From 1 September 2021, the Department will be lead by our new Head, Professor Yulia Timofeeva. On this occasion, Professor Lorenzo Frigerio, Vice Provost and Chair of the Faculty, said:

On behalf of the Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine, I would like to express my thanks to Ranko for his outstanding service as HoD. I am delighted to welcome Yulia as new head of Computer Science, and wish her all the best with supporting the continued success of this department!

We are delighted to report that Dr Ramanujan Sridharan (PI) from the Theory and Foundations (FoCS) research theme at the Department of Computer Science and Professor Graham Cormode (Co-I, affiliated with FoCS) have been awarded an EPSRC Standard Research Grant, "New Horizons in Multivariate Preprocessing (MULTIPROCESS)".

This 4-year £540K project aims to advance the theory of preprocessing by designing novel multivariate preprocessing algorithms and extending their scope to high-impact big data paradigms such as streaming algorithms.

We are delighted to report that Dr Long Tran-Thanh has received a AIJ Prominent Paper Award for his first-authored paper, Efficient crowdsourcing of unknown experts using bounded multi-armed bandits, published in 2014 at Artificial Intelligence (AIJ), a premier journal in the field of artificial intelligence. The AIJ Prominent Paper Award recognises outstanding papers published in the journal in the last seven years that are exceptional in their significance and impact.

The paper developed the first comprehensive framework for the rigorous and principled mathematical analysis of task allocation algorithms in crowdsourcing systems. In addition, the paper proposed bounded bandits, a new sequential decision making model to solve task allocation problems with resource constraints. The work has had a significant impact on subsequent work carried out in both industry and academia. The award will be presented at IJCAI 2021, a top tier international conference in artificial intelligence.

We are pleased to report that Dr Simon Graham, Senior Research Fellow from the Department of Computer Science, has received a SEM Faculty Thesis Prize.

Each year, the Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine (SEM) funds a prize for the best PhD/EngD thesis in each of its ten departments. Each department nominates a winner out of the applications received after a judging process as determined by the Faculty.

Dr Simon Graham commented regarding his award:

My research focussed on the development of computational tools for the automatic analysis of digitised cancerous tissue samples. Now, I am continuing my research in the area of computational pathology and soon hope to see it utilised in a clinical setting, where it may help improve cancer recognition and treatment planning. I would like to thank my supervisor Professor Nasir Rajpoot and all my collaborators within the Tissue Image Analytics Centre and at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire for their support during my PhD.

The Mathematical Association of America has presented Mike Paterson with a 2021 Paul Halmos - Lester Ford Award for an article of "expository excellence published in The American Mathematical Monthly". There were several unusual aspects to this paper: the title, "A head-ache causing problem"; the authors, "Conway, J.H., Paterson, M.S., and Moscow, U.S.S.R"; the sole reference in the paper is to itself; the main result is first disproved and then proved; and the acknowledgments make clear that Conway wrote the paper. Paterson previously received this award in 2010 (then the Lester Ford Award) for his "Overhang" article. More information can be found here.

We are delighted to announce that Dr Long Tran-Thanh has been awarded funding and support from Google’s AI for Social Good program.

The program focusses on using AI to address some of the world’s biggest societal challenges. Dr. Tran-Thanh’s project, titled Incentive Engineering and Truthful Mechanisms for Grassland Quality and Local Market Price Estimation in Africa, will address the problem of holistic grazing and pasture management in East Africa. The main objectives of the project are: (i) to identify the most efficient ways to evaluate the overall quality of different grazing areas; (ii) to develop a user friendly recommendation system that chooses the next best grazing areas for pastoralists, that takes into account the holistic aspect of pasture management; and (iii) to incentivise pastoralists to truthfully report their activities in order to further improve the system’s predictive ability. The project is a collaboration between the University of Warwick and AfriScout.

In further good news, Dr Tanaya Guha and Dr Ramanujan Sridharan have been promoted to Associate Professor, effective from 1 July 2021 and 2 October 2021 (respectively). Many congratulations to them, whose recommendations in particular state:

[Dr Guha has] grown her research group to five PhD students currently, and attracted a portfolio of research grants in her career, including recently a substantial award from Ford. ... In engagement, Dr Guha has been raising the visibility of Warwick in her national and international research communities through her invited talks, leadership in the Association for the Advancement of Affective Computing, programme committee memberships, and conference organisation activities. She has also contributed substantially to the Sutton Trust summer school, a key outreach programme.

and

Dr Sridharan’s high standing in the research community is confirmed by his invited talks at international meetings and leading universities, memberships of the programme committees of prestigious conferences, and his organisation of international research events. ... In teaching, Dr Sridharan has successfully led (jointly and individually) two undergraduate modules. The feedback from students has been generally positive, with many appreciative of Dr Sridharan’s innovative and energetic delivery.