E-News | CMPS

Harold Edmundson, Professor Emeritus in the Departments of Computer Science and Mathematics, passed away on July 9, 2009 at the age of 87. In 1967 "Ed" moved to the University of Maryland, becoming one of the original members of the fledgling Computer Science Department and holding a joint appointment in Mathematics. After retiring in 1991, he volunteered in the Rocky Mountain National Park as an Alpine Ambassador, manning stations at Wild Basin, Longs Peak, Bear Lake, Alpine Visitor’s Center and the backcountry office. In the winter, he co-led snowshoe nature walks for Park visitors. A memorial service will be held at 10:00am on August 7 at the Moraine Amphitheater, Rocky Mountain Park Estes Park, CO. Please go to www.allnutt.com for more information.

HONORS AND AWARDS:

The paper "A Unified Approach to Ranking in Probabilistic Databases" by Jian Li, Barna Saha (Computer Science Graduate Students) and Amol Deshpande (Computer Science and UMIACS) has been selected as the best paper in VLDB (Very Large Data Bases) 2009.

Ricardo Nochetto (Mathematics and IPST) and Bill Goldman (Mathematics) have been invited by the International Mathematics Union to speak at the quadrennial International Congress of Mathematics in 2010. These invitations are among the most prestigious awards, after the Fields Medal and the Japan, Wolf and Abel Prizes, that a mathematician can receive.

CONTRACTS/GRANTS:

Robert Adler (ESSIC), NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center, $289,747, "Global Precipitation Variations and Extremes."

Luis de Goncalves (ESSIC), NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center, $199,862, "The Data-Model Intercomparison Project for the Large Scale biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment of the Amazon."

James Farquhar (Geology and ESSIC), NSF, $148,282, "RECOVERY: Sulfur Isotope Study of Phanerozoic Carbonate Associated Sulfate."

Michael Fuhrer (Physics and IREAP), Maryland Procurement Office, $102,737, "Nano-Electronics."

Saswata Hier-Majumder (Geology), NSF, $249,690, "RECOVERY: Collaborative Research: Structure and Dynamics of the Ultralow-Velocity Zone at the Core-Mantle Boundary."

David Jacobs (Computer Science), NSF, $107,116, "Robust Image Matching with Deformation and Lighting Variation."

Arthur La Porta (Physics and IPST), STMD-Maryland Technology Development Corporation, $200,000, "Advanced Optical Torque Wrench for Manipulation of DNA Structures."

Sarah Penniston-Dorland (Geology), NSF, $249,676, "Tracing Evidence of Fluid Flow in Eclogite, Blueschist and Amphibolite Blocks in Subduction Zone Melanges."

Philip Piccoli and Phil Candela (Geology), NSF, $398,729, "Ore Metals in Magmatic Systems."

Steven Salzberg (Computer Science, UMIACS), NIH-National Library of Medicine, $250,000, "Computational Gene Modeling and Genome Sequence Assembly."

Ellen Williams (Physics and IPST), Maryland Procurement Office, $290,630, "Nano-Electronics."

Peter Yoon (IPST), NSF, $210,600, "RECOVERY: Nonlinear Theory of Anomalous Resistivity for Buneman Instability."

GIFTS:

Academy of Applied Sciences, $2,600.00
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, $2,250.00
Space Telescope Science Institute, $100,155.00

WHAT'S NEW:

Larry Davis (Computer Science and UMIACS) and his graduate student, Abhinav Gupta, had their work on describing video content through speech, with applications to baseball, featured on the Discovery News, July 10 and in IEEE Spectrum, July 9. A follow-up article appeared in the Ethiopian Review, July 25.

Jan Sengers (IPST) gave an invited lecture on "Crossover Critical Phenomena in Fluids" on behalf of Mikhail Anisimov and himself at the 17th Symposium on Thermophysical Properties, held June 21-26, 2009 in Boulder, CO.

Wendy Wang (ESSIC) gave a presentation entitled "Soil Organic Carbon Dynamics Under Long-Term Fertilizations In Arable Land of China" at the 3rd Expert Meeting on Soil C Data for the IPCC Database on Greenhouse Gas Emission Factors, held June 24-26, 2009 in Santiago, Chile.

IN THE NEWS:

Michael A'Hearn (Astronomy) was quoted in The Christian Science Monitor, July 25, in an article on the unknown object that collided with Jupiter on July 19.

Carroll Alley (Physics) appeared on News Channel 8, July 24, talking about his laser ranging retro reflector experiment included in Apollo 11 mission. The experiment helped scientists discover that the moon had a fluid core.

Tony Busalacchi (AOSC and ESSIC) and Phil Arkin (ESSIC) were quoted in ClimateWire, July 28, in an article on the status of plans to create a National Climate Service that would provide longer-term forecasts and warnings related to climate change.

Rita Colwell (UMIACS) was quoted in the Southern Maryland News, July 10, in an article on the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's report entitled "Bad Water 2009: The Impact on Human Health in the Chesapeake Bay Region."

Daniel Kirk-Davidoff (AOSC) was mentioned in Washington Post article, July 15, citing his quote in The Christian Science Monitor of June 24, on wind farms and their potential unintended consequence of altering weather patterns downwind.

James Gates (Physics) was mentioned in the Baltimore Sun, July 4, in an article on the new members of the Maryland State Board of Education.

Denny Gulick (Mathematics) was quoted in the Baltimore Sun, July 12, in an article on mathematics education in Maryland’s public schools.

Mike Kelley (Astronomy) was featured in Quad-City Times, July 20, about his involvement in an observing program to support NASA's LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite) mission.

William McDonough (Geology) was quoted in PhysOrg, July 15, in an article on the Science Coalition’s survey of university researchers on the next frontiers in science and what America must do to ensure that these scientific frontiers are reached.

Cole Miller (Astronomy) was quoted in the online edition of Scientific American, July 1, in an article referring to a Nature article, published on July 2, identifying a new candidate for a medium sized black hole in the spiral galaxy ESO 243-49.

Robert Park (Physics) was quoted in USA Today, July 17, in an article on the 40-year anniversary of Apollo 11 and future plans for returning humans to the moon.

ALUMNI NEWS:

Alexandros Labrinidis (2002 Ph.D. Computer Science, advisor Nick Roussopoulos) was recently elected Secretary/Treasurer of ACM SIGMOD, to serve a four-year term (July 2009 - June 2013). SIGMOD, the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group on Management of Data, was established back in the 1970s, and is considered to be the premier international professional organization for database researchers and practitioners. Labrinidis is an associate professor at the Department of Computer Science in the University of Pittsburgh and the co-director of the Advanced Data Management Technologies Laboratory (ADMT Lab).

Jim Densmore (1983 M.S. Computer Science) recently received his Senior Level IT Specialist Technical Certification from IBM. Jim is a Solution Architect with IBM's Rational Software Brand, following several years in real-time telecommunications systems and an earlier life as a software and systems developer in the Aerospace and Defense industry. His current research interests and client enablement engagements include (1) estimation of the monetization of the investment value of incomplete systems development efforts as a vehicle for aligning IT and other development with business value, (2) asset-based governance for guiding distributed development team collaboration (particularly where funding and organizational boundaries fail to align with the necessary collaboration patterns), and (3) managing and reducing the architectural complexity of large systems and aligning the development organization with architectural concerns.

Donald Yeomans (1967 M.S. and 1970 Ph.D. Astronomy) was quoted extensively in Space.com, July 20, in an article on the July 19 cosmic impact on Jupiter. Yeomans is Manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object program office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. Yeomans' group monitors Earth close approaches by comets and asteroids and when appropriate, computes impact probabilities. Although the recent comet that impacted Jupiter on July 19 was discovered prior to impact, the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet impacts with Jupiter, which occurred 15 years to the day prior to the July 19 event, were accurately predicted in time for extensive telescopic viewing.

WE GREATLY ENCOURAGE ALL OUR READERS TO KEEP US INFORMED OF THEIR NEWS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS

PLEASE SUBMIT ITEMS TO: Mary Kearney (mkearney@umd.edu )

COLLEGE OF COMPUTER, MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES

Astronomy Department - Dr. Stuart Vogel, Chair
Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Department - Dr. James Carton, Chair
Computer Science Department - Dr. Larry Davis, Chair
Geology Department - Dr. Michael Brown, Chair
Mathematics Department - Dr. James Yorke, Chair
Physics Department - Dr. Drew Baden, Chair
CSCAMM - Dr. Eitan Tadmor, Director
ESSIC - Dr. Antonio Busalacchi, Director
IPST - Dr. Rajarshi Roy, Director
IREAP - Dr. Dan Lathrop, Director
UMIACS - Dr. V.S. Subrahmanian, Director