Chair’s MessageAS WE CELEBRATE THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OFTHE FOUNDING OF THE DEPARTMENT OFCOMPUTER AND INFORMATION SCIENCES (CIS)—one of the nation’s oldest—our initiatives toexpand research and education are bearing fruitas we push toward the next level of excellence.

We are excited about our new faculty members,including Anduo Wang and Qian Zhen (profiled onpage 2), and our growing number of students. Thisyear’s 817 undergraduate majors represent a 16percent increase over last year, and we havenearly 100 graduate students. Meanwhile, bothfaculty and students continue to enjoy ourbeautiful, spacious facilities in the ScienceEducation and Research Center (SERC), whichopened in September 2014.

This also has been a robust year for researchgrants (see page 3). New grants have alreadyexceeded $4 million and our grant applicationshave increased 35 percent.

Please browse the entire CIS website,cis.temple.edu. You will find many exciting CISevents, including the Future of Computingcompetition, our distinguished lecture series anddepartment colloquia. You will also see howcommitted we are to making CIS the new center ofexcellence in computer and information sciencesin the Greater Philadelphia area.

Please visit us.

Sincerely,

Jie WuLaura H. Carnell Professor and Chair,Department of Computer & Information Sciences

cis.temple.edu

CISUPDATEWINTER 2016

College of Science and Technology

Computer and Information Sciences

CIS celebrates50th anniversaryThe Computer & Information SciencesDepartment at Temple University, one ofthe nation’s oldest computer sciencedepartments, is celebrating its 50thanniversary this year. On November 19,CIS hosted an open house in its newhome in the Science Education andResearch Center (SERC), which includedstudent poster presentations anddiscussions on the department's earlyyears and impact in the field.

CIS is currently ranked among the top 150 programs, according to the 2015Academic Ranking of World Universities, with NSF grants totally $8 million this year.

Also on November 19, more than 110 faculty, alumni and friends celebrated theanniversary at a dinner in SERC's soaring two-story lobby. Speaker's includedMichael L. Klein, FRS, dean of the College of Science and Technology and LauraH. Carnell Professor of Science, Jie Wu, Laura H. Carnell Professor and CISchairman, and Temple University alumnus Steven Petchon, FOX '80, a strongsupporter of the department.

Former CIS department chairs Frank Friedman and Leonard Garrett and CISalumnus Joseph Tait, FOX ’82 also spoke.

CIS Chair Jie Wu

CIS alumni Gary Rosner '83 and David Horvath '85at 50th anniversary celebration

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STUDENT PROFILENSF grant fosters undergraduateresearch in mobile and cloudcomputingThe CIS Department earlier this year received a three-year, $350,000National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) grant to catalyze research and infrastructure capabilities in orderto enrich undergraduate students’ research experiences. Jie Wu,department chair, is the principal investigator; Associate ProfessorAvinash Srinivasan is the co-PI.

The grant will enable students majoring in computer science and relateddisciplines to investigate state-of-the-art research topics in mobile andcloud computing.

CIS welcomes 2 distinguishedprofessorsAnduo Wang, Assistant ProfessorAnduo Wang’s research is in the area of formal verification withapplications in a wide range of computer systems, especially in the sub-area of software-defined networking. Wang received her PhD degreefrom University of Pennsylvania in 2013 and has since worked as apostdoctoral fellow in the Department of Computer Science, Universityof Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Wang has more than a dozen publications in respected journals.

Qiang Zeng, Assistant ProfessorQiang Zeng’s main research interest is softwaresecurity, with a focus on intrusion detection,diagnosis and automated response. During aresearch internship at NEC Labs in fall 2012 andspring 2013, Qiang worked on a softwareengineering project called DeltaPath. DeltaPathwas accepted by the 2014 InternationalSymposium on Code Generation andOptimization, which is a premier conference incode generation and optimization.

Zeng received his PhD in 2014 from Pennsylvania State University.

New non-tenure-track faculty join CISCIS is welcoming six new non-tenure-track faculty members: EdwardCrotty (University of Pennsylvania), Joseph Jupin (Temple University),Xiuqi Li (Florida Atlantic University), Shahram Mohrehkesh (OldDominion University), Athanasia Polychronopoulou (TempleUniversity) and Charles Wang (Wayne State University).

In addition, Md Zakirul Alam Bhuiyan—who recently completed apostdoctoral fellowship at Central South University in Changsha,China—has joined CIS as a research assistant professor. His researchfocuses on cyber physical systems, wireless sensor networkapplications, fault-tolerance and reliability, and sensor-cloudcomputing. With these new additions to the department, we hope toenrich the already vibrant learning community established here bybringing students and scholars together.

IST master’s degree studentRebecca FernandezRebecca Fernandez isa newly admittedmaster’s degreestudent ininformation science& technology for theupcoming springsemester. Fernandez,a Miami native whotwo years ago earneda BS in psychologyfrom FloridaInternationalUniversity, originallyplanned to pursue aPhD in clinicalpsychology with aninterest inpsychometrics.

However, her experiences in her psychology lab andher enjoyment of statistical psychology stoked an interestin creating systems, coding and programming. “Codingis like writing an essay or a research paper,” she says.“It’s a creative process that comes naturally to me.

After graduation she moved to Philadelphia for thechance to be in an area with larger businesses that havegreater needs for programmers. She immediately begantaking information science pre-requisite courses atTemple in data structures and discrete math.

With the help of Rose McGinnis, the College of Scienceand Technology’s director of career services, during thesummer of 2014 Fernandez also obtained a paidinternship at Tokio Marine North America Services inBala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania—where she continues towork as a middleware and application support intern.“They’ve been very supportive, answering questionsabout what I’ve learned in school to their enterprise andencouraging me to return to them after I complete mydegree,” she says.

That kind of practical opportunity is one of thereasons she is so pleased with CST and the CISDepartment. “The thing I appreciate most about Templeis how invested the CIS Department is in helping itsstudents,” she says.

She also appreciates the professors and administratorsshe has encountered: “They are eager to instruct as wellas get involved with, engage and challenge each student,both in and out of the classroom. That includes makingsure we understand instructional material or helping uswith our research.

“I like the fact that we aren’t just presented withtextbook scenarios,” she adds. “Instead, we arechallenged with problems that we can’t prepare for aheadof time—which mimics real-world scenarios.”

Fernandez is also the community service officer forTemple’s ACM chapter. “I like being able to use my skillsto assist the CIS community,” she says.

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Using 3-D cameras and high-speedbroadband to enhance public safety

FACULTY NOTES

Professor XIAOJIANG DU served as the lead chair of theCommunication and Information Security Symposium at IEEE ICC inJune in London, England; also as a chair of the Mobile and WirelessNetworks Track at IEEE WCNC 2015 in March in New Orleans,Louisiana.

Professor ZORAN OBRADOVIC was elected chair of SIAM ActivityGroup on Data Mining and Analytics (SIAG/DMA). He was alsoelected a member of Academia Europea.

Instructor CLAUDIA PINE-SIMON earned the 2015 CST Dean'sDistinguished Excellence in Mentoring Award.

Professor JIE WU was appointed associate vice provost forinternational affairs. He was also appointed to serve in theNominations and Elections Committee of the IEEE CommunicationSociety.

Professors JIE WU and KRISHNA KANT served as symposium chairand program chair, respectively, at the 3rd International Symposiumon Resilient Communication Systems held Aug. 18-20 inPhiladelphia.

CIS Funded Research, New ExternalGrants July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2015

CIS' 23 NSF grants total nearly $8 million

Xiaojiang Du• Air Force Weather Mobile Application, Kalos Technologies Inc.

• A Test-Bed of Secure Mobile Cloud Computing for MilitaryApplications, U.S. Army RDECOM Acquisition Center

Eduard Dragut and Yuhong Gao• BIGDATA: Collaborative Research: Streaming Architecture for

Continuous Entity Linking in Social Media, NSF

Yuhong Guo• Improving Multi-Label Classifiers by Learning Output

Representations, NSF

Krishna Kant• I/UCRC Phase II, Center of Intelligent Storage, NSF

• Dynamic Evolution of Smart- Phone Based EmergencyCommunications Network, NSF

Haibin Ling• SCH: EXP: Cost Efficient Osteoporosis Analysis Using Dental Data,NSF

• Evaluation of High Performance Computing Enabled Multiple-Target Tracking Based on Massive Parallelism for UrbanSurveillance Areas, NSF

Yuan Shi• I-Corps: Growshare.net – An Urban Revitalization Civic Service,NSF

Jie Wu• EAGER: US Ignite: Mobility-Enhanced Public Safety Surveillance

System Using 3D Cameras and High Speed Broadband Networks,NSF

• REU Site: Enhancing Undergraduate Experience in Mobile CloudComputing, NSF

Most camera-based surveillance systems are static, providinglaw enforcement with limited flexibility. They also do notoperate effectively when visibility is poor, such as at night or ininclement weather. But now, thanks to a National ScienceFoundation-funded grant, CIS researchers are developing amobile surveillance camera system that will provide policeofficers with enhanced viewing capabilities.

Led by Jie Wu, Laura H. Carnell Professor and chair of CIS, theresearchers are developing algorithms that allow for theintegration of mobile 3-D cameras with cloud-based computingvia wireless, high-speed broadband networks. Law enforcementwill have more flexibility in deploying the cameras, as well asaccess to enhanced video and vital information such as facialrecognition.

During the two-year pilot program, the researchers will field-test their new system on Temple Police vehicles. The systemallows officers to take the cameras where they are most needed,said Wu. In addition to Wu, the team includes Professor EugeneKwatny and Assistant Professors Chiu Tan and Haibin Ling.

“Temple Campus Safety Services operates 500 cameras across itsMain Campus, but those cameras are mounted on buildings andpoles and at other stationary positions,” said Wu. “We want tomake the 3-D cameras more mobile.”

The video from the police cameras streams back to the policedispatch using a combination of WiMAX, a next-generationwireless network, and WiFi. Wu is currently developing anexperimental WiMAX wireless network in downtownPhiladelphia, in collaboration with Drexel University, throughanother NSF grant.

Temple’s high-performance computing cluster known as Owl’sNest uses the researchers’ algorithms to immediately analyzethe enhanced video from the 3-D cameras to provide the policewith information. Wu said the researchers also hope to provideofficers with some computational abilities in the police car vialaptop computers that will allow for quick analysis of apotential emergency situation.

CIS Chair Jie Wu (second from left) with students (left to right) PengpengLiang, Semir Elezovikj and Joshua Daniel Lloret

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College of Science and Technology1803 N. Broad Street400 Carnell HallPhiladelphia, PA 19122

Non ProfitOrganizationU.S. Postage

PAIDPhiladelphia, PAPermit No. 1044

For more news, go to cis.temple.edu

CIS offers two newcertificate programs inprogramming and digitalforensics securityThe CIS Department is pleased to announce the availability of two newcertificate programs. Both consist of onlythree courses and will provide additionaljob-market opportunities for studentsmajoring in CIS and other related majors as well as working professionals. 

The Certificate in Programming provides an opportunity for non-CIS students togain skills and experience in programmingand databases, making them moreadaptable for opportunities in ourtechnologically-driven world. TheCertificate in Computer Security in DigitalForensics enables CIS students tosupplement their coursework withadditional focus in the security arena.

Distinguished LectureSeriesTo celebrate the 50th anniversary of thefounding of the Computer & InformationSciences Department, CIS is staging aDistinguished Lecture Series.

Speakers so far have included Jim Kurose,National Science Foundation, on “AnExpanding and Expansive View ofComputing,” Mark Snir, University ofIllinois at Urbana-Champaign, on“Supercomputing—the Next Ten Years”and Jose Joaquin Garcia-Luna-Aceves,"New Directions in Content CentricNetworking.”

Upcoming lectures include BarbaraLiskov, MIT, in March 2016.

For more information, please go tocis.temple.edu.

9 CIS students attend Grace Hopper Women in Computing Celebration Scholarship recipients (and their sponsors) whoattended the 2015 Grace Hopper Women inComputing Celebration in Houston, Texas, inmid-October included:

• CIS Grace Hopper Scholars: ElizabethWeissman, Chelsea Simek and SwatiShrivastava

• Grace Hopper Faculty Scholarship: InstructorClaudia Pine-Simon

• Vanguard: Pallavi Koturu and Melissa Martin

• OwlCrowd funding: Robyn McCue, TraceyHarrison, Mckenzie Xian Orion and RachelTritsch.

Supporting the nextgenerationSteven Petchon, FOX ’80, has endowed twomajor gifts to the CIS Department. ThePetchon Family Computer and InformationSciences Endowed Scholarship Fundprovides a $6,000 scholarship each year to adeserving undergraduate CIS major. TheSteven B. Petchon Endowment SupportingStudent ACM Involvement supportsstudents’ attendance at Association forComputing Machinery events.

In addition, endowed professorships bringtop researchers to the College of Scienceand Technology. To support outstandingfaculty, CST has launched a $1 millioncampaign to fund two endowed termprofessorships. Learn how you can supportCST faculty at http://cst.temple.edu/giving/professorship-challenge.

For more information, contact John Walker,CST Associate Vice Dean, at 215-204-8176.

CIS students at Grace Hopper Conference (l to r): Melissa Martin, Tracey Harrison, CIS InstructorClaudia Pine-Simon, Chelsea Simek, Swati Shrivastava, Elizabeth Weissman, Mackenzie Xian OrianCunningham, Robyn McCue

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