News

PhD Scholarship in Data Science

Potential PhD students with a strong background in Computer Science are encouraged to apply for this three-year studentship funded by the Research Council of the European Commission (ERC). The student will work within an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Computer Science and Geography in the WORKANDHOME project (ERC Starting Grant 2014), which investigates how home-based businesses are shaping society and space.

The student will examine the Computer Science challenges within this research project. The exact scope of the PhD project is open to discussion but we anticipate that the successful candidate will be working broadly on Data Science topics, potentially covering one or more of the following areas: cloud computing, social network analysis and agent-based modelling. This is a unique opportunity to work at the cutting edge of systems research. Come join us in St Andrews.

Funding Notes: The studentship will cover UK/EU tuition fees and an annual tax-free stipend of approximately £13,000. Funding will be for three years of full-time study, starting asap.

Applications: It is expected that applicants should have or expect to obtain a UK first-class honours degree (or its equivalent from non-UK institutions) in Computer Science but the minimal standard that we will consider is a UK upper-second class Honours degree or its equivalent.

For further information on how to apply, see our postgraduate web pages. All interested candidates should contact Dr Adam Barker in the first instance to discuss your eligibility for the scholarship and a proposal for research.

Scott Lang Dinner 2015

Peter Redford Scott Lang (1850-1926) was a Professor of Mathematics at St Andrews University from 1879 until his retirement in 1921. He had studied at Edinburgh University, and taught there before being appointed to St Andrews. Having seen the “ordinary student fare of the mid nineteenth century and menus of term time dinners” he instigated the institution of ‘Common Dinners’ in the 1880s.

Scott Lang dinner 2015

Scott Lang dinner 2015

The original purpose of the dinners was to enable students to have a “decent and varied diet,” but ended up meaning much more than that to some.  In 1926, L.J.D. Gibson wrote this about the dinners:

The Common Dinners were of the greatest service in the bringing the men together … Modern St Andrews owes a great debt to Professor Lang … was so invaluable in fostering the social life of the university.
Ruth Hoffmann, Viktoriya Anisimova, Gala Malbasic, Cameron Wright and Steve Linton (HOS)

Computer Scientists: Ruth Hoffmann, Viktoriya Anisimova, Gala Malbasic, Cameron Wright and Steve Linton (HOS)

The lavish common dinners fell out of favour during the war period and have only been recently reintroduced to St Andrews. In 2015 the dinner was held on the 14th April in Lower College Hall. The dinner is designed to encourage interaction across interests in all areas of the University community and is open to all staff and students.
Aleksejs Sazonovs (school president), Ruth Hoffman, Keno Schwalb, Aaron Quigley (DoR) and Cameron Wright

Aleksejs Sazonovs (school president), Ruth Hoffman, Aaron Quigley (DoR), Keno Schwalb and Cameron Wright

In 2015, the School of Computer Science invited its class representatives and student president to dine with the head of school, Professor Steve Linton and Director of Research, Professor Aaron Quigley at the annual Scott Lang Dinner. This was to thank the students for their service to their fellow students, the school and to the University. Everyone had a wonderful evening and it was a great opportunity to learn more about each other outside the school. We hope this is the start of a new and long lasting tradition for our staff and students.

Thanks to Xu Zhu who also attended for the images (CC by-SA 3.0 license).

Graham Kirby: Excellence in Teaching Award

We congratulate our Director of Teaching Dr Graham Kirby on being rewarded for championing ‘learning by doing’ at The University Teaching Awards held in Parliament Hall.

The School is rated highly for student satisfaction, which echoes the great teaching and strong student staff community sustained here in Computer Science. Graham is pictured below participating in some recent School activities.

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Images courtesy of me (apologies in advance).

€4.2M ParaPhrase Project Concludes

The impressive ParaPhrase project which commenced in October 2011, brought together a world-leading team of academic and industrial experts to improve the programmability and performance of modern parallel computing technologies. The consortium consisted of 7 academic and 3 industrial partners from 6 countries and was coordinated by Prof. Kevin Hammond here in the School of Computer Science .

The project has produced over 80 publications in leading international conferences and journals and has been demonstrated at over 100 international conferences and other events, as well as producing a range of new software tools and programming standards.

Prof Hammond described ParaPhrase as a tremendous success but highlighted that significant challenges remain. In the future, parallel programs will need to self-adapt to computing architectures we haven’t even thought of yet.

Read the full article in the University news.

April in Computer Science: Poster Presentations and World Domination

The Senior Honours students presented their posters and final year software artifacts to staff and students last week. The best poster accolade and associated amazon voucher was presented to Callum Hyland for his poster – Android: Smoking Cessation, behavioural pattern prediction through spatial and temporal modelling. We wish them well with exam revision and look forward to seeing them at June graduation.

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The Junior Honours students finalised their team projects last Friday and competed for world domination. This year the project involved implementing a multi-player peer-to-peer world domination game, with AI. We await news of which team dominated the CS world for a time on Friday.

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Images courtesy of Lisa Dow and Simone Conte

Computer Science Distinguished Lectures 2015

Earlier this month Prof. Mothy Roscoe from ETH Zürich delivered the first set of distinguished lectures for 2015 in the Byre Theatre. The three highly accessible, well attended and engaging lectures centred around the question “What’s happening to computer hardware, and what does it mean for systems software?”

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Images courtesy of Saleem Bhatti

DVF: Professor David Kaufman

Professor David Kaufman of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver will be visiting the School between May 7th and May 21st.
Prof. Kaufman is a world leading expert on Computer Supported Education, Educational Technologies and Digital StoryTelling.
See: http://www.sfu.ca/education/faculty-profiles/dkaufman.html

He will be hosted by Ishbel and working with the Virtual Worlds research group. Prof. Kaufman will be giving several talks and workshops across Scotland.

The schedule is:
1.In Stirling on Tuesday 12th at 11am in 4B108 Cottrell Building, Prof. Kaufman will be talking about Digital Games and Simulations in HE

2. On Thursday 14th at 11am at GCU, in the George Moore Building, M625, 11am he will also be talking about Digital Games and Simulations in HE

3. On Monday 18th in Abertay, at 11am in rm 2521, he will discuss Ageing Well : Can Digital games help older adults.

4. He will be in Edinburgh on May 15th if anyone wishes to meet up with him that day.

UG short internships

Short term Virtual Worlds internships are available for students wishing to work with Alan Miller on virtual museums or with Ishbel Duncan, Janie Brooks (ELT) and Paula Miles (Psychology) on the Virtual St Andrews project.
Each project has 60 hours notational funding attached (£50 per 6 hours).
Please contact Alan or Ishbel in the first instance.

Short UG internship: Athena Swan repository

A required project for the SICSA Athena SWAN initiative is to create a repository (website, resource centre, database of statistics) for the SICSA universities ASWAN submissions. The Athena SWAN awards are to do with encouraging more women into the CS area from schools up to senior staff. This work will help CS Schools gather statistics on student numbers and staff numbers as well as good practice events, talks or resources. A notional £500 is associated with the work, 60 hours work.

Please contact Ishbel if you are interested.