News – Page 7 – Sanghani Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics

News Archives:

Search News:

Discovery Analytics Center welcomes new faculty member Lifu Huang

Posted on August 28, 2020 at 5:05 pm.

The Discovery Analytics Center continually brings together computer scientists, engineers, and statisticians to meet the research and workforce needs of today’s data-driven society. This Fall, DAC welcomes new faculty member Lifu Huang. He has joined the Virginia Tech Department of Computer Science as an assistant professor, having earned his Ph.D. in computer science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Huang’s primary research interests are in the fields of natural language processing, machine learning and artificial intelligence. He is specifically interested in building efficient models and benchmarks that can encourage machines to perform human-level intelligence.

Chang-Tien Lu conducts research for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to help detect insider threats

Posted on August 7, 2020 at 11:00 am.

Chang-Tien Lu, professor in the Department of Computer Science and associate director of DAC

The challenge of detecting threats in war zones is even greater when assessing the possibility of an insider attack.

“Seemingly innocent insiders can become dangerous due to a number of circumstances including personal relationships and geospatial environments,” said Chang-Tien Lu, a professor in the Department of Computer Science, associate director of the Discovery Analytics Center, and a faculty member in the National Science Foundation- sponsored UrbComp program

Chang-Tien Lu working with Maryland firm on advanced event prediction system to improve metro security

Posted on July 13, 2020 at 12:37 pm.

Chang-Tien Lu, a professor in the Department of Computer Science and associate director of DAC

Chang-Tien Lu, a professor in the Department of Computer Science, associate director of the Discovery Analytics Center, and a faculty member in the National Science Foundation- sponsored UrbComp program has teamed up with Schneider Electric Buildings Critical Systems, Inc. (SEBCSI) on a project entitled “Advanced Analytics for High-Performance Metro Security Monitoring,” funded by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA)

SEBCSI, located in Columbia, Maryland, provides electronic security solutions, including security access control and closed circuit television (CCTV) for commercial and government applications.

DAC students working virtually at summer internships across the country

Posted on June 29, 2020 at 12:11 pm.

DAC Ph.D. student Chidubem Arachie is working remotely as an intern at Google Research.

A national pandemic that forced the closing of physical offices has not stopped graduate students at the Discovery Analytics Center from working remote internships at companies, research laboratories, and other institutions across the country. For many students, summer internships help further their own research as they gain real world experience.

Following is a list of DAC students and the work they are doing for the next few months:

Chidubem Arachie, a Ph.D. student in computer science, is a research intern at Google Research in Mountain View California. He is working on generative modeling for 3D shapes. His advisor is Bert Huang.

John Aromando, a Ph.D. student in computer science, is an intern at Graf Research in Blacksburg, working on utilizing natural language processing to support the software verification process. His advisor is Edward Fox.

Hongjie Chen, a Ph.D. student in computer science, is a data science research intern at Adobe in San Jose, California. He is on the Cloud Technology Team, researching cloud resource allocation strategy. His advisor is Hoda Eldardiry.

Students focus on COVID-19 impacts on sustainability, education, and society

Posted on June 17, 2020 at 4:12 pm.

Clockwise from top left: UrbComp students Nikhil Muralidhar, Joshua Detwiler, Whitney Hayes, and Shane Bookhultz

Students in the urban computing graduate certificate program gave their group presentations via Zoom at the end of semester 2020 Spring Retreat, focusing on the very thing that led to this virtual format — COVID-19.

The students were charged with taking a look at the pandemic’s impact beyond health — such as economic outcomes, urban design, and interpersonal and online relationships — by Naren Ramakrishnan, the Thomas L. Phillips Professor of Engineering in the Department of Computer Science and director of the Discovery Analytics Center, which administers the National Science Foundation-sponsored multidisciplinary program. Click here to read more about the UrbComp Spring Retreat.

Three funded fellows earn UrbComp graduate certificate this spring

Posted on May 29, 2020 at 4:08 pm.

Stacey Clifton (left), Michelle Dowling (center), and Moeti Masiane (right)

Three funded UrbComp fellows, Stacey Clifton, Michelle Dowling, and Moeti Masiane, earned the graduate certificate in urban computing this spring. The certificate is offered through the National Science Foundation-sponsored multidisciplinary UrbComp Program administered by the Discovery Analytics Center.

Congratulations to DAC’s 2020 Spring and Summer Graduates!

Posted on May 15, 2020 at 2:50 pm.

Among Virginia Tech graduates celebrating their achievements today include four Ph.D. and five master’s students at the Discovery Analytics Center.

Four Ph.D. students and one master’s student plan to complete degrees during the summer.

“The thoughtful and impactful research our students have engaged in while pursuing their graduate degrees has been recognized by many major academic conferences and is testament to their hard work,” said Naren Ramakrishnan, the Thomas L. Phillips Professor of Engineering and director of the center.

DAC Student Spotlight: Gopikrishna Rathinavel

Posted on April 28, 2020 at 3:24 pm.

Gopikrishna Rathinavel, DAC M.S. student in the Department of Computer Science

Gopikrishna Rathinavel was introduced to machine learning through the biotechnology courses he took as an undergraduate.

“Eager to learn more, I began attending lectures by industry experts in machine learning,” Rathinavel said. “Soon I was captivated by the potential that machine learning offers as a discipline. It can add valuable insights in any domain where there is some data to exploit.”

He also began following the work of Discovery Analytics Center Director Naren Ramakrishnan, who is now his advisor, and other Virginia Tech faculty.

DAC Student Spotlight: Omer Zulfiqar

Posted on April 21, 2020 at 2:47 pm.

Omer Zulfiqar, DAC master’s student in the Department of Computer Science.

Graphic is from the paper, “RIDE-SECURE: Metro Security Incidents And Threat Detection Using Social Media”

After graduating from Virginia Tech in December 2018 with a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering and a minor in computer science, Omer Zulfiqar moved to northern Virginia to be closer to his family. He was also in close proximity to the university’s location in the greater Washington, D.C. area.g

In Fall 2019, he began pursuing a master’s degree in computer science and once again, chose Virginia Tech, this time at the Falls Church campus.

“Virginia Tech is a world renowned university in the field and at the Discovery Analytics Center I am able to work on interdisciplinary collaborations guided by incredible faculty, like my advisor Dr. Chang-Tien Lu, who are doing some amazing research work in the fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data mining,” Zulfiqar said.

Research award aims to develop new algorithms for information extraction and understanding from scholarly literature

Posted on April 16, 2020 at 12:23 pm.

Naren Ramakrishnan, Director of DAC and Professor in the Department of Computer Science

The Discovery Analytics Center has received a research award from the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) at Georgetown University to support data-informed analysis for policymakers concerning emerging technologies and their security implications. DAC will develop methods to extract novel insights at scale from full-text analytics of publications to better understand emerging technologies and their prevalence, spatial and temporal trends, and relationships.

“Algorithmic components developed by DAC will go into a high-performance pipeline that enables inspection of extracted patterns as well as the lineage of data transformations underlying the patterns,” said Naren Ramakrishnan, the Thomas L. Phillips Professor of Engineering and DAC director, who is the principal investigator for the project.