Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering

The Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) offers a 10-week summer research program for undergraduates in interactive virtual experiences. A multidisciplinary research institute affiliated with the University of Southern California, the ICT was established in 1999 to combine leading academic researchers in computing with the creative talents of Hollywood and the video game industry. Having grown to encompass a total of 170 faculty, staff, and students in a diverse array of fields, the ICT represents a unique interdisciplinary community brought together with a core unifying mission: advancing the state-of-the-art for creating virtual experiences so compelling that people will react as if they were real.

Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of ICT research, we welcome applications from students in computer science, as well as many other fields, such as psychology, art/animation, interactive media, linguistics, and communications. Undergraduates will join a team of students, research staff, and faculty in one of several labs focusing on different aspects of interactive virtual experiences. In addition to participating in seminars and social events, students will also prepare a final written report and present their projects to the rest of the institute at the end of summer research fair.

This Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. The site is expected to begin summer 2013, pending final award issuance.  For questions or additional information, please contact reu at ict.usc.edu.  

Research Labs
When you apply, we will ask you to rank your top three interests from the labs listed below. We encourage applicants to explore the lab websites to learn more about the individual research activities of each group.

	MxR Lab Research areas: virtual reality, interactive media, human-computer interaction, gestural user interfaces, spatial illusions, human perception
	Graphics Lab Research areas: image-based lighting, 3D scanning, surface reflectometry, image-based modeling, 3D displays
	Multicomp Lab Research areas: human communication, machine learning, facial and body gestures, verbal content, prosodic signals
	Natural Language Dialogue Group Research areas: human-human and human-machine dialogue, dialogue management, speech recognition, natural language understanding, natural language generation, expressive conversational speech synthesis, information retrieval
	Narrative Group Research areas: social media, information retrieval, natural language discourse, storytelling, triangles
	Virtual Worlds and Avatars Group Research areas: activities in virtual worlds that promote health, avatar identity, avatar emotions, web-based virtual worlds, social support spaces
	Computational Emotion Group Research areas: affective computing, emotion and decision making, cognitive modeling, virtual humans, human-computer interaction, media psychology
	Embodied Cognition Group Research areas: studying the relation between cognitive and emotional processes and physical behavior with the goal of creating more life-like animated virtual humans
	MedVR Lab Research areas: resilience training, allostatic load, psychophysiological assessments, advanced statistical analysis, post-traumatic stress disorder

Location and Housing
The ICT facility is located in the Playa Vista community of West Los Angeles, about 10 miles west of the main USC campus, and includes a 150-seat theater, game room, and gym. There are numerous restaurants and stores within walking distance, including the Westfield Culver City mall, and the beach is only a 10 minute drive away. The university also provides free shuttle service between the institute and the downtown USC campus.  Since ICT is located in its own separate facility, summer students typically live in apartments near the institute rather than on-campus dorms. We will direct accepted students to a number of resources for locating nearby housing and provide a stipend to support the cost of living.

Benefits

• Participate in a unique multidisciplinary community that combines academic research with the creative talents of Hollywood and the video game industry.
• Work with some of the leading researchers in human-computer interaction, computer graphics, and virtual humans.
  Receive a total of $5000 over the ten week program, paid as an hourly wage.
• Receive an additional $2800 stipend for housing and living expenses.
• Travel will be reimbursed up to $600 for students living 95 miles or more outside of the Los Angeles area.

Eligibility

• U.S. citizenship or permanent residency is required.
• Students must be currently enrolled in an undergraduate program.
• Students must not have completed an undergraduate degree prior to the summer program.

Important Dates

• Application deadline: March 31, 2013
• Notification of acceptance begins: April 12, 2013
• Notification of declined applicants: April 30, 2013
• Start Date: June 3, 2013
• End Date: August 9, 2013

How to Apply
Step 1: Application Form
Fill out the online application. You must first complete this form before the rest of your application materials will be reviewed.

Step 2: Submit Additional Materials
Email the following materials to :

• The most recent unofficial transcripts from all undergraduate institutions you have attended.
• A one page personal statement. This may include your research interests and how you came to be interested in them, your previous research experiences, your reasons for wanting to participate in the research at the ICT, and how this participating in this experience might better prepare you to meet your future goals.

Step 3: Recommendation Letter
Please direct a faculty member to email a letter of recommendation directly to .

The World Bank’s Development Prospects Group (DECPG) is looking for a top-tier undergraduate student with a passion for software development to work on a part-time basis during the school year. The selected individual will play a significant role in designing, developing, testing, and launching various innovative software tools for World Bank economists. These projects are critical to DECPG’s operations and have the potential to be highly visible within The World Bank.

The selected candidate will be expected to work part-time during the school year, with the potential to continue on a full-time basis as a short-term consultant over the summer.  The location is 1818 H Street N.W., Washington, D.C.

Background

DECPG provides information, analysis and advice on the impact of trends in the world economy on developing countries, develops and documents the Bank's views on the state of the world economy, and produces some of the Bank's leading publications, including the Global Economic Prospects, the Global Development Horizons, and the Global Monitoring Report.

Selection Criteria

• Pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree in computer science, information systems, or computer engineering
• Demonstrated self-starter (Have you started your own business? Do you contribute to open source projects in your spare time?)
• Have a working knowledge of the .NET framework (preferably VB.NET). However, we are more interested in strong programming fundamentals than in knowledge of any particular programming language
• Basic understanding of database design and operation; familiarity with SQL (ideally either MySQL or MSSQL)
• Strong understanding of programming design patterns and data structures
• The ideal candidate will have some exposure to the fundamentals of macroeconomics, statistics, or econometrics. However, this is not required.
• Good interpersonal skills and ability to work in a team environment
• Must be self-motivated and inspired to learn
• Ability to deal sensitively in multi-cultural environments and build effective working relations with colleagues
• Effective verbal and written communication skills

Due to the high volume of resumes that we normally receive, we will only be able to contact short listed candidates. Please send all resumes to David Horowitz () with the subject "Application for STC 2013"

Help shape the future of warfare through cyber operations. It’s what we do in the Asymmetric Operations Department at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)—a national leader in scientific research and development, located midway between Baltimore and Washington, DC.

The Asymmetric Operations Department supports the U.S. government by applying research capabilities to high-priority problems in cybersecurity, special operations, and homeland protection. Our department has many full-time opportunities available and will be holding a career fair on Wednesday, March 6, 2013, 3:30–8pm

We're seeking individuals with skills and interest in the following areas: Big Data Analytics, Cloud Computing, Communication Systems Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Security, Digital Forensics, Embedded Software Engineering, Identification, Tagging, Tracking, and Location Systems, Information Assurance, Mobile OS and Application Development, Modeling and Simulation, Network Architecture, Network Vulnerabilities and Exploits, Real-Time Software Engineering, Reverse Engineering, Secure Platform Architecture, Sensor Technologies, Situational Awareness and Analysis (Cyber, Global, Bio), Software and System Architecture (Component, Platform, Enterprise), Systems Engineering, Systems Testing and Evaluation, Web Software Development, Wireless Network Engineering and Wireless Security.

Meet our hiring managers at our career fair and find out how your technical experience can help develop the next advances in cyber systems or technologies for special applications.

All positions require a minimum of a bachelor’s degree and the ability to obtain a security clearance. U.S. citizenship is required to obtain a clearance. Preregistration is strongly encouraged. This allows hiring managers to review your resume in advance of the career fair and may result in a preliminary interview on the day of the fair.

The UMBC ACM student chapter is pleased to announce that Metron Aviation will be presenting, next Wednesday (2/27, 12.00 pm in ITE 241), as part our Tech Talk Series. Headquartered in Dulles, VA, Metron Aviation (the ATM subsidiary of Airbus) has pioneered the advancement of Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM), working with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to develop the industry’s first Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) platform for optimizing system-wide traffic flow. Metron Aviation fuses advanced science and mathematics with unparalleled air traffic management expertise to provide ground-breaking optimization and collaborative decision making solutions for the world’s leading Air Navigation Service Providers, Airports, Airlines, Logistics and other Service Providers to the Air Transport Industry.

Engineers and Recruiters from Metron Aviation will talk about some of the new and interesting projects they are working on, in the domain of aviation and the airline industry. Further they will also touch upon technical skills as well as soft skills students need to acquire (and be prepared) with to do well in interviews. Topics covered will include, but are not limited to, programming languages students should focus on, resume tips, what to say (and what to not!) in an interview.

More about the speaker : David Rojas, an Systems Engineer / Systems Analyst with Metron Aviation will be presenting at the tech talk. David will give an overview of Metron Aviation and specifics on their key product 'Harmony'. Metron Harmony is an advanced, Integrated Air Traffic Flow Management (I -ATFM) solution with capabilities that provide strategic, pre-tactical and tactical efficiency, post operations metrics and performance analysis of air traffic operations for Air Navigation Service Provider s (ANSP) , aircraft operator s and airport authorities. He will touch upon topics like ATM Modeling and Simulation, Air Traffic Flow Management and Departure Flow Management analysis and system development. David holds an BS in Applied Mathematics from Northwestern University. David has over 9 years of experience in Air Traffic Management (ATM) related research, analysis, and product support.

Metron Aviation is especially interested to talk with students in the fields of Computer Science, Aeronautical Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Operations Research, Physics. Bring your resumes! Light refreshments will be served. Please RSVP on our events page on Facebook.

From: Jan Neumann 
Date: Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 4:59 PM
Subject: 2-3 summer intern positions - Comcast Research Washington, DC
To: 

Are you interested in Large-scale Machine Learning? Information
Retrieval? Working with truly Big Usage Data? Do you currently do
research in at least one or more of the following areas – Big Data
Processing, Recommendation Systems, Social Media, Computer Vision,
Information Retrieval or NLP? Do you want to conduct industry-leading
research in audio/video information retrieval and content discovery
technologies, and help millions of households discover video and music
content on their TV, PC, Phone, and Mobile devices?

Comcast's Washington DC research lab is looking to fill 2-3 graduate
student intern positions for this summer (minimum of 12 weeks, May
through September) . Projects can focus on using Social Networks for
Recommendations and Click-through Prediction, NLP for Voice-based
Interfaces, and/or Video Search/Segmentation of premium video.

We are an innovative research group within Comcast's Metadata
Processing and Search Services unit that does groundbreaking research
to develop the video and TV search & discovery technologies that
support Comcast’s approximately 40 Million subscriber units. Comcast
is the largest provider of TV and Broadband Services in North America,
the largest provider of TV search and discovery applications in North
America, & the 6th largest provider of search on the web.

The ideal applicant will be currently enrolled in a university PhD
program and has 2+ years of research experience in one of the relevant
areas. Applicants should also have good programming and software
development skills, and be comfortable working in an
interdisciplinary, team-oriented, applied research environment.

Internships will be on-site in our Washington, DC office. We feature
an informal, open atmosphere, and a location in downtown Washington
convenient to several public transit lines and many of the city's
museums, monuments, and other attractions.  The salary is competitive
and commensurate with experience.

To apply, please send a CV or resume, along with a brief statement
explaining why you are interested in the position, to
.  While there is no fixed deadline for
applying, we anticipate filling these positions by the end of April.
@gmail.com>

From: Shengbo Guo 
Date: Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 2:07 PM
Subject: Research Internship for Machine Learning and its Application in
Recommender Systems at Samsung Media Solution Center America

Samsung Media Solution Center America (MSCA) in San Jose, USA is
looking for a motivated research intern in the area of machine
learning and its application in recommender systems. This intern
position is located in San Jose, and it is between 3 and 6 months. The
responsibility of the intern is on (1) analyzing the rich mobile data,
(2) developing/implementing machine learning algorithms, and (3)
applying these algorithms to personalize services for users of smart
phones and smart TVs. More specifically, the intern will be working on
developing learning algorithms, matrix/tensor factorization, topic
modeling, and recommender systems. Detailed responsibilities include:

  * Develop novel machine learning algorithms for personalizing
    services (e.g., recommendations of music, video, social media) in
    the mobile context (e.g., smart phone users).
  * Implement these algorithms and the state-of-the-art methods
    efficiently.
  * Document the work for scientific publication and patenting.

Requirements:

  * PhD-level education in Computer Science, particularly in machine
    learning, recommender systems, or social computing.
  * Strong background in machine learning, particularly in
    probabilistic graphical models, matrix/tensor factorization, topic
    modeling, and recommender systems.
  * Strong implementation skills in C++/Java.

Application and deadline:

Please email your CV to  and
 and mention Research Internship for the
subject of the email. Applications will be considered until the
position is filled.

--
Shengbo Guo, PhD.
Research Scientist, Media Solution Center America
Samsung Information Systems America
2665 North 1st Street, 3F Suite 300, San Jose 95134, USA
Tel: (408)944-5140
Fax: (408)944-5214
E-mail:  

@samsung.com>@gmail.com>

UMBC alumnus Professor Eric Eaton (BS '03, PhD '09) has positions for undergraduate and graduate summer research internships in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at Bryn Mawr College in suburban Philadelphia. Apply by March 1, 2013 for full consideration.

Spend ten weeks of your summer working on exciting projects in artificial intelligence and machine learning at Bryn Mawr College! We have openings for several undergraduate or graduate research assistants to work on two grant-sponsored research projects this summer. Student participants will join a research team with other students, Prof. Eric Eaton, and one postdoctoral researcher to carry out a detailed program of research toward scholarly publications. Students will present the results of their research during the final week of the program at Bryn Mawr College, and (if appropriate) at their home institutions and/or other academic venues, such as research conferences.

All students who are beginning their junior or senior undergraduate year in Fall 2013 or who will graduate during the Spring 2013 semester, and all graduate students are eligible to apply. To be considered, you should have a background in either computer science, mathematics, physics, or statistics and have strong grades in your major. Although it is not required, it would be beneficial if you have taken and done well in at least one course related to artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, statistics, or topology.

On-campus housing and meals are available for student participants, along with a variety of professional development workshops and summer activities. Application instructions and further details are available online.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is currently accepting applications for its Summer 2013 Student Volunteer Program. Serving as an OSTP Student Volunteer provides a unique opportunity to work closely with senior White House officials and science and technology policy analysts in OSTP's topic-based divisions (Division internship), or on OSTP's legal team (Legal internship).

The application deadline is 11:59pm Friday, February 22nd. Students who are U.S. citizens and who will be actively enrolled as a graduate or undergraduate student during the Fall 2013 semester are welcome to apply.

The mission of the Office of Science and Technology Policy is threefold: first, to provide the President and his senior staff with accurate, relevant, and timely scientific and technical advice on all matters of consequence; second, to ensure that the policies of the Executive Branch are informed by sound science; and third, to ensure that the scientific and technical work of the Executive Branch is properly coordinated so as to provide the greatest benefit to society.

The United States Intelligence Community (IC) invites you to attend the fourth annual IC Virtual Career Fair – a free online event – on Tuesday, 26 February 2013, from 2:00pm to 8:00pm (Eastern).

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn about IC careers and get tips on how to apply for positions. From the comfort of your computer or mobile device, you will be able to:

• Visit IC agencies’ virtual booths
• Chat with recruiters and subject matter experts in real-time
• Attend live presentations
• Explore currently available jobs
• Link to IC agency Web sites to apply to positions online
• Network with other job seekers
• Learn about internships and other student opportunities

Space is limited. To guarantee entrance, pre-registration is highly encouraged. For more information and to register, go to http://icvirtualfair.com/

U.S. citizenship is required. The United States Intelligence Community is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's DEVELOP program is looking for several interns to assist with Earth Science research projects during Summer 2013 for a 10 week paid internship, working 30-35 hours a week. The summer 2013 term will start on Monday, June 3, 2013 and end on Friday, August 9, 2013.

Students will work with NASA scientists and partner organizations to learn about the use of NASA remote sensing imagery for use in water resources, disaster management, and ecological forecasting applications to address environmental community concerns.

Requirements: U.S. Citizens. 3.0 GPA minimum. High School, Undergraduate, and Graduate Students with majors/skills in GIS, Remote Sensing, Cartography, Geography, Earth Science, Environmental Science, Computer Science, Web Programming, Web Development/Design, Database Management, Spatial Statistics, Hydrology, Ecology, Atmospheric Science, and/or Environmental Engineering are encouraged to apply. Knowledge of forest dynamics, fire ecology, satellite image processing, ENVI/IDL, Python, web development, GIS (ArcGIS, qGIS, SAGA) and database management (PostGIS/PostGresql, Geoserver, OpenLayers) are highly desirable.

The deadline to apply is Monday, February 4, 2013 (postmarked). Students need to visit the DEVELOP website, click on "Apply", download application, and choose Summer 2013 term at GSFC in Greenbelt, Maryland.

For more information contact Melissa Oguamanam: melissa (dot) i (dot) oguamanam (at) nasa (dot) gov