Congratulations to Jan, who successfully defended his thesis today. He is pictured below celebrating with supervisor Dr Ishbel Duncan and internal examiner Dr Juiliana Bowles. Dr Shamal Faily from Bournemouth University acted as external examiner.
Pictures
Worldwide Cancer Research: Charity Bake Sale
In 10 weeks time Alex Bain will be running the London Marathon for worldwide cancer research. As part of the fundraising he is having a charity bake sale in the school common area in the Jack Cole building today.
He has raised in excess of £325 so far. Help reward his training and support his fundraising, whilst sampling some of the delicious baking alternatively you can make a donation on justgiving.
Welcome to new Staff and Students
We are delighted to introduce the latest members of staff and research students to the school.
Dr Bo Chen:
Dr. Chen is an Associate Professor in the School of Information and Software Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC, http://www.uestc.edu.cn). He is oriented by Dr. Adam Barker now as a 
Visiting Scholar till February, 2017. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2008 from UESTC. His major research areas include: 1) Rough Set and Soft Computing 2) Data-intensive Computing Software Infrastructure 3) Data Science and Inter-disciplinary Applications. Dr. Chen has substantial industrial backgrounds. Before join UESTC, he served as software engineer and senior consultant for middleware vendors Tongtech and BEA. He PI and Co-PI-ed some Chinese national granted projects for service oriented software platform in modern service fulfilling and international e-trading. He serves as an expert panel member of China Ministry of Science and Technology, for China State Sci- Tech Support Program and Torch Program. He is also a deputy sectary and expert panel member of Innovation Technology Alliance for Electronic Trade Industry (http://www.etrades.cn), led by China Ministry of Commerce. For more information, please check out his UESTC faculty webpage http://www.is.uestc.edu.cn/teachers.do?id=1061.
Dr Roushanak Rahmat:
Roushanak is a Research Fellow in the School of Computer Science at the University of St. Andrews working on WORKANDHOME project with Dr Adam Barker.
Her research interests include mobile app design, cloud computing, image/signal processing and medical image analysis.
Dawand Sulaiman:
I earned my master’s degree in Software Engineering in the Department of Computer Science at the University of St Andrews (Academic Year: 2011/12) and received a medal for the best dissertation in the programme. Prior to that, I gained my BSc degree in Applied Computing in Ming Chuan University in Taiwan. For the last three years, I was in my hometown and worked as an instructor in the University of Kurdistan Hêwler and taught several modules including: Problem Solving Techniques, Data Structures and Algorithms, Object Oriented Programming, and Web Technologies. Meanwhile, I developed and distributed more than 30 mobile apps for both iOS and Android platforms.
I have started my PhD under the supervision of Adam Barker in January 2016. I will be working alongside an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Computer Science and Geography in the WORKANDHOME project, which investigates how home-based businesses are shaping society and space.
Guilherme Carneiro:
My name is Guilherme Carneiro, I am from Brazil. I hold a BSc in Computer Science with a specialization in So
ftware Engineering. I have some experience in industry where I spent few years working at IBM with production databases of American customers. In 2013, I returned to academia to receive training in research with a Master in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) at Paris-Sud University in France. Before coming to St. Andrews, I worked for 6 months as a Research intern at INRIA (the French National Institute for computer science and applied mathematics).
I am starting my PhD under the supervision of Prof. Aaron Quigley and Dr. Miguel Nacenta in SACHI. My research topic is focused on collaborative information visualization to facilitate group decision making in real-time. My PhD is currently funded by CNPq and the Brazilian government through the Science Without Borders program.
I love traveling and visiting new places. I like any sports in general. I also have training in self-defense with a black belt in kung-fu.
Yasir Alguwaifli:
Until now I have been working as a lecturer in computer science, mainly teaching web-related modules. Before joining the academic field, I was a student mainly working in web-related as full-stack developer but sometimes dipping my toes in other areas such as artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and formal-verification.
I have now started my PhD with Professor Kevin Hammond’s team. When I’m not spending my nights looking at code, I usually enjoy playing mmorpgs or watching gaming streams!
School of Computer Science: Distinguished Lecture Series
The School of Computer Science in the University of St Andrews is pleased to announce the next set of Distinguished Lectures (DLS) leading up to the 50th anniversary of the series in 2019.
The next DLS will be delivered by Maria Klawe the president of Harvey Mudd College and former president of the ACM (Association of Computing Machinery) on Thursday March 31st, location to be confirmed.
The well attended Distinguished Lecture Series were initiated by Professor Jack Cole in 1969 with a view to exposing students and other interested parties to leading edge topics in Computer Science.
Professor Jack Cole
All alumni of the school are invited to return and join us in St Andrews for the DLS, and In time we will extend further invitations to the larger 50th Anniversary events in 2019.
Previous Distinguished Lectures held in Lower College Hall and The Byre Theatre
PhD Viva Success: Jakub Dostal
Congratulations to Jakub Dostal, who successfully defended his thesis today. He is pictured below celebrating with supervisor Professor Aaron Quigley, internal examiner Dr Miguel Nacenta and external examiner Dr Keith Cheverst from the University of Lancaster.
PhD Reading Party 2015
The 2015 PhD Reading Party was held at the Burn, a Georgian Mansion at the foot of Glenesk in the North East of Scotland in December last year. It was an opportunity for research students to network, brainstorm and talk about their research and interests with colleagues in a relaxed atmosphere.
There were twenty-two (22) student talks, each of which lasted for up to 10 minutes including time for questions and discussions. Two members of staff – Ruth Letham and Ozgur Akgun – also gave talks, the former on teaching opportunities and career paths and the latter on reproducible research and research streams in academia. At the end of the talks, the staff members provided feedback and facilitated small group brainstorming sessions based on the interests and research themes that emerged.
It wasn’t all work and no play, as the gang explored the scenic landscape, wandered through the nearby woods and streams, and contemplated the complexities of the universe while star-gazing at night. Indoors, the gang played pool, table tennis, darts and cards, and participated in organised activities including a pub quiz (because there’s no such thing as too much trivia knowledge), presentation karaoke (because extemporising is fun and useful) and a host of board games (because why not?).
PhD Reading Party 2015
Images and text courtesy of Adeola Fabola, Haifa Al Nasseri and Shyam Reyal
Graduation November 2015
Congratulations to the Masters Class of 2015, and PhD students Dr Luke Hutton and Dr Chris Schneider who graduated on Monday. Dr Chonlatee Khorakhun graduated in absentia.
Students were invited to a reception in the school to celebrate their achievement with staff, friends and family.
Our graduates have moved on to a wide variety of interesting and challenging employment and further study opportunities, and we wish them all well with their future careers.
Fundraising finale for CompSci swimmers
Congratulations to our Great Scottish CS swimmers who have raised £1,106 for Médecins Sans Frontières. The fundraising page will be closing soon. Any last minute donations can be made through Justgiving.
Daily Record & Bòrd na Gàidhlig Scottish Gaelic Award for Virtual St Kilda
Congratulations to The Open Virtual Worlds group and Virtual St Kilda, which won the Gaelic as an Economic Asset Award at the Daily Record & Bòrd na Gàidhlig Scottish Gaelic Awards 2015. Dr Iain Oliver (left, from Open Virtual Worlds) and Norman MacLeod (middle) are pictured receiving the award on Wednesday evening.
Distinguished Lecture Series 2015: Joe Armstrong
Earlier this week Professor Joe Armstrong from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, delivered the second set of distinguished lectures for 2015, in the Byre Theatre. The three topical, well attended and interesting lectures centred around the question “Scalability and fault-tolerance, are they the same?”
Images courtesy of Saleem Bhatti