Looking Forward and Back

I haven't seen so much excitement for computer science as a discipline since the 90's. And while I know the folly of saying this time is different, it doesn't seem like a bubble because one can see so much we still have to deal with. The increase in data (call it big data/data analytics/data science) and the tensions between learning and privacy not just for individuals and corporations but for governments as well including our own. The increase in automation. We will have automated delivery, whether they be by drones or self-driving trucks. As the Internet continues to invade our everyday appliances, we gain convenience but also privacy and security concerns. As our chips evolve we'll need new programming paradigms that transcends traditional abstraction boundaries. And people want to control it all from their pocket and soon from their watches and glasses.

Computer science must continually evolve to meet these challenges. At Georgia Tech we will continue to lay the groundwork in research and education to produce the ideas and people to drive this future.

A look back at 2013 in the Georgia Tech School of Computer Science

• SCS welcomes new faculty member Hadi Esmaeilzadeh and congratulates Hyesoon Kim on her promotion to associate professor. 
• The College of Computing announced our on-line Masters program OMS CS with most of the first set of courses taught by faculty in the School of Computer Science. We have about 400 students in the first cohort with the first set of courses recorded and ready to go. 
• OMS made it into a speech of Obama who calls Georgia Tech "a national leader in computer science".
• SCS Professor Kishore Ramachandran and several other members of the SCS community are named IEEE Fellows.
• Ellen Zegura, already an IEEE Fellow, gets named to the new class of ACM Fellows.
• Mayur Naik receives an NSF Career Award.
• We sadly said goodbye to Mary Jean Harrold.