November 2024 Newsletter
School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence
Part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University.
Fall good things must come to an end…
As the semester winds to a close, we are busy preparing for the end of the fall term, hopefully taking a breath here and there to celebrate all that has been accomplished in the year so far. From faculty members whose research and teaching excellence is resonating across the globe, to past and present students seeking ways to support each other, to alumni looking to make a difference, in SCAI we hope to continue to find new and better ways to inspire others and be inspired ourselves.
Check out a few recent successes from our faculty and students below.
AI thought leader receives teaching award
Professor Subbarao Kambhampati has received the 2025 AAAI/EAAI Patrick Henry Winston Outstanding Educator Award from the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. The accolade honors major contributions to AI education that provide long-lasting benefits to the community and to society as a whole.
Given since 2016, the award is named for Patrick Henry Winston, the beloved educator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is estimated to have introduced AI to approximately 10,000 students during his 50-year teaching career. Past recipients include Peter Norvig and Ashok Goel.
Kambhampati carries on Winston’s legacy through his extensive outreach efforts and inspirational teaching. In his Yochan Lab, he continues to mentor master’s degree and doctoral students, preparing them for leadership roles in computer science. A widely consulted expert on the societal impact of AI, he is an inaugural member of the Arizona’s Artificial Intelligence and Election Security Advisory Committee.
He is a past recipient of both the Research Initiation Award and the Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and has received the IBM Faculty Award.
Kambhampati is a Fellow and past president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) . He is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the ACM, Association for Computing Machinery .
Thermodynamics and computation paper
ASU President's Professor Andrea Richa has worked as part of a transdisciplinary, inter-university team to explore how the new field of stochastic thermodynamics might be used to reconsider the constraints of 20th-century analyses of computation.
The resulting paper, “Is stochastic thermodynamics the key to understanding the energy costs of computation?” has been published in the Nov. 5 edition of PNAS the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
The paper argues that stochastic thermodynamics provides formal tools for analyzing systems and may help us understand — at a far deeper level — just how the fundamental properties of physical systems are related to the computation they perform.
“Our initial goal was to create an understanding of how energy plays a role together with other parameters that are important to computer science, like time, space, etc.,” Richa says. “How do you integrate those things to create a bridge between computer science and statistical physics?
The work evolved from discussions between the 19 researchers that took place at a workshop held at the Santa Fe Institute in 2022.
Alum inspires computer vision researchers
In his work as an emerging expert in computer vision research, Tejas Gokhale seeks inspiration from the natural world. Gokhale is a successful graduate of doctoral programs in SCAI. As an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, he is studying how machines use sensors, cameras and complex software programs to perceive the world around them.
“The goal is not just to mimic human vision, but to study the problem computationally without really being limited by human vision,” he says. “In the animal kingdom, birds, insects and bats all have different kinds of visual sensors, and if we can learn from them, we can create good systems.”
But his real goal is to inspire doctoral students the way his mentors, 'YZ' Yezhou Yang and Chitta Baral , inspired him.
“I want people to truly remember me as someone who has helped their careers. People come to academia due to their own passions and I hope to play a role in facilitating the success of my students,” he says.
Recommended by LinkedIn
From entrepreneurship to autism activism
Timothy Cope , a SCAI alum, turned his degree in computer systems engineering into a successful career as co-founder of the $200 million software company Origami Risk .
Now, he has turned his attention to autism activism, co-founding the Cope Center for Autism with his wife, pediatric neurologist Dr. Jennifer Cope. They will offer essential resources to families with autistic children, including help with diagnoses, advocacy in sourcing school and governmental support, and after-school care.
Cope says his education in the Fulton Schools helped prepare him for his current career. He’s now playing a role in helping current computer engineering students by serving on the SCAI industry advisory board.
Cope has clearly been personally successful in applying the lessons of our computer engineering programs, using them as a foundation for a career in software development. But his emerging work as a philanthropist is a nod to one of our core values, the charge to build a foundation for all to be successful.
Students lead peers to career opportunities
Pavel Ryabov and Abhirup Vijay Gunakar, computer science students in SCAI, lead a chapter of the Google Developer Student Clubs , an organization that gathers the software development community on college campuses, including at Arizona State University . There are currently more than 2,100 chapters in 100 countries.
At the Building Your Technical Career event planned by the group, Google experts gave students winning strategies for landing desirable jobs and internships at Google and elsewhere in the tech sector.
“In these uneasy times for the tech job market with layoffs and concerns about artificial intelligence replacing traditional computer science roles, I think it’s important to keep spirits high,” Pavel says.
Quick links:
Dimitri Bertsekas provides free access to revised textbook
Check out SCAI’s presence in the new 2024 Computing Research Association Academic Member Book
Visit our news site for more information, new content, upcoming events and professional programs, and access to SCAI.
Systems Support Analyst Sr(IT), SCAI IT Helpdesk Supervisor, JAMF Pro and Mac at the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence at Arizona State University. Connecting the world one computer at a time.
1moI am so proud to provide IT support to the faculty, staff, and students of SCAI. Truly amazing things happen here everyday. 🙌🏼