Human-Centred Computing News

The Department will be welcoming Dr Laurent Doyen of CNRS and ENS Paris-Saclay as a Rutherford Visiting Fellow in 2018/19. This prestigious funding, whose aim is to attract top global talent into the UK, will allow Dr Doyen to collaborate closely with Dr Laure Daviaud, Dr Marcin Jurdzinski and Dr Ranko Lazic of DIMAP, as well as Dr Nathanael Fijalkow of the Alan Turing Institute, on cutting-edge research on fast algorithms for synthesis of safe, smart and adaptive controllers.

Professor Graham Cormode, the University of Warwick and Alan Turing Institute Liaison Director, commented:

Dr Doyen's Rutherford Visiting Fellowship will provide a major boost to building world-leading and long-lasting collaborative links among the Alan Turing Institute, the DIMAP multi-disciplinary research centre at Warwick, and LSV at ENS Paris-Saclay. The latter is an established European centre of excellence in logical aspects of computer and data sciences.

Professor Nasir Rajpoot has been recognised by the Royal Society’s Wolfson Merit Award scheme, awarded to outstanding scientists to support their research careers at UK universities.

Rajpoot is the founding head of Tissue Image Analytics (TIA) Lab in the Computer Science department at Warwick, where a major focus of research is on developing novel machine learning based algorithms for analysis of digitised microscopic images of cancerous tissue slides with applications to computer-assisted diagnosis, prognosis and stratification of cancer. The award will support his work on digital profiling of tumour microenvironment.

He said: “I am delighted to accept this prestigious award. My research focus is on studying cellular patterns in the tumour microenvironment in order to help us better understand tumour-immune interactions and predict cancer progression, response to therapy, and survival. This award will provide significant prestige in helping us achieve our research objectives.”

In the recently released 2017 National Student Survey results, Warwick Computer Science ranked 2^nd of the 104 computing departments in the UK, with an overall student satisfaction rate of 96%. Among Russell Group competitor institutions (an elite group of teaching and research universities in the UK), Computer Science at Warwick is ranked 1^st for overall student satisfaction.

The National Student Survey (NSS) canvasses student satisfaction across all departments at all UK universities and remains the biggest survey of student satisfaction in the UK. Students are asked to respond on topics including teaching quality, learning opportunities, academic support, and organisation and management.

Among Russell Group institutions, Computer Science at Warwick ranked top in almost all major categories*:

• 1^st for overall student satisfaction
• 1^st for teaching quality
• 1^st for learning opportunities
• 1^st for assessment and feedback
• 1^st for academic support
• 1^st for learning resources
• 1^st for learning community
• 1^st for organisation and management

Throughout this summer investment continues in new teaching and laboratory facilities, with Warwick’s new interdisciplinary Mathematical Sciences building (for the Departments of Computer Science, Mathematics and Statistics) opening in 2018.

*These figures are based on the Russell Group institutions for which there is publishable data for the subject of Computer Science in 2017.