Duke Computer Science is now ranked in the top 20 best computer science graduate schools and programs in the country by US News & World Report! Our investments in academic programs, diversity, faculty, research, innovation, and more contributed to our increase in computer science rankings to #20 today from #23 in 2022, and #25 in 2018. In addition, we are #21 in both AI and Theory. Join us! read more about Duke Computer Science is ranked #20 by US News & World Report »
DURHAM, N.C. -- If you own an internet-connected “smart” device, chances are it knows a lot about your home life. If you raid the pantry at 2 a.m. for a snack, your smart lights can tell. That’s because they track every time they’re switched on and off. Your Roomba knows the size and layout of your home and sends it to the cloud. Smart speakers eavesdrop on your every word, listening for voice commands. But the data-driven smart tech trend also extends far beyond our kitchens and living rooms. Over the past 20 years,… read more about ‘Smart’ Tech Is Coming to a City Near You »
Carlo Tomasi, Iris Einheuser Distinguished Professor of computer science at Duke University, has won an Amazon Research Award, and will receive gift funding and Amazon Web Services (AWS) promotional credits to support his project on “Deep neural network classifiers with margins in input space.” Tomasi said, “I am grateful to Amazon for their generous support. Their forward-looking bet on our new idea provides a crucial seed towards sustaining my students’ research on this… read more about Carlo Tomasi Receives Amazon Research Award »
Sofia Guerrero, a Duke junior majoring in neuroscience with a minor in computer science, has been named a 2023 scholar by the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation Program. Originally from Seattle, Washington, Guerrero is among 413 students awarded Goldwater Scholarships for the 2023-2024 academic year. The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship is a federally endowed award that encourages students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering. Goldwater… read more about Duke Junior Sofia Guerrero Named Goldwater Scholar »
Dr. Susan Rodger, Duke Computer Science Professor of the Practice and Director of Undergraduate Studies, received ACM's SIGCSE (Special Interest Group CS Education) 2023 Award for Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education. This award recognizes Dr. Rodger for creating JFLAP software, changing how the automata course is taught, and for helping to bring computing to pre-college students with the Alice programming environment. She also gave a keynote talk at SIGCSE Technical Symposium 2023. Congratulations, Dr.… read more about Susan Rodger Receives the SIGCSE 2023 Award for Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education »
Duke Computer Science Professor Ronald Parr was recently elected as a new Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) for significant contributions to reinforcement learning, including the development of foundational hierarchical, least-squares, factored, and feature selection methods. Founded in 1990, AAAI's Fellows Program highlights individuals who achieve unusual distinction in AI. New Fellows were honored at a special awards ceremony during the recent AAAI 2023… read more about Ronald Parr Named 2023 AAAI Fellow »
Dr. Susan Athey, PhD, a Duke Economics/Mathematics/Computer Science alumna and professor of economics at Stanford Graduate School of Business, was elected president of the American Economic Association. Athey previously served as Microsoft's chief economist, and also previously taught economics at MIT, Stanford, and Harvard. Professor Athey received her PhD at Stanford, and also holds an honorary doctorate from Duke. read more about Duke CS-Econ-Math Alumna Named 2023 American Economic Assn. President »
Duke CS PhD students Haiyang Huang and Yingfan Wang won the John M. Chambers Software Award from the Statistical Computing and Statistical Graphics section of the American Statistical Association (ASA) for their Python package PaCMAP, based on a project with Duke Professor Cynthia Rudin and Assistant Professor Yaron Shaposhnik from University of Rochester's Simon School. The tool's code performs dimension reduction for data visualization, allowing us to see inside high-dimensional datasets by… read more about Duke CS PhD Students Win ASA Chambers Software Award »
Three Duke Computer Science students received awards from the Computing Research Association (CRA) for Outstanding Undergraduate Research in 2023. Selected as a Finalist, Zeyu Shen works on the intersection of algorithms, machine learning, and social science with Kamesh Munagala and Brandon Fain. Also selected as a Finalist, Rui Xin works on interpretable machine learning with an emphasis on sparse models with Cynthia Rudin and Margo Seltzer. Awarded an Honorable Mention, William He works on circuit complexity with Ben… read more about Duke CS Students Win 2023 CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Research Awards »
By Brian Hayes How many passengers can the nation’s airlines carry between all the pairs of cities they connect? How many gigabits of data can pass through the optical fibers that make up the backbone of the Internet? How much electricity can the power grid transmit from generating stations to customers? From the point of view of theoretical computer science, these questions can all be seen as variations on a single problem known as all-pairs max-flow, or APMF. The computational challenge of APMF… read more about Go with the Flow: Panigrahi and Colleagues Break Through a 60-Year-Old Bottleneck in Max-Flow Problems »
Duke CS faculty (including Kartik Nayak, Xiaowei Yang, and Fan Zhang) and students had 5 research papers at the recent flagship ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS) Nov. 7-11. Michael Reiter and collaborators won the 2012 Test-of-Time Paper Award, and Bruce Maggs and collaborators won the Best Paper Honorable Mention. Ashwin Machanavajjhala and Neil Gong served as Program Committee… read more about Duke CS at ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS) »
Duke CS-Economics double major Qi Xuan Koo won a Rhodes Scholarship, based on high academic achievement, personal integrity, and leadership potential. A Karsh International Scholar from Malaysia, Khoo researched developing ML predictive models for COVID infection based on wearables data, assisted professors investigating US Medicare fraud, analyzed county COVID-19 policies, and built an NC data pipeline for domestic violence shelters while at Duke. He's also a Woodman Scholar at Duke Economic Analytics Lab and an Arete… read more about Duke CS-Economics Major Qi Xuan Koo Wins a Rhodes Scholarship »
By Glenn McDonald Duke Computer Science assistant professor Pardis Emami-Naeini has a straightforward mission in her professional life – straightforward but not easy. She’s dedicated her career to making meaningful improvements in privacy and security for everyday computer users. That is to say, for pretty much everyone on the planet. “My research area is at the intersection of human computer interaction and security and privacy,” Emami-Naeini says. “I… read more about Pardis Emami-Naeini: Dedicated to the Human Aspect of Privacy and Security »
Bruce Donald, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and professor in biochemistry and colleagues developed RESISTOR, an algorithm that uses protein structure-based computational design to predict how mutations in enzymes will affect a drug’s efficacy, especially when treating cancer. Cancer tumors often develop resistance to treatment, but this algorithm can predict those resistance mutations in advance, which could lead to better drug development and treatment plans. read more about Bruce Donald: Fighting Cancer with Algorithms »
Opportunities for three postdoctoral scholars could impact hundreds thanks to a new postdoctoral fellowship program led by Nicki Washington, professor of the practice of Computer Science and Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, Shaundra Daily, professor of practice of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Sociology. The three faculty were already collaborators on the NSF-funded Alliance for Identity-Inclusive Computing Education (… read more about Duke Team Awarded $1.25 Million to Create New Identity-Inclusive Postdoc Program »
By Glenn McDonald Data is everywhere. In the modern digitized world, data powers virtually every endeavor and transaction — from car loans to medical diagnoses to interstellar imaging. Data science, as such, is necessarily a deep and interdisciplinary field of study. Dr. Jian Pei, Professor and now chair of Duke's department of Computer Science in 2023, has dedicated his professional life to advancing the science of data… read more about Jian Pei: Working to Bring Equity and Efficiency to the Practical Applications of Data Science »
Duke CS and Biochemistry Associate Professor Alberto Bartesaghi and a research team including partners from the Duke Human Vaccine Institute (DHVI) received a federal grant of >$27M over 5 years from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Dr. Bartesaghi co-directs the Structural Biology Core at the newly formed Duke Center for HIV Structural Biology (DCHSB), leading the development of computational techniques to enable the visualization of dynamic HIV-antibody… read more about Alberto Bartesaghi and Research Team Awarded Federal Grant to Build Structural Models of HIV »