 2024
Dr. Longfei Shangguan (assistant professor, Department of Computer Science) received an NSF CAREER award for his project “Ubiquitous Earable Sensing Using Low-Cost Earphones.” The project is estimated to last until early 2029.
The project seeks to reduce electronic waste through developing a systems-based approach to transforming abandoned low-cost earphones into human-centric sensing devices. The total intended award amount is $600,000, with $284,581 issued for Fiscal Year 2024.