Profiles of Women in SCS
The School of Computer Science has many departments, and we're bringing you personal and firsthand stories from Carnegie Mellon's own faculty and graduate students covering topics on their research interests, why they selected their field, and what they think the future of their field will be. This is not only a great way to be exposed to the Women at the School of Computer Science, but also a great resource for learning about particular fields. A must read if you're interested in graduate school!
Note: if you are pursuing a Masters or PhD at one of the departments below and would like to contribute to this feature, please send us an email at women.at.scs@gmail.com for more information.
Carnegie Mellon is known worldwide for our broad vision of computer science. The Computer Science Department acts quickly to explore new directions and push the frontiers of the field. Computer science at Carnegie Mellon also stands out in its research style, educational programs, and success in diversity. It is the union of all these features, rather than any one of them, that truly distinguishes the Computer Science Department.
About CSD at Carnegie Mellon:
- Vision: Computational thinking will be a fundamental skill used by everyone in the world by the middle of the 21st Century.
- Mission: To lead in Computer Science research and education that has real world impact.
- History: Spirited and inspired leadership was our good fortune throughout the formative years.
The Language Technologies Institute (LTI) in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University conducts research and provides graduate education in all aspects of language technologies, including computational linguistics, machine translation, speech recognition and synthesis, statistical language modeling, information retrieval and web search engines, text mining, information management, digital libraries, intelligent tutoring, and more recently bio-sequence/biolanguage, structure and function analysis (genome, proteome). The LTI combines linguistic approaches with machine learning and corpus-based methods, depending on the scientific questions investigated and project needs.
LTI's "Bill of Rights":
Get the right information (search engines, question-answering, text mining)
To the right people (adaptive filtering, personalization)
At the right time (task modeling, anticipatory analysis)
In the right language (machine translation, cross-lingual retrieval, language learning)
And the right media (speech recognition and synthesis)
At the right level of detail (summarization and drill-down)
In the 1967 classic definition of "Human-Computer Interaction," Allen Newell, Herbert A. Simon, and Alan Perlis have called it "the study of computers and the major phenomena that surround them." The Human Computer Interaction Institute studies a field composed of many disciplines, including design, computer science, and behavioral and social sciences.
HCI in research:
- developing new methodologies and processes for designing interfaces
- working with new hardware
- prototyping new software systems
- modeling the theories of interaction
HCI in the industry:
- graphical user interfaces
- web interfaces
- practical application of design methodologies to real-world problems
Robotics is another very multidisciplinary field. To create a working robot, computer science, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering are all required. National Robotics Week in 2010 first motivated the creation of this feature.
The Robotics Institute
Parts of Robotics:
- movement (e.g. wheels, tracks, flying, snaking, climbing, swimming)
- sensing (e.g. touch, vision)
- manipulation (e.g. grippers)
- power source (e.g. batteries, hydraulics, organic garbage)
The Institute for Software Research (ISR) in the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science (SCS) is the focal point for research and education in Software Engineering (SE) and Computation, Organizations and Society (COS).
Research Areas in ISR:
- Software architecture specification and analysis
- Team coordination and distributed development
- Software analysis and assurance of embedded and real-time systems
- Cybersecurity
- Social network analysis
- Privacy technology and policy
- IT-enabled sourcing and supply chain operations, mobility and location
The Machine Learning Department (MLD) in the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science is a department dedicated to studying and researching the theoretical foundations of the field of machine learning, as well as on the contributions to the general intelligence goal of the field of artificial intelligence. In addition to their theoretical education, all our students, advised by faculty, get hands-on experience with complex real datasets.
Computational biology is a critically important and growing field that is essential to biomedical research. The Computational Biology Department (CBD) in the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science is dedicated to principles of collaboration, knowledge in both natural and computational sciences, and developing computationally rigorous solutions to problems. Together, the embodiment of these principles in the Computational Biology degree programs helps students to develop as independent innovators who will help guide the future of biomedical research, and not just be able to apply today’s methods to today’s problems.
