Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering

Cybersecurity Lecture

Modern Threat Environment and the Impact of Technology Shifts

Neal Ziring
Information Assurance Technical Director
National Security Agency

6-7pm Tuesday 20 September 2011 in ITE 102 (LH 8)

Neal Ziring will give a special guest lecture in CYBR620 (Introduction to Cybersecurity) on the modern threat environment and the impact of shifts in technology, such as the move from IPv4 to IPv6 and the security of systems and networks topics.

Mr. Neal Ziring is currently a technical director in the Information Assurance Directorate (IAD), at NSA. The IAD provides cryptographic, network, and operational security products and services to protect and defend national security systems. Prior to his role at the IAD level, Neal with a technical director for the Vulnerability Analysis and Operations Group, which provides technology evaluations, defensive operations, and secure configuration guidance for the DoD and the IC. During that time, Neal also served as security architect for two major NSA mission systems programs, collaborated with NIST on the Security Content Automation Protocol (S-CAP) specifications, and lead analysis efforts for Cloud Computing technology and IPv6. Neal has degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from Washington University. Before coming to NSA in 1989, he worked at AT&T Bell Labs.

Patrick Macatangga is a Senior majoring in Computer Engineering. Currently, he is working on an interdisciplinary research project that combines the areas of chemistry, biology, and electrical engineering. To learn more about Patrick's research pursuits, read his research profile.

EE Graduate Seminar

Thesis/Dissertation Accomplished: How To Do It!

Wendy Y. Carter-Veale, Ph.D.

Program Coordinator, PhD Completion Project/PROMISE
Director, Educational Research Institute

11:30am-12:45pm, Friday 23 September 11, ITE 231

It is very important for graduate students, MS/PhD, to understand and be prepared for the thesis/dissertation process. The structure of and writing the thesis/dissertation is a major component of this process, and usually not given adequate attention until much later in the educational program.

Dr. Wendy Carter, as Program Coordinator for the PhD Completion Project/PROMISE here at UMBC, leads workshops on the thesis/dissertation process, both at UMBC and UMCP, and at various professional meetings. She will provide an overview of the tools, strategies, and resources that she has designed (www.tadafinallyfinished.com) to empower students to complete their thesis/dissertation based on the individual's schedule and temperament.

Dr. Carter has a BA and MA from Stanford University, a MS in Management and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University, and a MS and the PhD in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Host: Prof. Joel M. Morris

UMBC's Computer Science and Electrical Engineering (CSEE) Department has research active graduate progams in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Currently, our department has over 250 graduates students who hail from all parts of the globe. To learn more about our graduate programs, take a look at our new graduate program brochures:

Computer Engineering Graduate Program Brochure

Electrical Engineering Graduate Program Brochure

Computer Science Graduate Program Brochure

UMBC CSEE Colloquium

Cloud Computing

Henry J. Sienkiewicz

Chief Information Officer
Defense Information Systems Agency

11:30-12:30 Friday, 16 September 2011
Room 231, ITE Building

Mr. Henry Sienkiewicz will discuss the opportunities and challenges for using cloud computing in government agencies.

Henry J. Sienkiewicz is the Chief Information Officer for the Defense Information Systems Agency. As the DISA CIO he is responsible for developing, maintaining, and facilitating the implementation of the Agency's information technology (IT) architecture, enabling DISA to accomplish its critical combat support missions. As CIO, he ensures that agency IT and information assurance programs and policies are fully coordinated, integrated, and effectively implemented and are aligned with the Agency's strategy. Mr. Sienkiewicz joined DISA in 2008 as the Technical Program Director for DISA Computing Services before moving to the CIO position. He is a founding member of George Washington University's technology transfer council, retired from the US Army Reserves, and has been involved in many academic and entrepreneurial pursuits throughout his extensive IT career.

Hosts: Professor Yelena Yesha and Joel Morris

— directions — upcoming talks —

Ugonna Ohiri is a first year Senior majoring in Computer Engineering. A URA scholar, Ugonna's research deals with standoff chemical detection. To learn more about Ugonna's research pursuits, read his research profile.   

UMBC has been named an NVIDIA CUDA Teaching Center following the submission of a proposal by Dr. Marc Olano, professor, and Dr. Shujia Zhou, research associate professor of the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Department. The NVIDIA CUDA Teaching Center Program will provide UMBC with enough high-end GPUs to upgrade the UMBC GAIM (Games, Animation and Interactive Media) Lab, as well as a Tesla GPU-based computing processor.

Dr. Olano was familiar with NVIDIA’s grant programs through previous equipment grants, and last February, he spoke with David Luebke, Director of Research at NVIDIA, about the CUDA Teaching Center Program. His decision to submit a proposal weighed heavily upon the increasing interest in GPU computing around the UMBC community.

“It’s an important skill for game programming,” says Dr. Olano, who is the director of the Computer Science program’s Game Development Track. He adds that UMBC’s Multicore Computational Center (MC2) and High Performance Computing Facility (HPCF) are also moving toward nodes with GPU computing capability and could benefit from the upgrade.  

UMBC is now one of thirty-six NVIDIA CUDA Teaching Center within the U.S., joining schools such as Florida A&M University, Hood College, Purdue University and UCLA. Apart from the generous equipment donation, UMBC’s distinction as a NVIDIA CUDA Teaching Center provides the university with recognition on NVIDIA’s website, access to teaching materials, and the opportunity to receive discounts on some NVIDIA equipment purchases.

Dr. Olano predicts that the newly-enhanced GAIM lab will be usable by the beginning of the Spring semester. The new equipment will enhance game development and parallel programming classes in upcoming semesters, such as CMSC 483: Parallel and Distributed Processing, which will be taught by Dr. Shujia Zhou in the upgraded lab this Spring. 

The Computer Science and Electrical Engineering department made significant accomplishments during the 2010-2011 school year. Our undergraduate enrollment grew to 886 students and our graduate enrollment grew to 271 students. Our department produced a total of 16 Ph.D’s during that time period. Our research productivity in terms of research expenditures has reached the level of our departmental budget at nearly $6 Million. In addition, Professor Hillol Kargupta was elevated to the level of IEEE fellow, and Professor Marie desJardins was promoted to full Professor.

Last year also marked a number of changes within the department. I became the Chair in October of last year after Professor Anupam Joshi ably served the department as interim chair, following Professor Charles Nicholas stepping down from the position.

We have also gained three new Computer Engineering faculty members: Assistant Professors Tinoosh Mohsenin, Chintan Patel, and Gymama Slaughter. Most recently, Shawn Lupoli joined the department as a lecturer in Computer Science.

Last year was also a time of transition. We had a number of faculty members retire: Sue Evans, senior lecturer in Computer Science, Professor John Pinkston, and Professor Zary Segall. We will miss their contributions to the department. In order to compensate for these losses, I am pleased to report that we have been authorized to search for a new Computer Science Assistant Professor.

Please look at our new website which contains a wealth of information for students, faculty, staff, visitors, and prospective students. You can visit it at www.csee.umbc.edu

-Gary
 

Six CSEE graduate students will present their research First Mid-Atlantic Student Colloquium on Speech, Language and Learning is a one-day event to be held at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore on Friday, 23 September 2011. Its goal is to bring together students taking computational approaches to speech, language, and learning, so that they can introduce their research to the local student community, give and receive feedback, and engage each other in collaborative discussion. The students and the titles of their presentations are:

• Niyati Chhaya, Joint Inference for Extracting Text Descriptors from Triage Images of Mass Disaster
• Lushan Han, GoRelations: An Intuitive Query System for DBpedia
• Niels Kasch, Concept Modeling for Scripts
• Justin Martineau, DIVA: Domain Independence Verification Algorithm for Sentiment Analysis
• Varish Mulwad, Automatically Generating Linked Data from Tables
• Jennifer Sleeman, A Streaming Approach to Linking FOAF Instances
• Xianshu Zhu, Finding Story Chains in Newswire Articles

Attendance is open to all and free but space is limited, so online registration is requested by September 16. The program runs from 10:00am to 5:00pm and will include oral presentations, poster sessions, and breakout sessions.

CSEE Graduate Seminar

Nonlinear Optical Signal Processing in
Optical Fibers and Waveguides

Dr. Gary M. Carter
Professor of Electrical Engineering
Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

1-2pm Friday, 16 September, 2011, ITE 227

postponed until later in the Fall

Advances in optical fiber and semiconductor technology have progressed to the degree that nonlinear optical signal processing can be demonstrated at extraordinarily high data rates. This talk will review some of the work of Dr. Carter's research group in photonic crystal fibers, silicon nano wires, and AlGaAs optical waveguides.

Hosts: Profs. Joel M. Morris and Yelena Yesha

Upcoming CSEE talks