UNM Computer Science Department

Derek J. Smith Profiled, Published in Science for his Work Mapping Influenza

Derek J. Smith, who received his PhD in computer science from the CS Dept, is now mapping influenza mutations at Cambridge University, where he is a full professor in the Zoology Department. His work is a continuation of the PhD and postdoc he did with Department Chair Stephanie Forrest.

He was called "Mapmaker for the World of Influenza" in a recent biographical piece in Science. His work on antigenic cartography is so highly regarded that he was invited to join the World Health Organization group that selects which strain of influenza will be used for the annual flu vaccine used worldwide by 300 million people.

Derek Smith and other CS Dept Alumni, Terry Jones, were authors on a paper published recently in Science magazine called "The Global Circulation of Seasonal Influenza A (H3N2) Viruses", which described the cycle of influenza mutations first appearing in East/Southeast Asia and later propagating to the the world. This work could help improve the vaccine millions depend on each flu season.

Related links: Derek J. Smith; Terry Jones; Science biography; Science Article

Andree Jacobson Wins Teaching Award

Senior Lecturer for the CS Dept. Andree Jacobson won the UNM 2007-2008 Outstanding Adjunct Teacher/Lecturer of the Year Award this May. The award is the highest teaching honor among adjunct faculty/lecturers and recognizes valuable contributions as a classroom instructor. Andree is one of only three recipients at UNM this year. The awards ceremony took place on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008.

Congratulations, Andree!

Related links: Andree Jacobson; UNM Today Article

Complexity and Networks in Nature

Aaron Clauset (a recent CS Dept. alumnus now at the Santa Fe Institute), Prof. Cris Moore, and Mark Newman (Univ. of Michigan) published "Hierarchical structure and the prediction of missing links in networks" (subscription required) in Nature. The paper in the prestigious journal offers a general technique to divide network vertices into groups and sub-groups, and argues that "...hierarchy is a central organizing principle of complex networks, capable of offering insight into many network phenomena." The Nature article was also featured on Slashdot.

Related links: Aaron Clauset; Cris Moore; Nature article; Slashdot Article

Dennis Paiz-Ramirez To Speak at SOE Convocation

Dennis Paiz-Ramirez is no stranger to awards and honors, having been valedictorian at Rio Grande high school here in Albuquerque, and earning the Outstanding Junior student for the CS Dept. at this year's SOE Awards Banquet. Now he has an additional honor to add: he will be one of the School of Engineering Convocation speakers at this year's convocation, which takes place Saturday, May 17th, at 1pm. This marks the fourth time a computer science student has been selected to be a speaker in a row—the others were Rory McGuire, Monique Morin and Aaron Clauset.

Dennis will receive his Bachelor's degree, and plans to become a graduate student at Stanford.

Congratulations, Dennis!

Related links: Dennis Paiz-Ramirez; School of Engineering Convocation

CS Research in the Spotlight

Congratulations to UNM PhD students Navin Rustagi and Amitabh Trehan whose paper, "The Forgiving Tree: A Self-Healing Distributed Data Structure" was accepted at the Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC 2008) conference. PODC is the preeminent conference in distributed computing, with an acceptance rate around 15%. This paper, which was joint work with Thomas Hayes and Jared Saia, describes algorithms to ensure that a network keeps a small diameter, even if an adversary continually deletes nodes in the network.

Congratulations also to former UNM student, Maxwell Young (now at U. Waterloo) whose paper "Sleeping on the Job: Energy-Efficient Broadcast for Radio Networks" was also accepted at this conference. This paper, which was joint work with Jared Saia, Cynthia Phillips (from Sandia Labs), and Valerie King, describes algorithms to enable robust and energy efficient broadcast in a radio network.

Related links: PODC 2008; "The Forgiving Tree: A Self-Healing Distributed Data Structure"; "Sleeping on the Job: Energy-Efficient Broadcast for Radio Networks"; Jared Saia; Navin Rustagi; Amitabh Trehan; Thomas Hayes; Cynthia Phillips