Distinguished Lecture Series 2016: Prof. Julie McCann

Earlier this month Professor Julie McCann from Imperial College London, delivered the next set of distinguished lectures for 2016, in Lower and Upper College Hall. The three topical, well attended and interesting lectures centred around Distributed Systems and Sensing and discussed how sensor networks are being used today, how other sciences will impact the research area, how such systems are programmed and finished by introducing ongoing challenges in terms of scalability, resilience and security.

Professor McCann is pictured below at various stages of the distinguished lecture series, and with Director of Research, Professor Simon Dobson and Dean of Science, Professor Alan Dearle.

Videos from the DLS can be accessed on Vimeo –
Lecture 1: https://vimeo.com/192134381
Lecture 2: https://vimeo.com/192135351
Lecture 3: https://vimeo.com/192137007

Images courtesy of Saleem Bhatti

Ae fond farewell: Judi Robertson

The School hosted a farewell reception for Judi Robertson last month. Judi worked in the School for 8 years, and made a great contribution to making the School such a friendly and supportive place to work and study. She is pictured below, receiving flowers and leaving gifts, and drinking a glass of fizz. We wish her well in her new job in Edinburgh.

PhD Viva success: Bilal Hussain

Congratulations to Bilal Hussain, who successfully defended his thesis today. He is pictured below with supervisor Professor Ian Miguel, Internal examiner Professor Simon Dobson and external examiner Dr Peter Gregory, from Teesside University.

Children in Need 2016

Event details

When: 18th November 2016 10:30
Where: Cole Coffee Area

Best poster award: Sidetap and Slingshot Gestures on Unmodified Smartwatches

Congratulations to Hui-Shyong Yeo, Professor Aaron Quigley and colleagues, who won best poster at UIST2016.

Their paper Sidetap and Slingshot Gestures on Unmodified Smartwatches, is available through the ACM digital library.

Royal Television Society Bursary: Henry Hargreaves

Congratulations to Henry, one of our second year students, who secured a Royal Television Society bursary. The bursary scheme is supported by a cross industry panel with senior representatives from Arqiva, BBC, BT, Channel 4, Fujitsu, Ericsson, Institute of Engineering Technology, ITV, Sky and Youview.

The new venture for the Royal Television Society, is intended to start to address a skills gap and attract some talented young people on top computer science or engineering courses to consider the option of a career in the broadcast industry. Further details of the scheme can be found here: https://rts.org.uk/education-training/technology-bursaries

Bursary recipients attend a two-week summer tour of the industry, spending a day in each of the 10 companies backing the scheme. A financial award per year for the three years of the bursary, membership of the Royal Television Society and mentoring or placements in their final year of study.

As an R.T.S Bursary recipient, Henry explained that he has not only benefited financially; helping towards my course at St Andrews but it has introduced him to career opportunities within the TV industry.

“I have gained a useful insight by participating in a range of activities organised by the RTS. These have really opened my eyes to how Computer Science plays a vital role in broadcasting, which I was previously, unaware of.”

RadarCat presented at UIST2016

SACHI research project RadarCat (Radar Categorization for Input & Interaction), highlighted earlier this year in the University news, the Courier and Gizmodo and in a Google I/O ATAP 2016 session, will be presented at UIST2016 this week.

RadarCat is a small, versatile radar-based system for material and object classification which enables new forms of everyday proximate interaction with digital devices. SACHI’s contribution to Project Soli featured in a previous blog post SACHI contribute to Google’s Project Soli, in May. Read more about RadarCat for object recognition on the SACHI blog.

Google’s Project Soli workshop in March 2016

Computer Science hosts Hack the Bubble

Earlier this month the School hosted hack the Bubble, a 12-hour hackathon organized by STACS, the St Andrews Computing Society and sponsored by J.P. Morgan. Hackathons are great events for teams of students to build projects from scratch and compete for awesome prizes.

The main aim of this event was to show our first and second year students what a hackathon is in a more accessible 12-hour format instead of the traditional 24 or 48 hour ones. The event was a great success with 70 students participating and 15 teams presenting their projects at the end.

This event wouldn’t have been possible without the help of the School of Computer Science for providing the venue, and sponsors J.P. Morgan for the food and prizes.

Hack the Bubble October 2016

Images and text courtesy of STACS.

PhD Viva success: Oche Ejembi

Congratulations to Oche Ejembi who successfully defended his thesis today. He is pictured below with supervisor Professor Saleem Bhatti, internal examiner Dr Tom Kelsey and external examiner Dr Marwan Fayed from Stirling University.

Computer Science hosts J.P. Morgan

Earlier this month, J.P. Morgan visited the School of Computer Science, to highlight tech careers, internships and other student opportunities. Staff from the company and CS students are pictured viewing project challenges and solutions through their technology showcase, discussing future career openings and enjoying pizza.

Computer Science Blog