2023 News



Masum Hasan HCI Research Featured on WXXI

December 11, 2023

Masum Hasan in radio booth

Masum Hasan was invited to give a talk at the Flower City AI, a local conference on artificial intelligence innovation, education, healthcare, art, business, and research. He spoke about his work developing the SAPIEN Coach, an interactive, multilingual, emotionally-responsive, virtual-human-based coaching platform for learning academic or soft skills.

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CS Student is a 2023 Recipient of Suzanne J. O'Brien Book Award

November 14, 2023

Computer science sophomore Aryan Dhawan is amongst the 2023 Suzanne J. O’Brien Book Award recipients. This award is given annually to a select group from the previous year’s first-year class as a way to recognize excellence at the beginning of a student’s college experience. Students are selected based on their academic achievements, their leadership, and their contributions to the community. Congratulations Aryan!

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Human brain’s ‘temporal scaffolding’ inspires new AI approaches

October 24, 2023

Illustration of scaffolding around a brain

Associate Professor Christopher Kanan is part of a transdisciplinary team using a recent hypothesis about how the human brain uses sleep and awake periods to learn over time to try to overcome artificial intelligence’s limitations with lifelong learning. Christopher and his collaborators received $2 million in funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to use the “temporal scaffolding” hypothesis to produce AI that rapidly learns, adapts, and operates in uncertain conditions.

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Md. Saiful Earns Google PhD Fellowship

October 23, 2023

Md. Saiful

Congratulations to Md. Saiful Islam, a computer science PhD student who received a prestigious Google PhD Fellowship in health. The fellowship was created to recognize outstanding graduate students doing exceptional and innovative research in areas relevant to computer science and related fields. Fellowships support promising PhD candidates of all backgrounds who seek to influence the future of technology.

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US Department of Energy Provides Almost $3M to use AI to Improve Inertial Fusion Energy Generation

September 13, 2023

Nuclear fusion has the potential to revolutionize power generation throughout the world as a source of Green energy. In inertial confinement fusion, a target filled with fuel (hydrogen isotopes) is compressed and heated to initiate nuclear fusion reactions. However, experiments at laser facilities such as OMEGA at Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) generate less energy than simulations predict. Moreover, existing simulators are limited to predicting the outcome of the experiment, but do not have a way to generate a laser or target configuration that leads to the optimal amount of energy produced.

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2023 Susan B. Anthony Legacy Awards

February 28, 2023

headshots of 2 students

The Susan B. Anthony Legacy Awards are a 75 year plus tradition honoring exceptional women from the University of Rochester community and their achievements. The Susan B. Anthony Center presents the awards annually to professional women leaders and University of Rochester undergraduate women. This year, two computer science students were amongst the recipients.

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Leadership Appreciation

February 9, 2023

2 students posing holding certificates

Leadership Appreciation is a time to honor and recognize student leaders and student organizations that have enriched the University of Rochester's community through their self-development, programs, publications, activities, and community service.

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Gift Supports NSBE

February 6, 2023

headshot on left. students posed for picture on right

A special thanks to chemical engineering alumnus Shawn D. Rochester ’97 for a generous gift to establish the Shawn D. Rochester Endowment Fund to support our National Society of Black Engineers (UR NSBE) student chapter. UR NSBE is an invaluable partner in helping us attract and retain black students in engineering and computer science. For example, each year, it sends members to the national NSBE conference to learn networking skills and connect with companies for internships and job interviews for fulltime positions. Additionally, it allows our students to meet and network with other NSBE members from across the country and be inspired by black professional engineers in leadership positions in various industries and disciplines.

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