9/18/2018 3:52:53 PM
Illinois CS will hold its Alumni Awards in October, recognizing 13 alumni and faculty for professional, technical, educational, or service contributions.
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Illinois Computer Science will hold its eighth annual Alumni Awards Ceremony and Banquet onOctober 19, recognizing 13 alumni and faculty who have made professional, technical, educational, or service contributions that bring distinction to themselves, the department, and the university.
If you know of an outstanding CS alumnus who deservesrecognition, make sure that the department knows! Join the tradition and make a nomination.
Submit a Nomination
This year's Keynote Speaker is Mark Tebbe (BS CS '83), who is currently the Chairman of ChicagoNEXT at World Business Chicago and an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Join us for his talk on Friday, Oct. 19 at 3 p.m. in Siebel Center 1404.
As part of the awards weekend, the annual Women in Computer Science Alumni-Student Dinner will be at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 18 in Siebel Center 2405. Rita Patel Jackson (BS Math and CS, ’88) will be the keynote speaker. She is the head of global marketing for GE Healthcare’s new Healthcare Analytics organization.
Distinguished Achievement Alumni Award
Douglas MacGregor’s career has included key technical and executive roles in industry, and work in the academic world.
MacGregor (MS CS ’80) joined Motorola as the microcoder and micromachine architect for the company’s MC68010 and MC68020 microprocessors. Based on his work, he was awarded 24 patents and the 1985 IEEE Browder J. Thompson Memorial Prize Paper Award (with David S. Mothersole).
He later earned a PhD at Kyoto University, one of the first Americans to earn an engineering degree from a leading Japanese university, and while there founded Solbourne Computer. The joint venture with Matsushita built Sun-compatible workstations and servers.
In 1993, MacGregor joined Dell Computer, where he was general manager of the desktop business, procurement, and the notebook business. He left Dell to become a fellow in a leadership initiative at Harvard Business School.
Now, after completing an MS in cybersecurity from Johns Hopkins University last year, he is building a cybersecurity program as an adjunct professor at Western State Colorado University.
Early Career AchievementAlumni Award
As an entrepreneur, venture investor, and philanthropist, Vilas Dhar (BS ’04, along with a BS Bioengineering ’04) is a global leader in the field of social impact.
His commitment to creating broader access to justice, catalyzing the development and deployment of humanitarian technology, and to championing the work of nonprofit social leaders led him to found, scale, and exit two successful companies before the age of 35, and has made him a noted senior adviser to global companies and emerging-economy governments.
Vilas developed his commitment to technology for good as an undergraduatein computer science and bio-engineering at the University of Illinois. Vilas went on to receive a JD from New York University School of Law and a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard University.
Vilas has served as the Gleitsman Fellow on Social Change at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, a trustee of a major global foundation, a member of the Board of Directors of several global technology companies, and continues to support and mentor social entrepreneurs, CEOs and policymakers. Through his private office and philanthropic activities, Vilas now focuses on finding, supporting, and championing global changemakers.
Distinguished EducatorAlumni Award
With research focused on parallel processing, static analysis, and automatic storage management, Professor Ron K. Cytron has had a long, productive career in both academia and the private sector.
Cytron (MS CS ’82, PhD CS ’84) is the associate chair of Computer Science & Engineering at Washington University. The school has recognized him with multiple teaching awards, including Northcutt-Coil Professor of the Year and the Founders Day Distinguished Faculty Award.
Cytron has been chair of the Association for Computing Machinery's special interest group on programming languages, SIGPLAN, and editor-in-chief of TOPLAS, the journal for reporting research advances in programming languages and systems. SIGPLAN recognized Cytron with its Distinguished Service Award. In 2010, he was elected ACM Fellow “for contributions to algorithms and implementations of automatic program parallelization.”
Before joining Washington University in 1991, Cytron was a research staff member at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center.
In 2003, he co-founded Exegy, a St. Louis–based company that provides hardware-accelerated platforms for financial market trading and data analysis.
Won Kim (PhD CS ’80) is a distinguished professor in the Department of Software at Gachon University in Seongnam, Korea, and managing director of the National Program of Excellence in Software.
Kim also has deep experience in industry and is considered a pioneer of object-oriented database technology, object-relational database technology, and information integration technology. He is also recognized as an expert in data management, knowledge discovery, and Internet technology.
In 2006, when he was recognized with the ACM SIGKDD Service Award, Kim was cited as instrumental in creating SIGKDD, including serving as its first chair. He also served as the Chair of ACM SIGMOD for nearly a decade. In 1995, he was elected ACM Fellow “for fundamental insights into query optimization in relational databases, support for engineering applications, and functionality and architecture of object-oriented databases, and for extensive editorial service.”
Kim has worked as a researcher at IBM’s Almaden Research Center and at Microelectronics and Computer Corp. He was the founder and CEO of UniSQL, Inc. and Cyber Database, Inc., before becoming senior vice president and software advisor at Samsung Electronics.
He also later served as an advisor to a number of other companies, among them Zener Systems and LG Electronics.
David Lassner (BA Economics ’76, MS CS ’81) is the president of the University of Hawai’i and also interim chancellor of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, the flagship research campus of the UH System.
He began his career at the university in 1977, and is focused on helping the state’s residents earn college credentials and developing an innovation sector to strengthen Hawai’i’s economy.
Lassner has served as principal investigator for $400 million in federal awards at the University of Hawaiʻi. He also led the federally funded project that interconnected all public schools, libraries and campuses on Hawai’i’s six islands with fiber optics, and is principal investigator for the Maui High Performance Computing Center and for the Pacific Disaster Center.
In addition, Lassner is a commissioner of the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education, a board member and vice chair of the National Association of System Heads, and a member of the Board of Governors of the East-West Center.
Early Career EducatorAlumni Award
Eric Gilbert is the John Derby Evans Associate Professor in the University of Michigan’s School of Information and a professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the university.
Before coming to
Michigan, Gilbert (BS Math and CS ’01, PhD CS ’10) led the comp.social lab at Georgia Tech.
Gilbert is a sociotechnologist, with a research focus on building and studying social media systems. His work has been supported by grants from Facebook, Samsung, Yahoo!, Google, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Gilbert's work also has been recognized with multiple best-paper awards. He is the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award and two teaching recognitions at Georgia Tech: the Young Faculty Award from the Sigma Xi chapter and the Class of 1969 Teaching Fellow.
Karthik Pattabiraman (MS CS ’04, PhD CS ’09) is an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of British Columbia, where he has been since 2010.
Pattabiraman’s research is focused on “good enough computing” – building affordable error-resilient software systems – as well as software engineering and security.
He was recognized in 2015 with a Discovery Accelerator Supplement Award in 2015 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Canadian federal agency that funds research in the natural sciences and engineering. His award was for his project, “Building Error Resilient Software on Next Generation Computing Platforms.” Pattabiraman’s work has also been recognized with multiple distinguished paper or runner-up awards.
At UBC, Pattabiraman received the 2016 Killam Faculty Research Fellowship.
Pattabiraman is a senior member of the IEEE, and a member of the International Federation for Information Processing Working Group on Dependable Computing.
Distinguished ServiceAlumni Award
Ross Erlebacher has spent most of his professional career as a management and technology consultant working with health insurance companies on their business and information technology strategies. He is now a senior director with Cognizant.
Erlebacher (BS CS ’88, MS CS ’89) started his career as a software engineer at AT&T Bell Laboratories, where he developed and designed real-time software solutions for graphical displays and networking platforms.
He also earned an MBA from Northwestern, and has worked for other consulting firms including Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) and Deloitte.
Erlebacher is a devoted alumnus and has served the university as a member of the Illinois Computer Science Alumni Advisory Board and the Illini Leadership Council, as well as being a mentor to Illinois Promise students. Ross and his wife, Susan Silver (BA Economics, ’88), also have long supported undergraduate scholarships at Illinois with gifts to Illinois Computer Science and Economics. They established the Susan Silver and Ross Erlebacher Scholarship.
Distinguished Achievement Memorial Award
Well known for creating algorithms and software that allowed researchers to run large engineering and scientific calculations effectively on computers, Gene Golub (BS Math '53, MA Stats '54, PhD Math '59) was a cofounder of the Stanford University Computer Science Department. He served on the Stanford faculty from 1962 until his death in 2007.
In 1964, Golub created the singular value decomposition (SVD) algorithm. It is used in a variety of applications, including search engines, signal processing, and data analysis.
Golub was a member of both the National Academy of Science and the National Academy of Engineering.
His contributions to the engineering and computer science fields were internationally recognized, with 10 honorary degrees from institutions around the world. He also co-authored 18 books and about 250 papers.
The Gene Golub Fellowship, Franz Hohn and J.P. Nash Scholarship, and Gene Golub Computer Science Visionary Scholarship Fund were established because of his love for students and desire to support them. He also established the Paul and Cynthia Saylor Professorship in Computer Science in honor of his longstanding friendship with the Saylors.
Scott H. Fisher Computer Science Teaching Award
Craig Zilles is an associate professor whose current research focuses on applying computing and data analytics to education, including the development of the Computer-Based Testing Facility.
In the past his research has focused on the interaction between compilers and computer architecture, especially in the context of managed and dynamic languages. He also developed the first algorithm that allowed the rendering of arbitrary three-dimensional polygonal shapes for haptic interfaces.
Zilles received the IEEE Education Society's 2010 Mac Van Valkenburg Early Career Teaching Award and is a recipient of an NSF CAREER Award, the College of Engineering's Rose Award and Everitt Award for Teaching Excellence, Illinois Student Senate Teaching Excellence Award, and Campus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.
His research has been recognized by best-paper awards from ASPLOS in 2010 and 2013 and by selection for inclusion in the IEEE Micro Top Picks from the 2008 Computer Architecture Conferences.
C.W. Gear Outstanding Junior Faculty Award
Ranjitha Kumar is an assistant professor and leads the Data Driven Design Group. She and her students use data mining and machine learning to address the central challenge of creating good user experiences: tying design decisions to desired outcomes.
This year alone she has received an Amazon Research Award for her project, “An Experimentation Engine for Personal Fashion,” an AWS Machine Learning Research Award for another project, “Using Fashion to Learn Material Similarities,” and an NSF CAREER Award for her work building a platform that aggregates design features and user interactions from existing mobile apps.
Earlier in her career, Kumar was given a Google Faculty Research Award to “Design Mining Android Apps at Scale” and an Adobe Systems Research Award for “Probabilistic Generative Models for Mobile Design.”
In 2015 she was included as part of the university’s List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by their Students.
David J. Kuck Outstanding Thesis Awards
As a graduate student, Matthew Sinclair (PhD CS ’17) worked with Professor Sarita Adve on building efficient memory hierarchies for tightly coupled h
eterogeneous systems. This work improved the performance and energy efficiency of these systems by designing more efficient coherence protocols, consistency models, and memory organizations.
Sinclair’s doctoral thesis, “Efficient Coherence and Consistency for Specialized Memory Hierarchies,” also was recognized with an honorable mention as part of the first-ever group of ACM SIGARCH/IEEE CS TCCA Outstanding Dissertation Awards. Two papers on the topic also were recognized as IEEE Micro Top Picks Honorable Mentions.
Sinclair is now an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, after spending a year as a postdoctoral researcher at AMD Research.
Currently a PhD student at Illinois Computer Science, Dimitrios Skarlatos (MS CS ’16) focuses on building practical computer
architectures and systems for cloud computing. His master’s thesis was on “Opportunistic Power Reassignment between Processor & Memory in 3D Stacks.”
Skarlatos, whose advisor is Professor Josep Torrellas, is the recipient of the Illinois Computer Science Excellence Fellowship.
Skarlatos also has a diploma in Electronic and Computer Engineering from the Technical University of Crete.
FAQs
What is the acceptance rate for UIUC CS? ›
It's also worth noting that the admit rate to the computer science major at UIUC is roughly 7%.
What is University of Illinois Urbana Champaign computer science ranked? ›The Illinois CS graduate program is ranked 5th by U.S. News & World Report, last ranked in 2022. There are 20+ Illinois CS degree programs and more than 90 courses in computer science. In 2020, Champaign-Urbana was ranked #27 on Livability's list of Top 100 Best Places to Live in America.
Is UIC computer science good? ›UIC CompSci Rankings
The bachelor's program at UIC was ranked #76 on College Factual's Best Schools for compsci list. It is also ranked #4 in Illinois.
Computer Science | The Grainger College of Engineering | UIUC.
Is a 3.4 GPA good for UIUC? ›Average GPA: 3.83
With a GPA of 3.83, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign requires you to be near the top of your class, and well above average. Your transcript should show mostly A's.
Average GPA: 3.5
The average GPA at Illinois College is 3.5. This makes Illinois College Strongly Competitive for GPAs. (Most schools use a weighted GPA out of 4.0, though some report an unweighted GPA. With a GPA of 3.5, Illinois College requires you to be around average in your high school class.
The most popular majors at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign include: Engineering; Business, Management, Marketing, and Related Support Services; Social Sciences; Psychology; Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs; Mathematics and Statistics; Agricultural/Animal/Plant/Veterinary Science and Related ...
Is UIUC hard to get into for computer science? ›CS is a very rigorous and technical major. It is also a highly competitive program with an admit rate of 6.7%. The blended CS majors and X + Data Science majors are for students with a passion for or interest in the partner program.
What is the average starting salary for UIUC computer science? ›The undergraduate degree which initially pays the highest is Computer Science with a median starting salary of $92,200 followed by Computer Engineering paying $78,000 and Engineering Physics graduates who have a median starting income of $73,900 .
Is UIC a Tier 1 school? ›Chicago's only public research university. University of Illinois at Chicago is a tier 1 research university with world-renowned faculty solving real-world problems through the innovation and discovery that happens on campus.
Is UIC better than UIUC? ›
In 2020, UIUC was No. 10 among public universities and UIC was No. 14. For the second consecutive year, UIUC ranked ahead of all of its Big Ten public peers with the exception of the University of Michigan.
What GPA do you need for CS at UIC? ›Baccalaureate Field Computer science or computer engineering. Outstanding candidates from other related fields with substantial course work in computer science will also be considered. Grade Point Average At least 3.50/4.00 for the final 60 semester hours (90 quarter hours) of undergraduate study.
Is UIUC or Purdue better for computer science? ›Both schools have excellent CS programs. The two universities are largely comparable in social life and breadth of programs. At the undergrad level in CS, it really won't make much difference which one you go to. Most rankings of colleges really only applies to research-oriented grad schools.
What school is computer science in Harvard? ›Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
What is the cheapest computer science degree in Illinois? ›Northeastern Illinois University is the cheapest university for majoring in Computer Science based on the Department of Education tuition data. On average, students pay $9,351 to attend Northeastern Illinois University.
Is a 3.4 GPA impressive? ›A 3.4 is comfortably above the national average GPA for high school graduates and is considered competitive at most colleges and universities. It also approaches the 3.5 GPA that more selective schools use as an unofficial benchmark.
Should I put a 3.4 on my resume? ›Should I Put My GPA on My Resume? In finance, if your Grade Point Average (GPA) is 3.5 or higher, then you should include it on your resume — otherwise, leave it out. If your major GPA is higher than your overall GPA, then you should include that as well (or instead of your overall GPA).
Is a GPA of 3.38 good? ›The average high school GPA is around 3.0, or a B average. This also happens to be the minimum requirement for many college scholarships, though a 3.5 or higher is generally preferable.
Can I go to Ivy League with 3.5 GPA? ›It may be difficult to get into an Ivy League school with a 3.5 GPA. Most Ivy League schools require that applicants have an average GPA of 4.0.
Is a 3.5 good enough for Harvard? ›For underclassmen, the real question is what kind of college to attend. A 3.5 GPA will be highly competitive, and admission can be reasonably expected at many colleges. Still, it's not the most competitive at places like Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth, which, on average, accept students with GPAs exceeding 4.0.
Is a 3.5 GPA good enough for Ivy League? ›
However, for college applicants, the average GPA is more likely between 3.5 and 4.0. If you're aiming for a top university such as one in the Ivy League, Stanford, MIT, or others of the same caliber, a 4.0 GPA — or close to it — is expected.
Why is UIUC famous? ›Many are recognized for exceptional scholarship with memberships in such organizations as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Engineering. Our faculty have been awarded Nobel Prizes, Pulitzer Prizes, and the Fields Medal in Mathematics.
What is UIUC CS famous for? ›Illinois CS is among the leaders in online CS education, including the first MOOC-based master's degree in data science.
What is the lowest GPA accepted to UIUC? ›An admission grade point average (GPA)* of 3.0 (A=4.0), or a comparable GPA for an international applicant, is a minimum requirement for admission.
How many people apply to UIUC CS? ›Acknowledging that it's first year on the Common App shook things up quite a bit, UIUC has now officially shared that received over 63,000 applications, during the 2021-2022 admissions cycle, which is a robust thirty-three percent increase over the 2020-2021 admissions cycle, which was UIUC's last pre-Common App.
What GPA do you need to get into UIUC computer engineering? ›To qualify for registration for the ECE courses shown in the third year of the curriculum, a student must have completed, with a combined 2.25 grade point average, the mathematics, physics, computer science, and electrical and computer engineering courses shown in the first two years.
What is a realistic salary for computer science? ›The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports the median annual salary of computer scientists as $131,490 with a range of $74,210 for the lowest 10 percent of wage earners and $208,000 for the highest 10 percent [2].
What is the highest paid salaries in computer science? ›- Computer programmers: $70,114.
- IT auditors: $74,166.
- System security administrators: $93,390.
- Computer system analyst: $79,308.
- Network security administrators: $74,863.
CompSci majors graduating with a master's degree from UIUC make a median salary of $144,200 a year. This is a better than average outcome since the median salary for all compsci graduates with a master's is $98,509.
Is UIC an Ivy League school? ›Schools like Stanford, MIT, and the University of Chicago often outrank Ivies in terms of academics. However, since they aren't in the same athletic conference, they technically aren't Ivy League schools.
Is University of Illinois a public ivy? ›
Today, the University of Illinois is one of the foremost STEM and business institutions in the world, and recognized as a Public Ivy (a public university with the value and prestige of the Ivy League).
Is University of Illinois prestigious? ›U.S. News & World Report Rankings
The 2022-23 U.S. News & World Report's America's Best Colleges rankings rated Illinois as the number 13 public university and the number 41 national university.
Admissions rates for these schools are generally below 35%. Tier 3 schools include: UT Austin College of Liberal Arts, Villanova, Northeastern, Brandeis, Case Western Reserve, Occidental, Washington and Lee, Babson College, Virginia Tech, UC San Diego, Lafayette College, UIUC, University of Florida, and DePauw.
Is UIC or UChicago better? ›Both the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Chicago are excellent institutions of higher education. These two schools aren't even comparable. UChicago beats UIC in everyway except for maybe short term perks like location. UIC also has a formal engineering department.
Is UIUC or USC better? ›The US News & World Report ranks UIUC higher at the grad level.
Is 3.8 A good CS GPA? ›A 3.8 GPA stands for a Grade Point Average of 3.8 on a 4.0 scale. It indicates that you've earned a predominantly A average in your courses. A 3.8 GPA is considered to be a very good GPA and is often an indicator of strong academic performance.
What GPA should I have as a CS major? ›Selection into the Honors College is competitive. Applicants are reviewed using a set of criteria designed to consider both past accomplishments and future promise.
How prestigious is a computer science degree from Purdue? ›Purdue is currently searching for its next computer science head, who will take a “strong and growing department to the very top ranks.” The university's graduate and undergraduate computer science programs are currently ranked 20th and 16th respectively in the latest U.S. News and Reports ranking.
What is UIUC best for? ›The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign comprises 15 colleges and schools. Its School of Information Sciences, College of Engineering and Department of Psychology are among the best in the country. The school's College of Business, College of Education and College of Law are also highly ranked.
What is Purdue University World Ranking CS? ›
- # =129QS World University Rankings.
- 36Undergraduate programs.
- 73Postgraduate programs.
- $20859Average tuition fee.
If you want to study computer science but also attend an Ivy League school there is one amazing Ivy League school that is known for its computer science program. This Ivy League school is Cornell, which it offers an extensive computer science program for students.
How difficult is Computer Science? ›Learning the discipline of Computer Science is a hard and difficult endeavor for most students. However, if you are willing to invest the time and learn serious time management skills, most students can successfully learn the discipline and pursue successful careers in Computer Science fields.
How hard is CS50? ›CS50 is VERY HARD.
Every week of CS50 has a lecture, a few supplementary videos and a series of problem sets (a smaller 'lab' and a more comprehensive 'problem set'). At first glance, this may seem like not a lot of material for what is supposed to take a full week.
Yes, a computer science degree is worth it for many students. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is projecting 11% job growth in computer and information technology occupations over the next 10 years.
How good is Illinois computer science? ›The Illinois CS graduate program is ranked 5th by U.S. News & World Report, last ranked in 2022. There are 20+ Illinois CS degree programs and more than 90 courses in computer science.
Is computer science degree worth it anymore? ›The short answer? Yes, a master's in computer science degree is still worth it. Although the media has sensationalised the impressive features of what AI tools are capable of, human experts are still required design, develop, and maintain these systems.
What GPA do you need to get into CS at UIUC? ›Minimum Technical GPA: 2.0
TGPA is required for CS and Math courses.
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
For graduation, the major and the overall grade point averages must be at least 2.0. (The major grade point average is similar to the technical grade point average above. It is the grade point average for all computer science and mathematics courses.)
Applicants to the computer science MS program must have a minimum grade point average (GPA) of 3.20 (A = 4.00) in their undergraduate studies (international GPAs are systematically converted) to be considered.
What is the average GPA of students at UIUC? ›
Average GPA: 3.83
The average GPA at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is 3.83. This makes University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Extremely Competitive for GPAs. (Most schools use a weighted GPA out of 4.0, though some report an unweighted GPA.
| Grade | Grade Points |
|---|---|
| A- | 3.67 |
| B+ | 3.33 |
| B | 3.00 |
| B- | 2.67 |
| Letter Grade | Percentage Grade | GPA (4.0 Scale) |
|---|---|---|
| C+ | 77-79 | 2.3 |
| C | 73-76 | 2.0 |
| C- | 70-72 | 1.7 |
| D+ | 67-69 | 1.3 |
GPA matters, however, when applying for a job in competitive fields such as law, engineering, finance, and computer science. A stellar GPA can help you get to round one of the interviews because hiring managers often use them to screen potential candidates.
What GPA is 75th percentile UIUC? ›75th Percentile
For the best chance of acceptance to UIUC, you should have a: GPA of 83, preferably higher. SAT score of 1480+ (with a 780 in Math and a 700 in Reading) OR an ACT score of 32+
A 2.5 GPA means that you've gotten only C-s and D+s in your high school classes so far. Since this GPA is significantly below a 2.0, it will make things very difficult for you in the college application process.
Is a 3.3 CS GPA good? ›A 3.3 GPA is considered a “B” grade and is on the borderline between a B and a B+. Most (if not all) colleges and universities accept applications from students with a 3.3 GPA.
Is all CS a 2.0 GPA? ›A C letter grade is equivalent to a 2.0 GPA, or Grade Point Average, on a 4.0 GPA scale, and a percentage grade of 73–76.