PURDUE CS E-NEWS November 2024

News from Purdue University's Department of Computer Science

Computing for contentment: Purdue scientist uses AI to model fairness and maximize the benefits of donated food

Alex Psomas, an expert in training artificial intelligence models to aid in human decision-making, works with a nonprofit food bank to help automate and maximize the benefits of donated food. (Purdue University photo/John Underwood)

Purdue CS Professor Alex Psomas develops AI models for fair decision-making, recently applying them to food distribution in collaboration with the Indy Hunger Network. His system automates donations to food banks, optimizing resource allocation based on need and saving time. This award-winning research is funded by the NSF and Google AI.

New ranking demonstrates Purdue prominence in AI research supercomputing

Walter Gautschi (second from left) and others tour the supercomputer named for him. (Jonathan Poole)

Purdue University’s newest supercomputing community cluster Gautschi has debuted at No. 7 among U.S. universities and in the top third of the world’s most powerful supercomputers listed in the new Top500 list. The ranking was released in Atlanta this week at SC24, an international conference for high-performance computing, networking, storage and analysis.

Purdue CS PhD Candidate Beatrice Bevilacqua Named MIT Rising Star

Beatrice Bevilacqua, MIT Rising Star

Beatrice Bevilacqua, a PhD candidate in computer science at Purdue University, was recently honored as an MIT Rising Star in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (ECCS). Bevilacqua’s work in Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) has attracted attention for its potential to drive progress in the field. Being recognized as a Rising Star, she reflects, is not only an acknowledgment of her achievements but a strong encouragement for her future pursuits in academia.

Build Your Dream Tech Career with Purdue CS Professor Douglas Comer’s Advice

Purdue Professor Douglas Comer

Douglas Comer advises students to view education as career-building, focusing on practical applications and foundational concepts. He emphasizes engaging in independent projects to showcase skills, securing early internships for experience, and building adaptable technical expertise. Instead of chasing trends, he advocates for problem-solving and a strong foundation for lasting success.

A Look Into Innovative and Collaborative Boilermaker Research With Karen Plaut

Karen Plaut, Purdue University’s executive vice president for research

Purdue University fosters innovative research environments across diverse fields, including engineering, health, sustainability, and AI. Karen Plaut highlights the impact of these efforts not only within the academic sphere but also on global challenges, reflecting Purdue's commitment to solving real-world problems. Plaut emphasizes Purdue's strengths in translating research into practical solutions, underscoring its reputation as a leader in both academic rigor and community engagement.

Gautschi community cluster ranks 157 on list of world’s most powerful supercomputers

Professor Walter Gautschi, standing in front of the Gautschi Supercomputer

Purdue University’s newest community cluster Gautschi has debuted at number 157 on the Top500 list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, which was announced this week at SC24, the International Conference for High-Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis, taking place in Atlanta. Gautschi also ranks number 43 on the Green500 list of the most energy-efficient supercomputers in the world.

California's last nuclear plant turns to generative AI for filing and finding the fine print

  • Purdue University's Center for Science of Information (CSI) is partnering with a California startup and using AI at the last nuclear plant in the state for document search and retrieval. 

Purdue University in Indianapolis embraces the future with artificial intelligence degree program

  • Purdue University in Indianapolis is hoping to be a part of the next generation changing the tech landscape with its artificial intelligence degree program.

Purdue assistant professor uses AI technology to help food pantries around Indy

  • Artificial intelligence is being used to make better, more informed choices in food pantries around Indianapolis through the work of assistant professor of computer science Alex Psomas at Purdue University.

AI and genus-conditioned algorithms create precise simulation-ready models of 600,000 existing urban trees

  • "Tree-D Fusion" system developed by researchers at Purdue University, the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), and Google merges AI and tree-growth models with Google's Auto Arborist data to create accurate 3D models of existing urban trees.

AI System Models Urban Trees to Tackle Climate Change

  • AI-based Tree-D Fusion creates 3D models of urban trees, aiding climate adaptation and equity-focused urban forestry management.

Climbing in the rankings

Purdue's undergraduate computer science program has risen two spots in rankings.
As Purdue CS’ undergraduate program climbs to #16 in the nation, we are proud to see our continuous drive for excellence acknowledged,” said Lucy Flesch, Frederick L. Hovde Dean, College of Science.
This achievement is a testament to the dedication of our faculty and the curiosity of our students. Initiatives like Purdue Computes, help to meet the growing demand for expertise in computing, and ensure that we continue to lead in education, research, and innovation.”

Purdue Computes in action: Institute for Physical AI

The Institute of Physical AI will couple scientists from across Purdue who bring interdisciplinary thinking and problem-solving to solve issues at the intersection of AI and a variety of critical functions, such as more efficient pharmaceutical manufacturing, digital forestry and more efficient transportation." - Karen Plaut, Executive Vice President for Research

Leveraging Purdue’s signature strengths in materials science, engineering, microelectronics, computer science, agriculture and life sciences, the Institute for Physical AI (IPAI) is committed to solving the world’s toughest challenges.

PURDUE UNIVERSITY IN INDIANAPOLIS

Announcing our next giant leap: a new extension of our flagship campus bringing the academic rigor and accessible excellence we’re known for to central Indiana.

Fueling a transformational growth, Purdue University’s first comprehensive urban campus will offer unique opportunities for Boilermaker students and faculty. We will expand enrollment. We will build startups. We will create new knowledge. We will connect talents and industry. We will maximize Indy’s unique strengths such as sports and biomedical technology. Purdue campuses now bookend the Hard Tech Corridor: 65 miles connecting Indy and West Lafayette with LEAP Innovation District at the midpoint. We will generate talents, jobs and innovation together in America’s heartland!"

Mung Chiang, President, Purdue University

Science at Purdue University in Indianapolis

Essential understandings of science and lifelong critical thinking skills are developed at Purdue University in Indianapolis’s College of Science. Computational, math and data sciences form the foundation for innovation and thoroughly prepare graduates for careers in dynamic and rapidly changing environments.

Science Majors

Computer Science - Join a legacy of innovation in both advancing scientific research and creating industry applications by learning computing fundamentals.

Artificial Intelligence - Explore the link among cognitive psychology, neuroscience and artificial intelligence — and investigate AI ethics — for a holistic understanding of how to build and understand systems.

Data Science - Discover the intersection of computer science and statistics in a field that uses quantitative and analytical methods to help provide insights and form predictions based on big data.

Nikhil Anand Dhoka, a Purdue computer science and mathematics student in Indianapolis, is set up for success at the intersection of technology and finance. Learn more about his plan.
Sarah Papabathini, a Purdue AI student in Indianapolis, is making a difference in her community every day as a DREAM Alive mentor, an Indy 500 Festival princess, academic researcher and volunteer.

65th IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science 2024

The IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS) is the flagship conference sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on the Mathematical Foundations of Computing (TCMF) and covers a broad range of theoretical computer science. It is held annually in the autumn and is paired with its sister conference, the annual Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC) held each spring and sponsored by ACM SIGACT.

Revisiting Agnostic PAC Learning | Steve Hanneke (Purdue University); Kasper Green Larsen (Aarhus University); Nikita Zhivotovskiy (UC Berkeley)

Ramsey Theorems for Trees and a General ‘Private Learning Implies Online Learning’ Theorem | Simone Fioravanti (Gran Sasso Science Institute); Steve Hanneke (Purdue University); Shay Moran, Hilla Schefler, Iska Tsubari (Technion)

ACM SenSys 2024

The 22nd ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems (SenSys 2024) introduces a highly selective, single-track forum for research on systems issues of sensors and sensor-enabled smart systems, broadly defined. Systems of smart sensors will revolutionize a wide array of application areas by providing an unprecedented density and fidelity of instrumentation. They also present various systems challenges because of resource constraints, uncertainty, irregularity, mobility, and scale. This conference provides an ideal venue to address research challenges facing the design, development, deployment, use, and fundamental limits of these systems.

Towards Efficient Heterogeneous Multi-Modal Federated Learning with Hierarchical Knowledge Disentanglement | Xingchen Wang (Purdue University), Haoyu Wang (Purdue University), Feijie Wu (Purdue University), Tianci Liu (Purdue University), Qiming Cao (Purdue University), Lu Su (Purdue University)

mmCLIP: Boosting mmWave-based Zero-shot HAR via Signal-Text Alignment | Qiming Cao (Purdue University), Hongfei Xue (University of North Carolina at Charlotte), Tianci Liu (Purdue University), Xingchen Wang (Purdue University), Haoyu Wang (Purdue University), Xincheng Zhang (Purdue University), Lu Su (Purdue University)

ACM Computer and Communications Security 2024

The ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS) is the flagship annual conference of the Special Interest Group on Security, Audit and Control (SIGSAC) of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). The conference brings together information security researchers, practitioners, developers, and users from all over the world to explore cutting-edge ideas and results.

Exploiting Temporal Vulnerabilities for Unauthorized Access in Intent-based Networking | Ben Weintraub (Northeastern University), Jiwon Kim (Purdue University), Ran Tao (Georgetown University), Cristina Nita-Rotaru (Northeastern University), Hamed Okhravi (MIT Lincoln Laboratory), Dave (Jing) Tian (Purdue University), Benjamin E. Ujcich (Georgetown University)

Non-interactive VSS using Class Groups and Application to DKG | Aniket Kate (Supra Research / Purdue University), Easwar Mangipudi (Supra Research), Pratyay Mukherjee (Supra Research), Hamza Saleem (Supra Research), Sri Aravinda Krishnan Thyagarajan (NTT Research)

Random Beacons in Monte Carlo: Efficient Asynchronous Random Beacon without Threshold Cryptography | Akhil Bandarupalli (Purdue University), Adithya Bhat (Visa Research), Saurabh Bagchi (Purdue University), Aniket Kate (Purdue University / Supra Research), Michael K. Reiter (Duke University)

ReSym: Harnessing LLMs to Recover Variable and Data Structure Symbols from Stripped Binaries |Danning Xie (Purdue University), Zhuo Zhang (Purdue University), Nan Jiang (Purdue University), Xiangzhe Xu (Purdue University), Lin Tan (Purdue University), Xiangyu Zhang (Purdue University)

HomeRun: High-efficiency Oblivious Message Retrieval, Unrestricted | Yanxue Jia (Purdue University), Varun Madathil (North Carolina State University), Aniket Kate (Purdue University / Supra Research)

ERACAN: Defending Against a Game-Changing CAN Threat Model | Zhaozhou Tang (Georgia Institute of Technology), Khaled Serag (Qatar Computing Research Institute), Saman Zonouz (Georgia Tech), Z. Berkay Celik (Purdue University), Dongyan Xu (Purdue University), Raheem Beyah (Georgia Institute of Technology)

Rust for Embedded Systems: Current State and Open Problems | Ayushi Sharma (Purdue University), Shashank Sharma (Purdue University), Sai Ritvik Tanksalkar (Purdue University), Santiago Torres-Arias (Purdue University), Aravind Machiry (Purdue University)

Conditional Encryption with Applications to Secure Personalized Password Typo Correction | Mohammad Hassan Ameri (Purdue University), Jeremiah Blocki (Purdue University)

PURDUE CS | BY THE NUMBERS

UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM

AN ERA OF GROWTH

In the field of computer science, there is a sustained and significant increase in demand for our academic programs. We are thrilled to announce that, once again, we have surpassed our previous records for freshman admission applications, with the total exceeding 11,000. At the start of fall classes, 1,001 freshman students joined our previous classes across two campuses for more than 3,500 undergraduates.

This year, freshman women students represent 22% of the undergraduate population and women are 23% among all undergraduate students.

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GRADUATE PROGRAM

Our graduate population has exploded with 568 MS and PhD students for the 2024-25 academic year. This represents a 23% increase in growth from the previous year.

Purdue Computer Science graduate students work in any of the 14 research areas in the department.

Purdue Computer Science offers the traditional PhD and master's degree programs in addition to a professional master's degree in information security.

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