Congratulations to our three computer science faculty members honored for their excellence by the College of Engineering for the 2020 Dean's Awards. 

  • Kirk Cameron received the Excellence in Research Award 
  • Margaret Ellis was honored with the Excellence in Teaching Award;
  • Tanu Mitra was conferred the Outstanding New Assistant Professor Award
     

They were recognized at the Department of Computer Science virtual awards banquet, along with other outstanding recognition of students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

Kirk Cameron
Professor and Associate Department Head for Research and Engagement

  • Kirk Cameron is honored as a World Leading Research Fellow and with Royal Academy of Engineering Fellowships in the United Kingdom.
  • Cameron leads two education projects (iLORE and Ada) to broaden community participation in parallel and distributed systems. iLore includes a large, diverse team of undergraduates attempting to record, classify, and share the lineage of computer systems since the 1970's. In Ada, he works with an artist to create an interactive, kinetic sculpture that introduces the general public to the beauty and importance of parallel and distributed computing.
  • His research demonstrated conclusively the need for energy-efficient computer systems that elevate energy efficiency in high-performance parallel and distributed computer systems as a design constraint, which resulted in benchmarks he created still in use today and led to the green computing movement. His group’s recent research on energy efficiency has demonstrated that future resource management in large-scale systems will require new ways of thinking, proposing a change from linear to non-linear solutions.

Margaret Ellis
Assistant Professor of Practice

  • In the past two years, Margaret Ellis has innovatively redeveloped her CS2104 Problem Solving in Computer Science course to apply problem-solving skills across multiple fields of computer science, using current technologies and emphasizing practical skills, including cooperative work both in and outside the classroom, as well as significant hands-on experiences in an earlier stage of the overall curriculum for the major.  
  • She has also contributed to the development of a new Intermediate Python course that provides Advanced Computational Thinking Pathways credit for general education.  This course has the potential to be a gateway to continued study of computer science and provides a bridge between CS1064 Intro to Python for non-majors to CS2114 Introduction to Data Structures and Software Design ,which is in Java and is for CS majors/minors.
  • In a consistent effort to be approachable to her students, Ellis coaches students to keep trying when they feel discouraged or intimidated, reminding them they are not alone in their frustration. Students have access to her extensive office hours as well as an online forum for academic support.

Tanushree Mitra
Assistant Professor

  • Tanushree Mitra is one of the founding members of the Credibility Coalition group, an international organization of interdisciplinary researchers and practitioners dedicated to developing standards for news credibility and tackling the problem of online misinformation.
  • She has been invited to speak at numerous venues beyond academia, such as panels at the NATO Strategic Communications Center, the Center for Democracy & Technology in Washington, D.C., and the Google Disinformation convening in Mountain View, CA.
  • Mitra is most proud to have received the NSF CRII Award, the ICTAS JFA Award, and the Foley Scholarship for excellence in research contribution.
  • Along with her Ph.D. and master’s advisees, Mitra is a strong advocate of undergraduate research. She has previously advised over 10 undergraduate students, many of them computer science majors, but also journalism, communications, sociology, and industrial and systems engineering majors. Work done by two of these students have led to research papers at top tier ACM conferences.