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Angelos Stavrou interviewed by CNN for article on secure Android phones

Prof. Angelos Stavrou was extensively quoted in a CNN article on the use of secure Android phones by the US government and military.

Prof. Wechsler and students issued two patents

Congratulations to Prof. Harry Wechsler and his students Shen-Shyang Ho, Hung Lai and Venkatesh Ramanathan, who have been issued two patents by the US PTO.

Patent title: Data Stream Change Detector
Inventors: Harry Wechsler and Shen-Shyang Ho
Patent No: 8,073,963 B1
Issue date: December 6, 2011.

Patent title: Recognition By Parts Using Adaptive and Robust Correlation Filters
Inventors: Harry Wechsler, Hung Lai, and Venkatesh Ramanathan
Patent No: 8,073,286 B1
Issue date: December 6, 2011.

Summer 2012 MS CS Extended Online Offerings

The Summer 2012 online course offerings have been posted. The Department offers courses leading to the MSCS degree through an innovative online approach that allows students to attend courses either in the classroom or over the Internet. To see them, and learn more about them and how to register, click 'more'.

These courses are delivered using Internet software that provides the instructor's voice, slides, and annotations at the same time they are delivered in the classroom, on Windows, Macintosh or Linux computers.

Classes also are recorded so that students can attend over the Internet with a time delay. Usually the time delay is hours or days; however in Summer 2012 we are again offering another option: nine courses will be offered from their recordings to individual-students. Students who take these courses will be mentored by the same faculty member who originally taught the recorded course, and will be expected to submit the same assignments as posted in the original syllabus. The schedule for completing assignments will be defined at the beginning of the course and will be subject to the same conditions as the classroom course (for example, treatment of late submissions).

The courses are listed below. Please note that at most ten students will be registered in each course and registration is subject to the professor's approval. The drop period for these courses is 48 hours.

To register, contact the faculty member by email for approval and then the Office of Continuing and Professional Education at 703-993-2109 for administrative processing. The deadline for registration is 22 May.

PhD Student Joshua Church and Prof. Ami Motro receive Best Paper award at SOCA 2011

Congratulations to PhD student Joshua Church and his advisor Prof. Ami Motro who received the best paper award at the 2011 IEEE International Conference on Service Oriented Computing and Applications (SOCA 2011) for their paper "Learning Service Behavior with Progressive Testing".

Paper authored by CS PhD student Zhaohui Wang among finalists for 2011 NYU-Poly AT&T Best Applied Security Paper Award

Congratulations to Zhaohui Wang whose paper "Exploiting Smart-Phone USB Connectivity For Fun And Profit" is among the finalists for the 2011 NYU-Poly AT&T Best Applied Security Paper Award.

PhD student Bo Zhang and Professors Simon and Aydin receive best paper award at ACM MSWIM '11

The paper "Maximal Utility Rate Allocation for Energy Harvesting Wireless Sensor Networks" authored by CS PhD student Bo Zhang, Prof. Bob Simon, and Prof. Hakan Aydin received the best paper award at the 14th ACM International Conference on Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Wireless and Mobile Systems (ACM MSWIM '11) held in Miami, Florida.

There were 190 papers submitted to the conference.

High School students mentored by Prof. Rangwala are regional finalists in Siemens Competition

Congrats to Eric (Ye) Tao and Marvin Qian, high school students at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology who are in the Regional Finals for the Siemens Competition. The team is mentored by Professor Huzefa Rangwala of the Computer Science Dept. The project is related to the modeling of solenoid proteins using machine learning approaches.

They will compete at the regional event held at Georgia Tech University (Nov 3-5, 2011) for a place in the national competition.

From the competition web-site & FCPS News Release:
http://www.siemens-foundation.org/en/competition.htm
http://commweb.fcps.edu/newsreleases/newsrelease.cfm?newsid=1843

Open Term Assistant Professor Position

The Department of Computer Science at George Mason University invites applications for a renewable term, non tenure-track Assistant Professor position beginning Fall 2012.

Responsibilities include teaching undergraduate computer science courses as well as service duties associated with the department's undergraduate degree programs. For information on the department, visit our Web site: http://cs.gmu.edu/.

Minimum qualifications include a graduate degree, preferably a Ph.D. in computer science, software engineering or related field, and a strong commitment and demonstrated excellence in teaching.

For full consideration please submit a faculty application and application materials online at http://jobs.gmu.edu for position number F9550Z. To apply, you will need a statement of professional goals including your perspective on teaching, a complete C.V. with publications and teaching history, and the names of three references.

The review of applications will begin on February 13, 2012, and will continue until the position is filled.

GMU is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. Women and minorities strongly encouraged.

Open Tenure Track Faculty Position in Computer Game Design

The Department of Computer Science at George Mason University invites applications for a tenure-track faculty position at the rank of Assistant Professor beginning Fall 2012.

We are seeking a faculty member who can establish strong research and teaching programs in the area of computer game design. Applicants must have a research focus in an area of computer games technology — for example, in artificial intelligence, multi-agent systems, computer graphics, real-time animation, simulation and modeling, networked and distributed systems, or software engineering, as applied to computer games. Minimum qualifications include a Ph.D. in Computer Science or a related field, demonstrated potential for excellence and productivity in research, and a commitment to high quality teaching.
The department currently offers a graduate certificate in Computer Games Technology and a concentration in Computer Game Design at the undergraduate level. The Computer Game Design concentration is offered in collaboration with faculty in the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Mason. For more information on these and other programs offered by the department, visit our Web site: http://cs.gmu.edu/
The department has over 40 faculty members with wide-ranging research interests including artificial intelligence, algorithms, computer graphics, computer vision, databases, data mining, distributed virtual environments, expert systems, human computer interaction, parallel and distributed systems, real-time systems, robotics, security, software engineering, and wireless and mobile computing.
George Mason University is located in Fairfax, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, DC, and home to one of the highest concentrations of high-tech firms in the nation. There are excellent opportunities for interaction with government agencies and industry, including many game and serious game development companies. In particular, the Washington DC region is fast becoming a hub for the serious games industry. Fairfax is consistently rated as being among the best places to live in the country, and has an outstanding local public school system.
For full consideration please submit application and application materials on-line at http://jobs.gmu.edu (position number F9542Z). To apply, you will need a statement of professional goals including your perspective on teaching and research, a complete C.V. with publications, and the names of four references. The review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. GMU is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. Women and minorities are strongly encouraged to apply.

Faisal Sibai (PhD in IT student) receives one of the best paper awards at SECUREWARE 2011

The paper "A Scalable Architecture for Countering Network-Centric Insider Threats" by Faisal Sibai (PhD in IT student) and Prof. Daniel Menasce was one of the six papers selected as best paper at the SECUREWARE 2011 conference.

Chun-Kit Ngan receives Best Student Paper Award

Chun-Kit Ngan, a PhD IT student, has received a Best Student Paper Award at the 14th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2011), which took place in Beijing, China. The awarded paper is entitled "A Service Framework For Learning, Querying And Monitoring Multivariate Time Series" and co-authored by Chun-Kit Ngan and his PhD advisors Profs. Alexander Brodsky and Jessica Lin.

This award was given to 3 papers co-authored by students. ICEIS 2011 received 402 submissions, of which 14 percent were accepted as full papers. Additionally, 30 percent were presented as short papers and 11 percent as posters.

Prof. Ricci Heishman

It is with great sadness that we inform you that Professor Ricci Heishman passed away on Monday, Sept 26th, after a lengthy battle with cancer. Dr. Heishman was a highly valued and productive member of the CS department. Ric touched all of us during his all too brief stay in our department. We will miss him deeply.

Professor Heishman joined the department in Fall of 2008 after receiving his PhD in IT from the Volgenau School. Prior to that time, he was a faculty member for ten years at the Manassas campus of Northern Virginia Community College where he served as Assistant Dean of Computer Science and Information Technology. Before joining NVCC, Prof. Heishman spent 20 years working in the military (US Navy) and defense industry.

Three new faculty to join the Department

The CS Dept welcomes Dr. Mark Snyder, who joins the department in Fall 2011. Dr. Damon McCoy and Dr. Avinash Srinivasan will join the department in Spring 2012.

The CS Dept welcomes Dr. Mark Snyder, who joins the department as a Term Assistant Professor in Fall 2011. Dr. Snyder received his PhD from the University of Kansas in 2011. His research interests are in language interpretation, type-driven language specification, language semantics, type systems, domain specific languages, compilation and systems level design.

Dr. Damon McCoy will join the department as an Assistant Professor in Spring 2012. He received his PhD from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 2009 and is currently a Computing Innovation Fellow in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. His research interests focus broadly on area of privacy and security issues related to computer and networking systems.

Dr. Avinash Srinivasan will join the department as a Term Assistant Professor in Spring 2012. He received his PhD from Florida Atlantic University in Aug. 2008. His research interests are in network security and forensics, forensic analysis of file systems, and reputation and trust-based security models for wireless and sensor networks.

GMU Student Team at RoboCup 2011 Istanbul

Prof. Sean Luke and four PhD and undergraduate students (Keith Sullivan, Katherine Russell, Jake Scott, and Max Sumrall) traveled to Istanbul with three humanoid robots, the RoboPatriots. The robots competed in RoboCup, where played soccer, without human control, against other robots. Despite some hardware problems, the team played successfully. Unusually, the robots sport a mixture of hard-coded behaviors and ones learned through human training on site in Istanbul. We are aware of no other team which has attempted this before.

Spring 11 Issue of Computing News

The Spring 2011 issue of Computing News is now available!

Computing News is the department's newletter. Back issues also available.

PhD Student Pu Wang wins Best Student Paper at SDM 2011

The paper Nonparametric Bayesian Co-clustering Ensembles, by Pu Wang, Kathryn Laskey, Carlotta Domeniconi, and Michael Jordan, has co-won the Best Student Paper at the prestigious 2011 SIAM International Conference on Data Mining. The cash award was sponsored by Google.

Open Instructor Position in Information Security and Assurance

The Department of Computer Science in the Volgenau School of Engineering at George Mason University invites applications for a non-tenure track instructional faculty position at the rank of Assistant Professor beginning Fall 2011.

The faculty position is in information security and assurance. Minimum qualifications for the position include a Ph.D. in Computer Science or a related field, research and/or industrial experience in information security and assurance, and a commitment to high quality teaching.

The department has over 40 faculty members with wide-ranging research interests. Security research at George Mason is conducted in access control methods and models, authentication, network security, intrusion detection and prevention, database security, operating systems security, vulnerability analysis, malware analysis and defense, anonymity and privacy, security theory, and security policy. Other research areas include artificial intelligence, algorithms, bioengineering, computer graphics, computer vision, databases, data mining, human computer interaction, parallel and distributed systems, real-time systems, robotics, software engineering, and wireless and mobile computing. For more information on the department, visit our Web site: http://cs.gmu.edu/.

George Mason University is located in Fairfax in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC. Northern Virginia is home to one of the largest concentrations of high-tech firms in the nation. There are excellent opportunities for interaction with government agencies and industry.

For full consideration please submit application and application materials on-line at http://jobs.gmu.edu (position number F9335Z). To apply, you will need a statement of professional goals including your perspective on teaching, a complete C.V. with publications, and the names of three references. The review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled.

GMU is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. Women and minorities strongly encouraged.

Professor Huzefa Rangwala and PhD Student Zeehasham Rasheed win Best Paper Award

Professor Huzefa Rangwala and his PhD student Zeehasham Rasheed received a Best Paper Award at the 3rd ISCA BiCOB 2011 conference held in New Orleans, LA from March 23-25, 2011. Their paper was titled "TAC-ELM: Metagenomic Taxonomic Classification with Extreme Learning Machines".

PhD Student, Cody Narber interviewed by the Washington Post

Cody Narber was interviewed by the Washington Post about his presentation at the University Technology Exhibition. The Northern Virginia Technology Council hosted the University Technology Exhibition to give schools from across the Washington region an opportunity to bring public awareness to technology-in-development.

Please view the article in its entirety at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/25/AR2011022506167.html

Summer 2011 MS CS Extended Online Offerings

The Summer 2011 MS CS Extended Online offerings consists of nine online courses will be offered from their recordings. Students who take these courses will be mentored by the same faculty member who originally taught the recorded course, and will be expected to submit the same assignments as posted in the original syllabus. The schedule for completing assignments will be defined at the beginning of the course and will be subject to the same conditions as the classroom course (for example, treatment of late submissions).

The GMU Department of Computer Science offers courses leading to the MSCS degree through an innovative online approach that allows students to attend courses either in the classroom or over the Internet. These courses are delivered using Internet software that provides the instructor's voice, slides, and annotations at the same time they are delivered in the classroom, on Windows, Macintosh or Linux computers.

Classes also are recorded so that students can attend over the Internet with a time delay. Usually the time delay is hours or days; however, in Summer 2011 we are again offering another option: nine courses will be offered from their recordings. Students who take these courses will be mentored by the same faculty member who originally taught the recorded course, and will be expected to submit the same assignments as posted in the original syllabus. The schedule for completing assignments will be defined at the beginning of the course and will be subject to the same conditions as the classroom course (for example, treatment of late submissions).

The courses are listed below. Please note that at most ten students will be registered in each course and registration is subject to the professor's approval. The drop period for these courses is 48 hours.

To register, contact the faculty member by email for approval and then email Maureen Danforth (danforth@gmu.edu) at the Office of Continuing and Professional Education with the instructor’s approval for further administrative processing. If you have any registration questions please contact the Office of Continuing and Professional Education at 703-993-2109.

Summer 2011 Asynchronous CS Courses
CS 540 Language Processors-Dr. Elizabeth White
CS 555 Computer Communications and Networking-Dr. Mark Pullen
CS 580 Introduction to Artificial Intelligence-Dr. Zoran Duric
CS 652 Computer Graphics-Dr. Jim Chen
CS 658 Networked Virtual Environments-Dr. Mark Pullen
CS 756 Performance Analysis of Computer Networks-Dr. Mark Pullen
SWE 619 Object Oriented Software Specification and Construction-Dr. James Baldo
SWE 620 Software Requirements Analysis and Specification-Dr. Frank Armour
SWE 621 Software Modeling and Architectural Design-Dr. Hassan Gomaa

CS Students Receive Honorable Mention

Two students from the CS Dept received an Honorable Mention in the highly competitive 2010 IBM Master the Mainframe Contest. Swapnil Shinde (MS CS) and Jonathan Medefind (MS ISA) both ranked in the top 30 out of a field of over 3,500 competitors.

Open Tenure-Track Faculty Position in Security

The Department of Computer Science in the Volgenau School of Engineering at George Mason University invites applications for a faculty position at the rank of Full, Associate, or Assistant Professor beginning in Fall 2011 or until the position is filled.

The faculty position is in information security and assurance. Minimum qualifications for the position include a Ph.D. in Computer Science or a related field, demonstrated potential for excellence and productivity in research, and a commitment to high quality teaching. Applicants for a senior position need a well-established track record of substantial research contributions to their field, externally funded research, and leadership.

For full consideration please submit application and application materials on-line at http://jobs.gmu.edu (position number F9349Z). To apply, you will need a statement of professional goals including your perspective on teaching and research, a complete C.V. with publications, and the names of three references. The review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until the positions are filled. For more information on the department, visit our Web site: http://cs.gmu.edu/.

GMU is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. Women and minorities strongly encouraged.

Open Instructor Position in Computer Science

The George Mason University, Department of Computer Science within the Volgenau School of Engineering invites applications for a one-year, renewable, nontenure-track Assistant Professor position in computer science beginning fall 2011.

Responsibilities include teaching undergraduate computer science courses as well as service duties associated with the department's undergraduate degree programs. For information on the department, visit our Web site: http://cs.gmu.edu/.

Minimum qualifications include a graduate degree, preferably a Ph.D., in computer science, software engineering or related field; and a strong commitment and demonstrated excellence in teaching.

For full consideration please submit a faculty application and application materials online at http://jobs.gmu.edu for position number F7564z. To apply, you will need a statement of professional goals including your perspective on teaching, a complete C.V. with publications, and the names of three references.

The review of applications will begin on February 15, 2011, and will continue until the position is filled.
GMU is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. Women and minorities strongly encouraged.

Professor Alexander Brodsky and PhD student Nathan Egge receive best paper award

Professor Alex Brodsky, of our Computer Science Department, and his PhD in CS student Nathan Egge received a Best Paper Award "to recognize superior research performance" at the HICSS 2011 conference, Decision Technology, Mobile Technologies and Service Science track, held in Hawaii, January 4-7, 2011. The paper was selected as the best out of 65 research papers accepted.

The paper title is "Reusing Relational Queries for Intuitive Decision Optimization" and the authors are Alexander Brodsky, Nathan Egge, and X. Sean Wang.

Professor Angelos Stavrou and student Zhaohui Wang in the press

Professor Angelos Stavrou, of our Computer Science Department, and his student Zhaohui Wang were featured on CNET News for discovering a way to turn a USB cable into an attack tool.

Full Article here.

University Article here.

Open Faculty Position in Security

The Department of Computer Science invites applications for a faculty position at the rank of Full, Associate, or Assistant Professor beginning in Fall 2011 or until the position is filled. The faculty position is in information security and assurance.

Students Honored with Best Student Paper Award at the BIONETICS Conference this December in Boston.

Brian Olson, PhD CS and Kevin Molloy, MS CS, first and second authors in this order, will receive the Best Student Paper Award for their paper "Enhancing Sampling of the Conformational Space Near the Protein Native State" at the BIONETICS (www.bionetics.org) conference in Boston this December. The authors of this paper are Brian Olson, Kevin Molloy, and Amarda Shehu.

Scientific American Article on GMU's RoboPatriots Team

Article here.

Latest GMU RoboPatriots Scores

1:0 win against the BogoBots of Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico.
0:0 tie against SHRC, Peking University.
0:4 loss to the CIT Brains of Chiba Institute of Technology, Japan (one of the very strongest teams).
0:2 loss to HUROEvolution of the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology
0:0 tie with TeamJEAP (Osaka University and University of Tokyo)

Overall a very significant improvement from last year, against strong, established teams. RoboCup is an autonomous robot soccer competition intended to push the bounds of multirobotics research. GMU is fielding a three-robot autonomous humanoid soccer team, the RoboPatriots. This is our second year at the competition.

Daniel Veltri, MS Bioinformatics and Computational Biology student awarded SUNRISE FELLOWSHIP from NSF GK-12 Fellows Program

Mr. Veltri is a graduate student in CS Prof. Amarda Shehu's Computational Biology lab. He was awarded the SUNRISE Fellowship from the NSF GK-12 Fellows Program at GMU. Starting this fall, he will go to local elementary schools to motivate students in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics)-related subjects. He will work alongside teachers to enhance science classes and strive to make the curriculum as fun and cutting edge as possible. The program will also put on a science camp later this summer at the GMU Fairfax Campus.

Non-tenure track Instructor Position

The Department of Computer Science in the Volgenau School of Information Technology & Engineering at George Mason University invites applications for a non-tenure track Instructor faculty position in computer science beginning the fall of 2010.

Minimum qualifications include a graduate degree in computer science, software engineering or related field, and a strong commitment and demonstrated excellence in teaching. Responsibilities include teaching undergraduate computer science courses as well as service duties associated with the department's undergraduate degree programs.

Applicants should send a letter of application, curriculum vitae, and the names of three references who can provide recommendations for the candidate. Applications should be sent to the CS Instructor Search Committee, Department of ComputerScience, George Mason University, Fairfax VA 22030 or by email to mpieper@gmu.edu.

The department's search committee will begin reviewing applications on June 28, and will continue until the position is filled.

Prof. Dana Richards interviewed by NPR on the legacy of math writer Martin Gardner

Prof. Dana Richards was interviewed by Michele Norris, host of NPR's All Things Considered, about the legacy of Martin Gardner. Gardner, who died over the weekend at the age of 95, wrote the column "Mathematical Games" for Scientific American, and introduced the public to a lot of new mathematical ideas.

CS Junior Beenish Jamil Wins Honorable Mention in CRA 2010 Undergraduate Researcher's Award Competition

Congrats to CS junior Beenish Jamil, whose research with Prof. Amarda Shehu won an honorable mention Computing Research Association’s 2010 Undergraduate Researchers Awards competition. Beenish's research was recently highlighted in GMU's University News publication.

CS Student Sheri Williamson Wins Google Anita Borg Scholarship

Congratulations to Sheri Williamson, who is one of the winners of the Google Anita Borg scholarships for this year. The Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship was founded in honor of Dr. Anita Borg to encourage women in technology fields. The scholarship is annually awarded to 20 women in graduate or undergraduate Computer Science or Computer Engineering programs.

The selection process is based on academics, leadership, essay responses, and a phone interview. Google Anita Borg Scholars receive a $10,000 scholarship, attend the Annual Google Scholars' Retreat in Mountain View, California, and attend the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference.

Tenure Track Faculty Positions in Information Security and Assurance

The Department of Computer Science in the Volgenau School of IT&E at George Mason University invites applications for faculty positions at the rank of Full, Associate, or Assistant Professor beginning Fall 2010 or Spring 2011.

The faculty positions are in information security and assurance. Minimum qualifications for the positions include a Ph.D. in Computer Science or a related field, demonstrated potential for excellence and productivity in research, and a commitment to high quality teaching. Applicants for a senior position need a well-established track record of substantial research contributions to their field, externally funded research, and leadership.

The department has over 40 faculty members with wide-ranging research interests. Security research at George Mason is conducted in access control methods and models, authentication, network security, intrusion detection and prevention, database security, operating systems security, vulnerability analysis, malware analysis and defense, anonymity and privacy, security theory, and security policy. Other research areas include artificial intelligence, algorithms, bioengineering, computer graphics, computer vision, databases, data mining, human computer interaction, parallel and distributed systems, real-time systems, robotics, software engineering, and wireless and mobile computing. For more information on the department, visit our Web site: http://cs.gmu.edu/.

George Mason University is located in Fairfax in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC. Northern Virginia is home to one of the largest concentrations of high-tech firms in the nation. There are excellent opportunities for interaction with government agencies and industry.

For full consideration please submit application and application materials on-line at http://jobs.gmu.edu (position number F9349Z). To apply, you will need a statement of professional goals including your perspective on teaching and research, a complete C.V. with publications, and the names of three references. The review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until the positions are filled.

GMU is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. Women and minorities strongly encouraged.

Faculty Position in Information Security and Assurance

The Department of Computer Science in the Volgenau School of Information Technology & Engineering at George Mason University invites applications for a non-tenure track instructional faculty position at the rank of Assistant Professor beginning Fall 2010.

See http://cs.gmu.edu/recruitment/2010/ for more details.