New Course Takes Data Science to the Next Level
A data science course introduced this semester gives students the chance to delve into concepts and research that are rarely, if ever, offered at the undergraduate level. Data 102, which is being taught by CS Prof. Michael Jordan and Statistics Prof. Fernando Perez, builds on earlier data science courses by not only teaching students the "how to" of Data 100 and the "finding patterns" of Data 8, but also the applications, specifically in relation to decision making in the context of other decision makers and sequences of decisions. Students learn to use data to make decisions even when faced with uncertainty. "There is no other class that brings statistics, computing, and real world problems together in such an embrace" Jordan said.
Berkeley Division of Data Science: New Course Takes Data Science to the Next Level
"Oracle-Guided Component-Based Program Synthesis" wins 2020 ICSE Most Influential Paper Award
The paper "Oracle-Guided Component-Based Program Synthesis," co-authored by alumnus Susmit Jha (M.S./Ph.D. '11), Sumit Gulwani (Ph.D. '05, advisor: George Necula), EECS Prof. Sanjit A. Seshia, and Ashish Tiwari--and part of Susmit Jha's Ph.D. dissertation advised by Sanjit Seshia--will receive the 2020 Most Influential Paper Award by the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE). ICSE is the premier conference on software engineering and this award recognizes the paper judged to have had the most influence on the theory or practice of software engineering during the 10 years since its original publication. The citation says, in part, that the paper: "...has made a significant impact in Software Engineering and beyond, inspiring subsequent work not only on program synthesis and learning, but also on automated program repair, controller synthesis, and interpretable artificial intelligence."
SIGSOFT ICSE Most Influential Paper Award
Oracle-Guided Component-Based Program Synthesis
Using deep learning to expertly detect hemorrhages in brain scans
A computer algorithm co-developed by Vision Group alumnus Weicheng Kuo (Ph.D. '19), post doc Christian Hӓne, their advisor Prof. Jitendra Malik, and researchers at UCSF, bested two out of four expert radiologists at finding tiny brain hemorrhages in head scans, an advance that one day may help doctors treat patients with traumatic brain injuries, strokes and aneurysms. The algorithm found some small abnormalities that the experts missed, noted their location within the brain, and classified them according to subtype. The researchers used of a type of deep learning known as a fully convolutional neural network (FCN) to train the algorithm on a relatively small number of images that were packed with data. Each small abnormality was manually delineated at the pixel level. The richness of this data — along with other steps that prevented the model from misinterpreting random variations, or "noise," as meaningful — created an extremely accurate algorithm.
Berkeley News: With AI, machines become expert at reading brain scans
PNAS: Expert-level detection of acute intracranial hemorrhage on head computed tomography using deep learning
Corelight raises $50m for network traffic analysis in the cloud
Corelight, a start-up founded by CS Prof. Vern Paxson, has secured an additional $50 million in Series C financing for its network traffic analysis (NTA) solutions for cybersecurity. The company has raised a total of $84 million to date, with investment from General Catalyst, Accel, Osage University Partners and Riverbed Technology Co-founder (and former Berkeley CS professor) Steve McCanne. It has more than doubled in size since its Series B in September 2018. Corelight is built on an open source framework called Zeek (formerly Bro), which Paxson began developing in 1995. Zeek is now widely regarded as the gold standard for both network security management (NSM) and NTA, and has been deployed by thousands of organizations around the world.
Converge! Corelight raises $50m for network traffic analysis in the cloud
Alexandra von Meier explains why locally sourced power may be the solution to California's vulnerable energy grid
EE Adjunct Prof. Alexandra von Meier, who is the director of the CITRIS California Institute for Energy and Environment (CIEE)'s Electric Grid program, is the subject of a Berkeley News interview titled "Our energy grid is vulnerable. Locally sourced power may be the answer." In light of last week's massive PG&E power outage, Von Meier discusses why the current power grid is a fire hazard, why solar power is not a practical alternative during a power outage, and ways to make the grid safer. She also explains how one of CIEE's research projects, EcoBlock, which is looking into stand-alone microgrids of electrical generation and storage that could be shared among multiple households on a city block, might offer a possible solution.
Berkeley News: Our energy grid is vulnerable. Locally sourced power may be the answer.
Ren Ng weighs in on why your photos are about to get a lot better
CS Prof. Ren Ng is quoted in a New York Times article titled "The Reason Your Photos Are About to Get a Lot Better." The article describes how computational photography is driving the future of phone cameras. "Most photos you take these days are not a photo where you click the photo and get one shot," said Ng. "These days it takes a burst of images and computes all of that data into a final photograph." He and his students are researching new techniques in computational photography, like applying portrait-mode effects to videos. One type of effect could be to set the recorded footage to automatically focus on whomever is speaking. "These are examples of capabilities that are completely new and emerging in research that could completely change what we think of that's possible," said Ng.
New York Times: The Reason Your Photos Are About to Get a Lot Better
How to Stop Superhuman A.I. Before It Stops Us
EECS Prof. Stuart Russell has penned a New York Times Op-Ed titled "How to Stop Superhuman A.I. Before It Stops Us," in which he explains why we need to design artificial intelligence that is beneficial, not just smart. "Instead of building machines that exist to achieve their objectives," he writes, we need to build "machines that have our objectives as their only guiding principle..." This will make them "necessarily uncertain about what these objectives are, because they are in us — all eight billion of us, in all our glorious variety, and in generations yet unborn — not in the machines." Russell has just published a book titled "Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control" (Viking , October 8, 2019).
New York Times: How to Stop Superhuman A.I. Before It Stops Us
Penguin Random House: Human Compatible Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control By Stuart Russell
Berkeley EECS well represented at Tapia 2019
An outstanding group of students, faculty, staff, and alumni, represented Berkeley EECS at the 2019 ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing, which took place in San Diego in September. Attendees included: Profs. Dan Garcia and Armando Fox; staff Audrey Sillers, Antoine Davis, and Sheila Humphreys; alumni Valerie Taylor (Ph.D. '91, advisor David Messerschmitt), Jeff Forbes (Ph.D. '02, advisor: Stuart Russell), Hakim Weatherspoon (Ph.D. '06, advisor: John Kubiatowicz), Colleen Lewis (EECS B.S. '05/CS M.S. '09), Jorge Ortiz (Ph.D. '13, advisor: David Culler), and Beth Trushkowsky (Ph.D. '14, advisor: Armando Fox); and a cadre of current graduate and undergraduate students. Former EECS Prof. Jennifer Mankoff, who is now at the University of Washington, was a keynote speaker.
2019 Tapia Conference
A Latinx Heritage Month profile of Dan Garcia
CS alumnus and Teaching Prof. Dan Garcia (M.S. ' 95, Ph.D. '00, advisor: Brian Barsky) is the subject of a profile celebrating Latinx Heritage Month in the EECS department. As a Nuyorican whose father was from Puerto Rico, Garcia "always coveted" his Hispanic heritage and actively explored as much of the Latinx culture as he could. Known to "bring the flavor" to his students before finals, Garcia is particularly passionate about broadening the participation of underrepresented students in computing.
EECS Newsletter: Latinx Heritage Month: Prof. Dan Garcia
Celebrating Latinx Heritage Month with Armando Fox
CS Prof. and alumnus Armando Fox (Ph.D. '98, advisor: Eric Brewer) is the subject of a profile celebrating Latinx Heritage Month in the EECS community. Fox is the child of Cuban refugees who taught him to "pave the road" for those who follow. He was born in New York City and raised in a bilingual and bicultural household where he was cared for by grandparents who did not speak English. Fox is known for his engagement with both campus student groups and national professional organizations to promote and support Latinxs in computing.
EECS Newsletter: Latinx Heritage Month: Prof. Armando Fox