HackUCI 2021: Award-Winning Hacks from Home

Last year, UCI’s annual hackathon event, HackUCI, was a three-day, in-person event held in January with more than 500 undergraduate and graduate students camped out in UCI’s Student Center. This year’s challenge was finding a way to re-create that experience online. “The transition from organizing an in-person to a virtual event was a huge undertaking for the entire organization,” says computer science major Riley Champion, marketing and co-tech director of HackUCI 2021. “Most of us had experience with hosting HackUCI in person, so we were a bit frazzled at first. However, throughout the summer and fall quarters, we prepared ourselves to create an environment that attempted to simulate an in-person experience!”

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UCI Students Cultivate Culture of Innovation with New VC Fund

Computer science and engineering student Keyan Kazemian is challenging his peers across Southern California to think outside the box. “We’re in a very unique geography that’s filled with talent, yet students here do not feel compelled, for whatever reason, to pursue their own startup ideas,” says the transfer student from Washington, who is now studying at UCI in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS). “It’s not a problem of capacity,” he stresses. “It’s a problem of exposure and culture.” So he set out to change the culture by investing in local Gen Z innovation.

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Alumni Chapter’s Lunch & Learn Panel Discussion Showcases Black Superstar Leaders in ICS

On Feb. 5, 2021, in honor of Black History Month, the alumni chapter for the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS) hosted an online panel, “Black Superstar Leaders in ICS,” as part of its Lunch & Learn series. Chapter president Pooja Lohia moderated the panel, which featured the following three ICS alumni and two current ICS scholars from the Department of Informatics:

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A Look at Health and Technology Trends for 2021 and Beyond

The fields of computer science, informatics and statistics have been influencing healthcare for decades, and 2020 served as an important reminder of the critical role both healthcare and technology play in people’s daily lives. The COVID-19 pandemic put a spotlight on healthcare, while stay-at-home orders significantly boosted technology use in general and telehealth practices in particular. Looking to the new year ahead, how might the connections between technology and health become further entwined, and how will this impact the future of healthcare? Here to address these questions are three professors from the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS):

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Virtual Workshop on Privacy Aspects of Contact Tracing – Oct. 2

UCI Professors Athina Markopoulou and Gene Tsudik have helped organize the inaugural one-day Virtual Workshop on Privacy Aspects of Contract Tracing from 8:30 a.m.-3 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 2 via Zoom. 

With mobile devices and networking technologies useful tools in the battle against COVID-19, especially for digital contact tracing and risk assessment, this virtual workshop will discuss recent developments in this rapidly evolving area, with a particular focus on privacy aspects. The workshop also brings together participants with technical background (networking, security and privacy, and related areas), as well as policy expertise (data protection, disease surveillance and other information-related aspects of public health). 

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Faculty Spotlight: Rina Dechter is Pushing the Frontiers of AI Research

Distinguished Professor of Computer Science Rina Dechter has been teaching and conducting research at the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS) since 1990. Focused on advancing our understanding of automated reasoning in artificial intelligence, she has helped develop algorithms and models that enable computers to perform foundational tasks such as diagnosis, prediction, situation assessment, decision making, and planning. Her 1991 paper, “Temporal Constraint Networks,” co-authored with Itay Meiri and Judea Pearl, recently received the 2020 Classic Paper Award from the Artificial Intelligence Journal, an award that recognizes papers “exceptional in their significance and impact.” That early contribution has been used by NASA to support expeditions, including the Mars Exploration Rover mission. Now, as the associate dean of research for ICS — a role Dechter was appointed to late last year — she continues to influence the computing field, advancing not only her own research but also that of fellow faculty and students.

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ICS Undergrad Adarsh Pachori Co-Founds AI-Driven Recruiting App

Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, Adarsh Pachori was surrounded by technology, but it wasn’t until an unlikely experience with a sudoku puzzle that he realized his passion for programming. Today, the second-year computer science major is working diligently as a student at UCI’s Donald Bren School of ICS and as a co-founder of Enrole, an exciting new app designed to streamline the hiring process for the next-generation workforce. His fellow co-founders include childhood friends Neel Griddalur, Aishwarva Suresh and Aarti Vellimedu.

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Computer Science Capstone Pilot Paves the Way for New Course

Assistant Professor of Teaching Sergio Gago-Masague has been leading project-based assignments for years. He first started working at UCI in 2012, when he joined the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) and founded the Engaging Technology and Application Design (ETAD) Lab. Since then, he has become involved with the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) and the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship in the Internet of Things (SURF-IoT).

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2020 Hall of Fame Celebration Honors Achievement and Opportunity

With much of the world now socially distanced to stem the tide of a global pandemic, it seems a lifetime ago that more than 220 attendees gathered on the evening of Feb. 28 to attend the 2020 Hall of Fame Celebration for the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS) and Samueli School of Engineering. There was no way to know that widespread quarantines were just around the corner, but this year’s event could not have happened at a better time — or place. As UCI alumni and their family and friends, along with faculty and staff, playfully explored a room full of interactive science-based exhibits, there was no doubting that the Discovery Cube Orange County was the perfect place to honor the achievements of computer scientists and engineers.

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‘Just Code It’ Introduces Middle Schools Girls to Computer Science

When computer science major Bhavani Panda first came to UCI, she was determined to join a campus club related to her major. So when she learned about Women in Information and Computer Sciences (WICS), it was a perfect fit. Now the third-year undergraduate is co-chair of WICS Community Outreach with fellow computer science major Diellza Sopi, and the two have developed a new program, Just Code It, focused on introducing middle school girls to web development. Although WICS has helped with similar outreach programs in the past, this is the first time the student club has organized its own program from scratch.

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