Institute of Computing and Cybersystems (ICC) Blog

2017 ICC Achievement Awards Presented at ICC Annual Retreat

Published April 21, 2017

ICC Annual Retreat was held on April 21. Co-Director Dan Fuhrmann presented ICC Achievement Awards to two researchers for their outstanding research and honorable contributions to the ICC in 2017. Zhuo Feng from the Center for Scalable Architectures and Systems (SAS) and Shane Mueller from the Center for Human-Centered Computing (HCC) were this year’s recipients.

Shane Mueller is Associate Professor in the Department of Cognitive and Learning Sciences with an expertise in Cognitive and Computational Modeling. He has recently been awardedDARPA’s Explainable AI (XAI) Grant to develop naturalistic theories of explanation with AI systems and to develop a computational cognitive model of explanatory reasoning. In addition to this effort, he has served as Co-PI of several proposals in collaboration with other HCC members from the KIP, CS, and Math departments. He has continuously published his works in top journals and conferences, such as IEEE and Cognitive Modeling Communities and organized several conferences. Another significant achievement is developing PEBL: The Free Psychology Experiment Building Language for HCI and Psychology Researchers, which is widely used across the world. Zhuo Feng is Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Zhuo has received funding as the sole PI on three National Science Foundation (NSF) grants since 2014 with a total of $1.1 million. He received a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from NSF in 2014, a Best Paper Award from ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference (DAC) in 2013, and two Best Paper AwardNominations from IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD) in 2006 and 2008. His publications include 16 journal papers (14 IEEE/ACM Transactions) and 34 ACM/IEEE conference papers.

Zhaohui Wang Wins NSF CAREER Award

Published April 6, 2017

By Karen Johnson

Zhaohui Wang (CPS) is the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award for her research in underwater communication networks. Wang plans to improve underwater acoustics networks to maximize information delivery. ICC Co-Director, Dan Fuhrmann commented, “Her research activity is quite remarkable. In this proposal, Wang describes an ambitious plan to bring state-of-the-art tools in signal processing and machine learning to the difficult problem of underwater acoustic communication.” Read more about Wang’s research in the Michigan Tech News.

ICC Members Secure Contract from MIT Lincoln Laboratory

Published March 30, 2017

By Karen Johnson

Timothy Havens (DataS) and Timothy Schulz (DataS) were recently awarded a $15,000 contract from MIT Lincoln Laboratory to investigate signal processing for active phased array systems with simultaneous transmit and receive capability. While this capability offers increased performance in communications, radar, and electronic warfare applications, the challenging aspect is that a high-level of isolation must be achieved between the transmit and receive antennas in order to mitigate self-interference in the array. This project spearheads a collaboration with Dr. Jon Doane (BS and MS from MTU) in MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s RF Technology Group. Ian Cummings, an NSF Graduate Research Fellow who is co-advised by Havens and Schulz, is undertaking this research for his PhD dissertation and will spend the summers at MIT Lincoln Laboratory as part of the project.

Three ICC Members are Nominated for the 2017 Distinguished Teaching Awards

Published February 7, 2017

By Karen Johnson

Three ICC members are finalists in the 2017 Distinguished Teaching Awards presented by The William G. Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning. Nominees are recognized for their outstanding contributions to the instructional mission of the University. Based on more than 50,000 student ratings of instruction responses, ten finalists have been identified for the 2017 awards. The ICC member finalists are:

Associate Professor / Professor Category

Mari Buche (DataS), Associate Professor
Yu Cai (CyberS), Associate Professor

Assistant Professor / Lecturer / Professor of Practice Category

Jeffrey Wall (CyberS), Assistant Professor

Jeremy Bos Awarded Young Investigator Research Program Grant

Published January 27, 2017

By Karen Johnson

Only 58 scientists and engineers were invited to join the Air Force’s Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) this year. Jeremy Bos (DataS) is the recipient of this prestigious award. The three-year YIP grant is for his project entitled, “Imaging Theory and Mitigation in Extreme Turbulence-Induced Anisoplanatism.” This project will explore the nature of imaging in conditions characterized by extreme anisoplanatism. Under these conditions each point in an image may be affected by a locally unique blurring kernel implying a violation of the linear shift invariance. Bos and his students will use a combination analysis and extensive experimental data to develop new models and new understanding of this phenomenon. Bos has also proposed using angular diversity as a means of mitigating the effects of extreme anisoplanatism on imaging and beam control problems.

Nilufer Onder Recognized for Exceptional Teaching Performance

Published January 19, 2017

By Karen Johnson

Nilufer Onder (DataS) has been identified as one of only 91 instructors at Michigan Tech who received an exceptional “Average of 7 dimensions” student evaluation score during fall semester 2016.

Onder’s scores were 4.95 (Excellent Teacher) and 4.71 (Average of 7 dimensions). These are in the top 10% of similarly sized sections across all courses/sections on campus. Only 111 sections university-wide (out of more than 1050 evaluated) were rated this highly by students.

Center Director Shiyan Hu Publishes Keynote Paper in IEEE Transactions on CAD

Published January 9, 2017

By Karen Johnson

CPS Center Director, Shiyan Hu and collaborators, published a keynote paper in IEEE Transactions on CAD, entitled, “Design Automation of Cyber-Physical Systems: Challenges, Advances, and Opportunities”. Their work was featured in the Michigan Tech News story, “Streamlining the Internet of Things and Other Cyber-Physical Systems”. The article highlights how their work lays the groundwork for better design in cyber-physical systems and was featured as a headline on NSF Science360and the NSF Computer and Network Systems (CNS) website.

HCC Center Director’s Lab Featured in the ACM Magazine, Interactions

Published January 4, 2017

By Karen Johnson

The ACM magazine, Interactions, is featuring HCC Center Director, Philart Jeon’s, Mind Music Machine (tri-M) Lab this month. The Tri-M Lab is a transdisciplinary research group based in the departments of Cognitive Science and Computer Science at Michigan Tech. The research goal of the lab is understanding the mechanisms of the human mind and designing better interactions between people and technologies. Researchers utilize various instruments, including computer vision technologies, display wall, digital audio workstation, driving simulators, neurophysiological equipment, and robots. To learn more visit ACM’s Interactions.