Congratulations to the Masters Class of 2017, and MPhil student Yunjia Wang, who graduated last week. Each year, students are invited to a reception in Computer Science, to celebrate their achievement and reflect on their time in the School.
Our graduates move on to a wide variety of interesting and challenging employment and further study opportunities, and we wish them all well with their future careers.
Congratulations to David Castro, who successfully defended his thesis today. David’s thesis was supervised by Professor Kevin Hammond. He is pictured with Internal examiner, Dr Edwin Brady and external examiner Professor Graham Hutton, from the University of Nottingham.
Congratulations to Adam Barwell, who successfully defended his thesis yesterday. Adam’s thesis was supervised by Professor Kevin Hammond. He is pictured with second supervisor Dr Christopher Brown, Internal examiner Dr Susmit Sarkar and external examiner Professor Susan Eisenbach from Imperial College, London.
Congratulations to our student representatives for 2017/8, elected by their peers last month. Our Reps are integral to the proactive communication channel between staff and the students and also chair and run the Staff-Student Consultative Committee (SSCC) held each semester within the School.
The reps are pictured outside the Jack Cole Building, after this semester’s SSCC meeting and are (from left to right)
Image courtesy of Ula Rustamova
The iVoLVER system, created by Gonzalo Méndez and Miguel Nacenta from the SACHI group at the School of Computer Science, University of St Andrews, received Best Demo Jury Award at the ACM Interactive Surfaces and Spaces (ACM ISS) conference last week.
ACM ISS 2017, took place in Brighton, UK and selects a different location each year, with Tokyo, Japan selected as next year’s destination. The conference is a premier venue for research that studies how people interact in smart spaces and surfaces and how to design and engineer solutions for novel interfaces.
iVoLVER is a web-based visual programming environment that enables anyone to transform visualizations that they find in-the-wild (e.g., in a poster or a newspaper) into new visualizations that are more useful for them. Congratulations to the iVoLVER team. You can try out the open source iVoLVER prototype using a browser.
An example iVoLVER interface
Best Demo Jury Award
Following on from a successful visit last year, J.P. Morgan returned to the School of Computer Science last week, to promote tech careers, internships and other student opportunities.
Staff from the company and CS students are pictured viewing project challenges and their solutions highlighted in their technology showcase whilst discussing future career openings and enjoying the complimentary pizza.
J.P. Morgan is a popular destination for our graduates demonstrated by four Alumni (Maria McParland, Nada Kartouch, Conner Somerville and Peter Cockroft) who were part of the team representing the company at the successful event.
Congratulations to Martin McCaffery, who successfully defended his thesis today. He is pictured with supervisor Dr Mark-Jan Nederhof, Internal examiner Dr Graham Kirby and external examiner Dr Maja Popović from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
Postgraduate students, led by Paul Dobra, organised the first ever CS Ball in August. The celebration coincided with finishing summer dissertations and the annual poster and demo session. The school sponsored Smurfalicious Blue Ball proved very popular and sold out of tickets earlier in August. The theme was blue and the location was The old Manor Hotel, in Lundin Links. The evening comprised of champagne, dinner and a Ceilidh till midnight. Students are pictured enjoying the 3 course dinner and fully embracing the spirit of a Cèilidh. We look forward to seeing them at December Graduation.
Images courtesy of Paul Dobra, Ula Rustamova, Nick Tikhonov, and Xu Zhu.
– Main Organisers: Paul Dobra & Shyam Reyal
– Promotion (online): Yin Noe, Nouchali Reyal
– Promotion (offline): Gillian Baird, Fiona George, Midhat Un Nisa
– Material Design: Yin Noe
– Photography: Ula Rustamova and Nick Tikhonov
– Decorations: Fiona George, Midhat Un Nisa, Anke Shi, Masha Nedjalkova, Sihan Li
– Electronics / Multimedia / Drone: Xu Zhu
– Music for Disco: Blair Fyfe
Professor Ursula Martin CBE FREng FRSE joined the University of Oxford as Professor of Computer Science in 2014, and is a member of the Mathematical Institute. She holds an EPSRC Established Career Fellowship, and a Senior Research Fellowship at Wadham College. Her research, initially in algebra, logic and the use of computers to create mathematical proofs, now focuses on wider social and cultural approaches to understanding the success and impact of current and historical computer science research.
Prof Ursula Martin
Timetable:
9.30 Introduction
9.35 Lecture 1: The early history of computing: Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage, and the history of programming
10.35 Break with Refreshments Provided
11.15 Lecture 2: Case study, Alan Turing, Grace Hopper, and the history of getting things right
12.15 Lunch (not provided)
2.30 Welcome by the Principal, Prof Sally Mapstone
2.35 Lecture 3: What do historians of computing do, and why is it important for computer scientists today
3.30 Close
After a year of hard work, and an intensive summer dissertation, our MSc students submitted their dissertations last week and presented their project posters and artefacts.
The eventful poster demonstration session provides a great opportunity for students to meet with second markers, reflect upon their MSc experience and appreciate the diverse projects completed by their peers. This year, students organised a School sponsored CS Ball, to celebrate their achievement.
We wish them all, every success with future plans, and look forward to seeing them again at December Graduation.
Images courtesy of Saleem Bhatti and Xu Zhu.
