News Staff

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Author Archives: News Staff

Federal Court rules in favor of UMSI professor in discrimination research case

By | April 8, 2020
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modern login form interface design with username and password

A federal court has cleared the way for academic researchers, computer scientists, and journalists to continue work that investigates online company practices for racial, gender or other discrimination. The ruling means that those who research online companies no longer have to fear prosecution for the work they do to hold tech companies accountable for their practices, said Christian Sandvig, professor… Read More »

Enriching Scholarship cancelled, other options available

By | April 7, 2020
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Enriching Scholarship 2019 logo

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Enriching Scholarship has been cancelled for this year. However, many workshops will still be offered remotely throughout the coming months. You can view all upcoming workshops on the TeachTech website, including a full slate of upcoming sessions on remote teaching. In addition to in-person sessions, you may also be interested in the IT4U Webinars offered by ITS.… Read More »

15 things students (and others) can do at Michigan Online

By | April 7, 2020
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young woman on a sofa wearing earbuds and working on a laptop

Michigan Online contains more than 180 learning experiences and is available free to U-M students, faculty, staff, and alumni. For students, it is a place to take courses, participate in Teach-Outs, and earn degrees all from the comfort of their own homes. Especially during these difficult times, it is a great way for anyone to broaden their knowledge, complement… Read More »

Researchers to use brain scans to understand gender bias in software development

By | April 6, 2020
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A 2017 study reported that a code author’s gender had a significant impact on the code reviewer’s approval or rejection rate. In fact, women’s contributions were rejected more often when their gender was identifiable to the reviewer, and accepted more often when their work was anonymous. An interdisciplinary team of U-M researchers will test these observations and identify… Read More »

Putting hardware accelerators to work with automatic code translation

By | April 3, 2020
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illustration of computer chip

Most programs in use today have to be completely rewritten at a very low level to reap the benefits of hardware acceleration. This system demonstrates how to make that translation automatic. A new technique developed by researchers at U-M could enable broader adoption of post-Moore’s Law computing components through automatic code translation. The system, called AutomataSynth, allows software… Read More »

Introducing Trio 3FA

By | April 1, 2020
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Trio logi

We all know that two-factor authentication (2FA) adds an extra layer of security to computer systems, applications, networks, and servers. It combines something you know, like a password or PIN, and something you have, like your 2FA token (either a physical item or a smartphone app). Well, if two-factor is good, then three-factor must be better! U-M has… Read More »

UM-Flint supports campus community in working and learning remotely

By | March 30, 2020
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The University of Michigan-Flint is helping its campus community work and learn remotely in a wide variety of ways. Office of Extended Learning director Nicholas Gaspar and Information Technology Services director Scott Arnst shared an update on support services in a Q&A with University Communications & Marketing.  For example, the Office of Extended Learning (OEL), in conjunction with… Read More »

Using machine learning to detect disease before symptoms manifest

By | March 27, 2020
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crowd of tiny people around several viruses

Alfred Hero, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, has been working on predicting health and disease of people exposed to infectious viral pathogens since early 2007. His research uses machine learning to help discover genes in whole blood that can be used to detect early signs of acute respiratory viral infection (ARVI), as well as improve the… Read More »

Big data, small footprint

By | March 27, 2020
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An illustration of servers in clouds

At a time when we’re relying on the internet to an unprecedented degree in our daily lives, a team of U-M researchers led by Mosharaf Chowdhury and Harsha Madhyastha has found a way for tech companies, banks and health systems to squeeze more capacity out of our existing infrastructure. A change to the design of big-data software tool Apache Spark could enable the… Read More »

Student-centered events at Dearborn are getting a reboot online

By | March 26, 2020
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As classes moved online last week and most UM-Dearborn staff started working from home, one vital part of campus life was left mostly on the sidelines in the wake of new social distancing measures: in-person university events disappeared from the calendar. Dean of Students Amy Finley says that was a particularly big blow to students and student organizations. But… Read More »

U-M awards six XR projects under new initiative

By | March 23, 2020
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Extended Reality (XR) @ Michigan logo

U-M has awarded funding to six extended reality projects under the its new XR Initiative, announced in the fall. The three-year funded initiative calls for the Center for Academic Innovation to seed new projects and experiments that integrate XR into residential and online curricula, and to create innovative public/private partnerships to develop new XR related educational technology. “The… Read More »

At home during Coronavirus pandemic? U-M offers online courses, exhibits, speakers

By | March 20, 2020
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People with digital content creation concept

Living rooms around the world can become places to learn how to start a business for social impact or to peek inside a museum to see homemade ancient wooden toy horses from Roman Egypt. U-M is providing multiple opportunities to learn and explore online while staying at home during the coronavirus pandemic: U-M’s art and performance organizations and… Read More »

FutureLearn Campus provides additional course access to U-M students, staff, and alumni

By | March 16, 2020
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Future Learn home page

U-M and the Center for Academic Innovation are proud to be the first university partner with social learning platform FutureLearn in the launch of FutureLearn Campus. This new offering in the platform allows Michigan students, staff, and alumni access to online short courses on FutureLearn.  “Both FutureLearn and the University of Michigan are committed to delivering high-quality education… Read More »

Film students step into the shoes of a filmmaker using virtual reality

By | March 13, 2020
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Instructor helping student using VR technology

Thanks to generous grants from LSA Technology Services, U-M film students now have the unique opportunity to get some hands-on experience with filmmaking. The Citizen Kane VR project lets students use VR technologies to reshoot a key scene from the classic film at the Duderstadt Center Visualization Studio. Developers in the Duderstadt Center Emerging Technologies Group modeled clip from… Read More »

Student programming team competes in North American Championship

By | March 13, 2020
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At Michigan, coding has been a competitive sport since the late 1980s when teams of students began competing in Association for Computing Machinery collegiate programming contests. In these competitions, teams of three students work on a single computer to solve as many programming challenges as possible in a set amount of time.  This year, one U-M team qualified to advance… Read More »

Hessam Mahdavifar receives CAREER award to empower next gen communication

By | March 10, 2020
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Hessam Mahdavifar

In the next decade, the emergence of massively connected networks of billions of devices will lead to an unprecedented increase in mobile data traffic. Hessam Mahdavifar, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science, has received an NSF CAREER award to support research on solutions for reliable communications across future wireless networks. This research aims to develop enabling… Read More »

Florian Schaub earns Google Award to improve phishing protections

By | March 9, 2020
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laptop hooked on a fishing line

A newly announced Google Faculty Research award will fund a research project on developing better phishing warnings co-led by School of Information assistant professor Florian Schaub. Phishing attacks trick victims into clicking malicious email links to get them to disclose sensitive information such as personal data and passwords, or install malware. Building on prior work, Schaub says this project… Read More »

New programs in data science & analytics at UM-Flint offer innovative career pathways

By | March 6, 2020
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Female student and male instructor siting at computer, working.

UM-Flint is poised to help more students to succeed in big data with the introduction of three new programs in data science and analytics offered across three departments and at the undergraduate and graduate levels: B.S. in Mathematics with a concentration in Data Science B.S. in Economics with a concentration in Data Analytics Graduate Certificate in Data Sciences… Read More »