Computer Science News

SIBE is a student-run activist organization, and is seeking to develop a comprehensive collective action web-platform for constructive action. They have been liaising with the University of Warwick's Computing Society, and the result has been the organization of a Hackathon to develop ideas and prototypes for a platform for collective action based on consensus.

The Hackathon provided an opportunity for computing students and others, affiliated or not with the University of Warwick, to come together and both learn about web technologies and put their enthusiasm about collective, positive action in practice.

Our new 3-year Data Science degree is launched this week at the Warwick undergraduate open days. This unique course aims to meet the rapidly growing demand, from students and employers alike, for a systematic, flexible combination of high-level learning and experience in both Computer Science and Statistics.

The first cohort of students will start in 2014. The course structure includes the option of an intercalated year, a year spent away from Warwick (either in industry or at an overseas partner university) to gain valuable experience before the final year of the degree.

The Head of Statistics, Professor David Firth, says: "We, together with the Department of Computer Science, are pleased to be leading the way with this new initiative at the undergraduate level. But really this is overdue: the demand from employers for well-qualified data scientists is insatiable already, and looks set to be huge for years to come. Our aim is to provide the very best course of its kind anywhere in the world".

This exciting new course will appear on the UCAS system shortly, in good time for the 2013-14 admissions season.

Graham Cormode has just joined the Department as a Professor associated with the Centre for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP).

Graham completed his PhD at the University of Warwick in 2002. His postdoctoral work was at the DIMACS center in Rutgers University. Subsequently, he has worked as a researcher at Bell Labs, and AT&T Shannon Laboratories in New Jersey. His work considers aspects of managing and working with large amounts of data, with particular emphasis on privacy and anonymization, and large scale analytics. Dr. Cormode has published over 100 papers in international journals and refereed conferences. He is the recipient of two best paper awards. He has served on the program committees of numerous conferences, and is an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, and for ACM Transactions on Database Systems.

For more information about Graham’s research please see his web page at http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/dcs/people/Graham_Cormode.

Computer Science student Kevin Street has been awarded a place on the prestigious Asidua Scholarship Programme. Launched in 2008, the programme - run by leading IT software services provider Asidua - aims to nurture fresh IT talent in the UK by supporting successful scholars with a package worth up to £25,000.

In addition to a paid bursary, the scholarship supplements the academic learning from university with real-life business experience through paid summer and year out placements, working with ICT professionals who are more than happy to share their knowledge and understanding.

Full story on insite

Congratulations to our staff member Dr Marcin Jurdziński, for winning the best paper award at the main European conference in Theoretical Computer Science ICALP 2013 (Track B), for the paper Reachability in Two-Clock Timed Automata is PSPACE-complete he co-authored with Dr John Fearnley (a Warwick PhD, currently at the University of Liverpool).

John and Marcin's paper is one of six Warwick papers accepted for presentation at ICALP. Moreover, two of the 2007 Warwick BSc Computer Science graduates have papers at ICALP 2013 (John Fearnley and Dominic Orchard). Congratulations are in place for all Warwick authors at ICALP!

An interdisciplinary team of researchers from Warwick's School of Life Sciences, Centre for Systems Biology and the Department of Computer Science have discovered hundreds of regions in plant DNA that have been preserved across different species through 100 million years of evolution. These regions are not part of any genes, but may be responsible for turning individual genes "on" and "off". The discovery will help biologists to understand better the genetics of plants, leading to potential applications in agriculture and food security. This research has been made possible by a computational analysis of the DNA in several plant species, based on algorithms developed by a DCS academic Dr Alexander Tiskin and his former PhD student Dr Peter Krusche (now working at Warwick's Centre for Systems Biology). The research was published in the journal Plant Cell.

Warwick University's press release

Interview with the team's leader Dr Sascha Ott

Dr Mike Joy has been awarded 'Best Personal Tutor' in the STARS of Warwick awards. The student-led teaching awards recognise and celebrate staff members who have gone the extra mile for the benefit of students.

The Awards were launched in 2012 and are run by students, nominated by students and judged by students. From choosing categories to nominating and presenting awards, STARS is a completely student-led scheme giving students the chance to reward staff they feel have gone above and beyond for the sake of their students.

Full list of winners.