University of MinnesotaComputer Science & Engineering

An Overview forSmarter Planet Joint IBM/University Day

Nov. 20, 2009Vipin Kumar

William Norris Professor and Head

Department Highlights• Outstanding faculty

– One of the larger Computer Science dept with 38 tenure track faculty who provide critical mass and leadership in nearly all areas of computer science

• Ranked third in the Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index. – (Chronicles of Higher Education, Jan. 2007)

• Ranked 9th for Citation Impact of Published Research Papers among the top 100 federally funded universities.

– (Science Watch, Jan. 2007)

• The only CSE department in the nation with three recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).

• Extensive undergraduate and graduate program– Graduates about 125/yr with BS & BA in CS and BS in CE degrees, about 100/yr with

MS(CS&SE) and about 18-20/yr with PhD degrees– Our graduates are highly sought after by local, national, and international industry and

academia

Books Authored & Co-Authored by CSE Faculty

IBMSmarter PlanetFocus Areas

• Energy

• Environment– Food, water

• Government– Cities, Public safety, Traffic

• Healthcare

• Infrastructure– Buildings

• Technology– Intelligence, Cloud Computing

UMN - CSE Strengths

• Biomedical Informatics

• High Performance Computing / Distributed Systems

• Human Computer Interaction

• Robotics

• Spatial and Temporal Data Mining

• Web 2.0 / Community driven content creation

Spatio-temporal analytics: Vipin KumarPlanetary Information System for assessment of ecosystem disturbances and their relation to global climate variability and human activity.

• Forest fires• Droughts• Floods• Logging/deforestation• Conversion to agriculture

Smarter Planet Topics:

Food, Water, Energy

Robotic Sensor Networks: Volkan Isler• Networks of Robots can observe

dynamic phenomena taking place across large environments, over long periods of time

• Such systems can self-configure (e.g. autonomous redeployment) and self maintain (e.g. recharge and harvest energy)

• Actuation capabilities can drastically improve the system performance (e.g. the robots can relocate for better communication or sensing quality)

• Challenges: – algorithms that simultaneously address

communication, sensing, and mobility limitations– The robots must be inexpensive, lightweight, low-

power, yet capable of operating robustly for long periods of time in the presence of disturbances such as drift, and energy limitations

Autonomous light-weight robots for data collection

A robotic raft for monitoring carp in Minnesota Lakes

Spatial and Spatio-temporal Databases: Mohamed Mokbel

Database support for Ubiquitous Location-based Services• Scalability• Privacy• Personalization

Most Notable Systems• PLACE: Pervasive Location-Aware Computing Environment

• Cited 184 times in 5 years• Casper: Privacy-Preserving Location-based Services

• Cited 204 times in 3 years• CareDB: Context- and Preference-aware Database System

Smarter Planet Topics:

Transportation, Cities, Systems

Spatial Data Mining: Teleconnections

only in old planOnly in new plan In both plans

Spatial Datbases: Evacuation Route Planning

Smarter Planet Topics:

Transportation, Cities, Food, Water

Spatial Databases and Data Mining: Shashi Shekar

GroupLens Research: John Riedl, Joe Konstan, Loren Terveen

Analysis of key social computing techniques• Wikis• Tags• Q&A

Invention of novel interaction techniques• Recommender Systems• Geographic Wikis• Intelligent Task Routing

Smarter Planet Topics:

Transportation, Cities, Health