CSE Undergrad News

Hello CSE Ugrads!

Our undergraduate student groups (ACM, ACM-W and SAC) are working to put together a new newsletter and you’ll find the April newsletter attached! They’re excited to highlight students in the undergraduate community, and are looking for more people to contribute to the content for the next couple of months. If you have suggestions or feedback, please fill out this form: https://goo.gl/forms/AK4FeJfdMJcZGEzs1

April’s newsletter is attached! They look forward to your response.

Raven

April 2018 – Undergraduate Newsletter

Bugs are demons in large software: they are easy to create, hard to
find, and can cause tremendous loss when triggered. The goal of this
project is to build a test generator to automatically find bugs in
commercial database systems by leveraging prior work on automatic bug
finding.

We are looking for a talented, strongly-motivated individual to build a
random query generator (preferably in Python/Java) as part of a new
project in Prof. Cheung’s group. The goal of this project is to apply
existing techniques (e.g., random testing and program analysis) to test
implementations of database systems. It is an excellent opportunity to
gain experience in applying state of the art technologies to a
real-world, practical problem that has great potential impact.

We are looking for hackers who are comfortable working with database
engines (especially query optimizers) and familiar with AST
manipulation. Strong performance in some of the following courses is
preferred: 344(or 414), 341(or 413), 331, 373.

What you will learn:

* apply state-of-the-art automated testing algorithms used in testing
complex software.
* Create a framework that automatically generates test queries to test
database engines.
* … and more while we make progress!

Interested candidates should forward the following to Chenglong Wang
(clwang@cs.washington.edu) and cc Prof. Cheung (akcheung@cs.washington.edu):

* CV or resume
* your current transcript (unofficial is OK)
* any other relevant details (e.g., a personal website,
GitHub/StackOverflow profile, direct links to a relevant projects)
* a one-paragraph summary that demonstrates your understanding of the
paper <a
href=”http://vldb.org/conf/2007/papers/industrial/p1243-bati.pdf“>A
genetic approach for random testing of database systems </a>.

We will contact selected students in a few weeks for interviews. We
currently offer this opportunity as independent study credit, with the
possibility of extending this to a 5th year MS project if there is
mutual interest.

=== THE 2018 AMALTHEA REU PROGRAM ===

Subject:   2018 AMALTHEA REU: Apply by April 3

AN OPPORTUNITY FOR A 10-WEEK RESEARCH EXPERIENCE FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS is available in the area of Machine Learning. The program is sponsored by the National Science Foundation and is offered by the Information Characterization & Exploitation (ICE) Laboratory at Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) in Melbourne, Florida.

Machine Learning (ML) gradually evolved as a branch of Artificial Intelligence with its theory and applications positioned at the juncture of Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics and, even, Physics. Nowadays, ML’s role in successfully addressing hard, real-world technological challenges has become ever more current and central. Moreover, its presence and importance now permeates several aspects not only of cutting-edge technology such as computer vision, stock market prediction and big data analytics, but also our daily life through voice-driven searches on our smart phones or movie recommendations on video streaming services to name only a few.

The program currently accepts applications in order to form a very diverse, multi-disciplinary cohort of nascent researchers for this summer. Minorities, women and people with disabilities are especially encouraged to apply.

ELIGIBILITY

Without exceptions, applicants must be:

=> Majoring in an Engineering or Science discipline

=> US citizens or permanent residents

=> Undergraduates in good academic standing

BENEFITS

=> Exposure to the exciting world of Machine Learning and its applications

=> Participate in a one-week crash course to familiarize yourself with Machine Learning

=> Work with experienced student mentors and experts in the field

=> Participate and contribute to cutting-edge Machine Learning research

=> Take part in visits to our local industry

=> Paid travel and accommodation expenses

=> Receive a competitive stipend for per diem expenses

=> Visit Central Florida venues such as Disney attractions and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center

=> Meet new people

=> Make new friends

Application Deadline: April 3, 2018

Apply online: http://www.amalthea-reu.org

For more information, visit our Web site at www.amalthea-reu.org or contact:

Dr. Anthony O Smith

Director, The AMALTHEA REU Program

Assistant Professor, ECE Dept.

Florida Institute of Technology

Melbourne, Florida

Email: anthonysmith@fit.edu

URL:  http://web2.fit.edu/faculty/profiles/profile.php?tracks=anthonysmith

Phone 321-674-8425 | Fax 321-674-8192

UW IGEM is recruiting this week! UW IGEM (International Genetically
Engineered Machine Competition) is an interdisciplinary synthetic biology
research group led by undergraduates. Computer science is becoming an
increasingly important part of synthetic biology and genetic engineering.
We are looking for CS undergraduates to help explore the applications of
computer science to our project. No experience with biology or
computational biology is required.

If you are interested you can come to one of our info sessions in *Foege
N130* this *Thursday at 6pm* or this *Friday at 5pm*. For more information
visit out website: http://students.washington.edu/uwigem/ or contact
uwigem@uw.edu

Subject: Research opportunity for developing machine learning software

Hi,

Prof. Gang Luo from UW’s Department of Biomedical Informatics and Medical Education is a computer scientist and is teaching in the CSE department this quarter. He has research opportunities for CSE students to help develop pure machine learning software. The students need to fulfill the following conditions simultaneously:

–        Required: Know machine learning to the level of the material in the textbook “Introduction to Machine Learning (Adaptive Computation and Machine Learning series)” third edition written by Ethem Alpaydin, either by taking machine learning courses or doing machine learning projects.

–        Required: Is familiar with the Java source code of the open source Weka package for machine learning and data mining.

–        Required: Is very good at Java programming.

–        Required: Has around 20 hours per week to do voluntary research work (no payment will be provided).

–        Required: The student will stay at UW for a few years (i.e., the student should not be in his/her last year at UW), as doing the project to produce useful results will take 20 hours of work per week for a few quarters (as typical with research projects involving software system development). The pace of progress can be accelerated if the student has more hours per week to devote to the project, but not to the degree that can be achieved for a last year student at UW.

–        Optional: Know system techniques typically taught in operating system or database courses.

Prof. Gang Luo can provide independent study course credits from UW’s Department of Biomedical Informatics and Medical Education at either the undergraduate or graduate level, depending on the student’s status. The student can choose the number of credits at the student’s wish, after discussion with Prof. Gang Luo. The research work would involve studying one or more machine learning/data mining algorithms in Weka in great detail (the student may need to read a few papers, as not all of the algorithm implementation details are described in machine learning textbooks), using system techniques to design some changes to the algorithm’s source code in Weka to fulfill a certain purpose, changing the Java source code in Weka here and there, and doing software performance testing. The students will have quite some flexibility in choosing which algorithms to work on, and will gain experience with machine learning/data mining research and advanced software development that can be an excellent addition to the student’s resume. Prof. Gang Luo can teach the students the essential system techniques, if needed. This solicitation has no expiration date. Interested students can contact Prof. Gang Luo at luogang@uw.edu at any time they like when they are ready. For example, a student who hasn’t studied Weka source code before may need some time to study the source code first before making the contact. Interested students should provide Prof. Gang Luo their transcripts (at least the portion of the computer science courses and math/statistics courses with the grades, if not the full transcript), their resume listing their experience, and their student status (e.g., which year at UW and for how long the student will continue to stay at UW), to help Prof. Gang Luo understand how to interact with the students. Doing research is harder and takes more time and effort than taking courses. Prof. Gang Luo is only interested in working with students who work hard, perform well in CSE courses, and are willing to devote serious effort and enough time to the research project.

Thanks for your attention.

Hello!

Are you a fantastic undergrad researcher? Or, do you have a peer who is worthy of recognition for their research?

Hello! I hope you are as excited about the beginning of the school year as we are here at the Taskar Center for Accessible Technology!  This year, we are again offering VIP: a 1 or 2  credit course that is cross-listed as CSE495 or ENGR 297/497 Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP). We have two active projects under VIP this year:

—

Anat Caspi, PhD
Director, Taskar Center for Accessible Technology
Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington
caspian@cs.washington.edu

We are looking for an undergraduate student interested in doing a CSE499 project at the intersection of computer science and astronomy. The project involves large-scale particle clustering in Amazon clusters using the Myria big data system. Pre-requisite: Good grade in CSE344 and fluency with working on the command line.

Interested students should send their CV and transcript to Jennifer Ortiz (jortiz16@cs.washington.edu).

Hi!

I have a recently opened research opportunity for the summer.
This is a research opportunity for UW undergraduates only.

Broad scope of work:
We are building a sensor system and motor controllers for an autonomous
wheelchair.
The primary scope of work is to implement a sensor system that can stream
input signal and process information aboard a mobile robotic system.

Skill set
– familiarity with C/C++, java and scripting languages, python preferred
– experience in low level signal processing is highly desirable
– decent understanding of various components in a typical SoC
– Ability to work with devices like arduino/raspberrypi a plus
– familiarity with git and SCM

please contact caspian@cs.washington.edu if interested.
Best,

—
Anat Caspi, PhD
Director, Taskar Center for Accessible Technology
Computer Science &amp; Engineering, University of Washington
caspian@cs.washington.edu