Please view the schedule of presentations and list of student evaluators for the Celebration of Computing (coinciding with TCNJ’s Celebration of Student Achievement). All presentations will take place on Wednesday, May 5 from 1:00 – 2:30 PM on Forcina’s 4th floor.
Please contact cs@tcnj.edu if you have any additional questions.
Article written by Dr. Deborah Knox
Christopher Hranj, Class of 2016, has been selected to participate in a 10-week summer fellowship program sponsored by hackNY. This competitive program was founded in 2010 to “create and empower a community of student-technologists” and is supporting 27 students this summer.
This is an opportunity for participants from around the world to advance their quantitative and computational skills in a hacking community. Each Fellow contributes as an employee of a vetted New York City startup company that demonstrates innovative technology application and provides a strong mentoring environment for the student. Projects draw upon students’ skills in software engineering, front-end and back-end support, design, and data science. The intensive program pairs up “the best technical minds with great NY startups.” In addition to receiving technical and career advice from their mentors, twice a week the students engage in a curated speaker series with leaders from the NYC startup community.
Chris is looking forward to all the Fellowship offers and to working at BuzzFeed this summer where he anticipates supporting back-end services in a Python environment. He knows that this experience will help him plan for his next steps in his post-graduate job search. This is not Chris’ first experience in a startup environment; last summer he landed an internship with Twilio, located in San Francisco.
“BuzzFeed is a cross-platform, global network for news and entertainment that generates six billion views each month. BuzzFeed creates and distributes content for a global audience and utilizes proprietary technology to continuously test, learn and optimize.” BuzzFeed.com
Chris spoke about his motivation to participate in the hackNY program and his expectations:
“I’ve had a number of like-minded friends from various years go through the program and heard nothing but incredible things from them about their experiences. I was encouraged to apply by many of them and actually applied last year but was not accepted. After attending hackNY’s hackathon in 2015 I became even more interested in the program because of how well it seemed to cater to students with a “hacker” mentality similar to my own.
I hope to get a sense of what it’s like working in a fast-paced startup environment. Working with a company that drives so much traffic to their site is going to be a truly enlightening experience. I also hope to build an awesome network of friends/coworkers amongst this year’s and the previous year’s fellows. Lastly, I hope to learn about what it takes to found and build a successful startup.”
Congratulations to Chris for being selected for this competitive hackNY Fellows program! We wish him great success in the vibrant environment at BuzzFeed and look forward to hearing more about his projects and experiences living and working in NYC.
The registration period for Fall 2016 courses is April 5 – 15, 2016. Some seats have been reserved for CS majors in all CSC courses. Please check the registration newsletter for additional information on options courses offered in Fall 2016. After your registration window opens, if the class you need is closed, put yourself on the waiting list using the form here:
Registration Wait List: https://tcnj.qualtrics.com//SE/?SID=SV_d3ZFDTYlNlIT3lr
Be sure read all directions and to enter all the information requested.
We will not be signing students into courses until Monday, April 18, after the registration window closes. Please do not email the department for updates before this time. We will enroll students into any unfilled seats in order, based on their registration times and time they registered on the wait list.
Please be sure that your intended course does not conflict with a course in your current schedule, and that you are willing to drop conflicting courses to make the change. If you have a full course load or time conflict and do not indicate courses to drop on your wait-list submission, your submission will be disregarded.
Prepared by Dr. Deborah Knox, March 31, 2016
Two Computer Science students have been selected for participation in undergraduate research programs this summer. Angela Huang (Class of 2017) will be in St. Louis, Missouri and Elisa Idrobo (Class of 2018) will head to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a Research Experiences for Undergraduate (REU) program. Both programs will provide mentorship as the students conduct independent research guided by university faculty, graduate students, and post-doctoral students. Each student will also participate in career development workshops, and will engage in social, intellectual, and cultural experiences while exploring her host city.
Angela Huang has been selected as an Amgen Scholar at Washington University in St. Louis, where she plans to participate in research supporting algorithm development in computational biology. This is not the first REU experience for Angela, who is currently a junior. During Summer 2015, she participated in an REU at Louisiana State University, focusing her research on “Computational Forensics: Creating a Digital Environment for Facial Synthesis and Reconstruction” during Summer 2015.
Angela shares, “I applied to this Amgen program because of its focus on biomedical research. As a computer science major, I have come to appreciate how interdisciplinary this field can be. It’s exciting to be able to apply what I have learned in my courses to open problems in domains that can benefit from improved computational techniques. Biology is an excellent example of such a domain. I plan to apply to graduate school for computer science, with a focus in the area of computational biology. I am positive that this summer experience will be a wonderful learning opportunity that will help prepare me for my future goals.”
Elisa Idrobo is looking forward to TECBio REU at the University of Pittsburgh this summer. The TECBio program focuses on the “simulation and visualization of biological systems at multiple scales.” Elisa will be mentored by Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University professors, and anticipates working on an interdisciplinary project such as exploring algorithms for drug discovery, the use of machine learning to predict protein-protein interaction, or computer simulations of biological systems. There will be weekly seminars and a journal club for REU students to analyze and present current research articles. Last summer, Elisa participated in an interdisciplinary research project, “Detecting Calling Male Frogs Above the Background Chorus Noise”, where she created a Java based simulation of a model in the TCNJ Mentored Undergraduate Summer Experience (MUSE) research program in 2015.
Elisa is seeking connections between fields: “I’m interested in biology and want to explore how it can be related to computer science. This summer I hope to gain more experience in doing research and have a better idea of whether I want to continue on to grad school after graduation.”
Please see the department’s Fall 2016 registration newsletter for information on courses offered, CS options, and the course schedule. You can also find links to the department’s advising webpage, registration wait-list, and the four-year planner.
Newsletters are additionally posted in all computer labs and classrooms on Forcina’s 4th floor.
Article written by Dr. Deborah Knox
Computer Science junior Joie Murphy (Class of 2017) has been awarded a prestigious research fellowship for an 11-week summer program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Through a national and highly competitive application process, Joie was selected to participate in the NIST Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program. The SURF program is sponsored by NIST and the National Science Foundation (NSF).
During her fellowship during Summer 2016, Joie will be working in the area of user interface design under the guidance of Dr. Spencer Breiner and Dr. Eswaran Subrahmanian. Joie’s project, User Interface Design for Terminology Generation, will focus on the design and implementation of both curator and end-user interfaces for a domain specific system that employs rule- and root-based generation of terminology. Dr. Breiner is a member of the Software and Systems Division, Cyber-infrastructure research group, serving in a post-doctoral position. Dr. Subrahmanian is a Fellow of the American Association of Advancement of Science (AAAS) and is also a member of the Cyber-infrastructure research group.
Joie shares her thoughts about the SURF opportunity: “I am really looking forward to being a part of the NIST SURF Program for this upcoming summer. I was interested in applying to NIST because of the hands on nature of the work and the great number of applications of computer science to topics that they offer projects in. I believe that this program will allow me to improve my abilities as a computer science student and as a researcher by allowing me to be amongst likeminded peers. I plan to continue on to graduate school so I am hopeful that this will be a rewarding experience with the potential to shape my future research interests.”
Joie will be working in the Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) at NIST. The fellowship program is designed to provide hands-on research experiences in a number of areas, including computer security, information access, software testing, networking, and communications technologies. ITL has the broad mission to promote U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology through research and development in information technology, mathematics, and statistics.
Congratulations to Joie for being awarded a NIST SURF fellowship! We look forward to hearing more about her summer experiences and her first-hand knowledge after working in a government lab.
The TCNJ Rideshare app, developed by mentored research students Ben Meyer (senior CS and IMM double major) and Michael McNally (CS class of 2015) under the direction of Dr. Deborah Knox – is now live. Members of the campus community can use the free app to find people with whom to share rides, thus reducing the carbon footprint of campus.
Dr. Knox was contacted by Dr. Brian Potter, Associate Professor Department Chair of Political Science, in January 2015 as part of the President’s Climate Commitment Committee (PC3) initiative for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions from TCNJ’s campus. Dr. Knox’s research lab has previously developed and produced a number of TCNJ mobile applications, including the TCNJ Campus Tour (iOS version released in 2012, now decommissioned and currently undergoing revision), TCNJ Library (iOS version released in 2012 and revised in 2013), and TCNJ Connect (both iOS 2014 and Android 2015).
The team reviewed existing carpooling software during the spring semester and, through meetings with Dr. Potter and the PC3 members, the group identified the program requirements for the new Rideshare app. Making an easy to use, mobile app was key, according to the PC3 members. Meyer and McNally were each heavily involved in developing storyboards and contributing to code development, and the team reviewed the modules on a weekly basis, with Dr. Knox serving as their campus liaison for privacy and legal logistics, as well as IT needs. The Rideshare app was developed using the Ionic framework and integrated the Google Maps API and an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standard in order to calculate the CO2 emissions saved. McNally developed an extensive vehicle efficiency database with a custom API to support back-end needs. Meyer made additional contributions through the development of an administrator’s portal, which serves the PC3 members, allowing them to recognize overall reduction in greenhouse gases and to report the number of completed shared rides.
After stakeholder testing was conducted with students, faculty, and staff during the fall semester, the app was submitted and published on the Apple Store (iOS) and the Google Play Store (Android) in Fall 2015. The President’s Climate Commitment Committee announced and encouraged use of the TCNJ Rideshare mobile app in February 2016. For more information on how to download and use the app, please see the Rideshare webpage: www.tcnj.edu/rideshare
You can find the Signal’s article on TCNJ Rideshare app’s release online at:
http://www.tcnjsignal.net/2016/02/23/rideshare-app-aims-to-create-greener-campus/
Article written by Kyle Davis (Class of 2016)
Five CS Department faculty members and three CS majors – Matthew Steuerer, Andrew Miller, and Nathan Gould – will be attending this year’s SIGCSE conference in Memphis, Tennessee from Tuesday, March 2 through Saturday, March 5.
Each of the attending students will present research papers alongside students from all over the country, some for the first time. Andrew Miller and Nathan Gould will present their poster “Advances in Phylogenetic-based Stemma Construction”, completed under the supervision of Dr. Dimitris Papamichail. Matthew Steuerer will present his poster “Implementing K-Means Clustering and Collaborative Filtering to Enhance Sustainability of Project Repositories”, done in collaboration with Dr. Monisha Pulimood.
Not only CS students will be discussing their research, however. Both Dr. Deborah Knox and Dr. Pulimood will each present research related to their respective courses. Dr. Knox will present a poster on how students can develop career skills prior to their capstone experiences; her presentation is based on her experience in teaching CSC 199, the department’s sophomore professional development seminar, for three years. Dr. Pulimood will present her paper on the multi-disciplinary collaboration of CS and Journalism students in CSC 415 and CSC 315.
In addition being a conference where attendees from around the world can share perspectives on the field of computer and present individual research, SIGCSE also provides attendees with many opportunities to learn new concepts in computer science. Many of the department’s professors are excited to find new teaching techniques to incorporate into their own courses. Dr. Papamichail is especially excited to learn effective and proven methods for teaching algorithms and other theoretical CS concepts which can often be difficulty for students to grasp.
“Computer science advances rapidly,” Papamichail stated, “and conferences of the magnitude and diversity of SIGCSE are contributing vastly in moving the CS education field forward.”
SIGCSE also provides an effective way of making connection in the CS world. Dr. Pulimood believes the conference to be “very energizing” and feels that SIGCSE is “a wonderful venue to meet new colleagues and connect with people [she] know[s]”.
The department would like to thank Dr. Jeffrey Osborn, Dean of the School of Science, for supporting faculty and student travel, and for making it possible for nearly all of the CS faculty to attend SIGCSE this year.
The Computer Science Department will be holding two informational sessions about internships in Spring 2016.
Dates and times for the Spring 2016 sessions are as follows:
Thursday, 2/25: 5:00 – 6:00 PM
Tuesday, 3/22: 5:00 – 6:00 PM
Both sessions will be held in Forcina 407.
If you plan on applying for an internship at some point in your curriculum, you must attend one informational session prior to submitting your application. Additional info sessions will be planned in future semesters. (If you don’t plan to do an internship as a capstone experience, you do not need to attend a session.)
Article written by Kylie Gorman (Class of 2016)
On Wednesday January 27th, the Computer Science Department was proud to host Front Rush, a local startup dedicated to creating user friendly Recruiter software and staunch supporter of HackTCNJ. Paul Nathan (TCNJ ’15) and Mike Walters (TCNJ ’14), two Front Rush employees and TCNJ alumni, led a presentation that incorporated a quick tutorial of Ruby on Rails through the exploration of a simple website. The presenters continued with an introduction to the model-view-controller paradigm as well as advice on further investigation into the language/framework.
The talk was followed by a Q and A for the TCNJ students regarding any questions about the presentation or any items related to post-graduation. Front Rush then continued with a two-day internal hackathon on January 27th and 28th. The hackathon was an excellent networking opportunity for TCNJ students to meet with the local company and to ask several alumni about their post-graduation experience.