Category Archives: Campus News

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Watch: Lessons learned from quick pivots to online education

By | December 21, 2020

The winter term that begins in January will be the third term in a row that instructor David Chesney’s unique software design course will be online, and he has learned from each iteration.  For the past decade, the U-M electrical engineering and computer science lecturer has taught Software for Accessibility, a class he designed in which  undergraduate students… Read More »

HoloLens2 for Nursing: ‘Hands-on’ learning during pandemic and beyond

By | December 21, 2020

The U-M School of Nursing has one of the most technologically advanced programs around with its Clinical Learning Center, yet leadership in the school wrestled with how to teach hundreds of students the hands-on nursing skills and procedures required to advance in the program, while following COVID-19 guidelines for social distancing and university calls to minimize in-person courses.… Read More »

Founded by CoE alum, SambaNova announces AI-accelerated HPC system

By | December 18, 2020

As artificial intelligence applications grow and multiply, researchers have been racing to design a new generation of hardware that meets the unique computational needs of those applications. The market for these “AI chips” is booming, and a key player in this new space is Palo Alto based SambaNova Systems. SambaNova, now a unicorn valued at over $2.5 billion,… Read More »

Home for the holidays? (Of course you are…)

Normally, we’d remind you about conserving energy and securing your desk and office before you leave campus for Winter Break. However, because many if not most of us are already working from home, we’re changing it up a bit this year. (But if you’re still in the office, check out last year’s article for details on what to… Read More »

U-M vice president for IT honored with leadership award

Ravi Pendse, vice president for information technology and chief information officer, was awarded with the Michigan CIO of the Year ORBIE Award for the nonprofit/public sector by the Michigan CIO Leadership Association (MichiganCIO). The ORBIE honors chief information officers who have demonstrated excellence in technology leadership.  “The MichiganCIO ORBIE winners demonstrate the value great leadership creates. Especially in… Read More »

Season’s Greeting from ITS!

By | December 14, 2020

As we close out 2020, Information and Technology Services would like to thank our Michigan IT colleagues, faculty, staff, and students for their flexibility and willingness to adapt to so many changes this year. Happy holidays and best wishes for the winter term! Visit the ITS website for IT resources to make 2021 a successful new year.

Amy Peters named director of research computing and infrastructure, LSA Technology Services

LSA Technology Services is pleased to announce that Amy Peters has been named our new director of research computing and infrastructure services, and joins the LSA Technology Services leadership team effective Monday, December 7. Peters was selected for the position from a competitive and diverse candidate pool after a comprehensive search that began in February 2020, but was… Read More »

After five years, Let’s Encrypt, a non-profit based on tech developed at Michigan, has helped to secure the internet

By | December 4, 2020

Just five years ago, most websites relied on unencrypted HTTP, the aging and inherently insecure protocol that provides no protection to sites or visitors from threats that range from surveillance through phishing and identity theft. Today, the internet is a much more secure place, with over 80% of websites protected by HTTPS secure encryption. That dramatic transformation –… Read More »

Algorithm & Blues: Machine-aided personnel decisions aim for fairness, risk side effects

By | December 3, 2020

When it comes to making human resources decisions, can humans be fair? What about relying on algorithms to make decisions instead? The answer to the first question is not always, which leads some business leaders to pursue the second. Yet, it turns out decisions made by machines are perceived as even less fair than those made by humans.… Read More »

IBM fired U-M professor Lynn Conway for coming out as trans in 1968. 52 years later, the company apologized

By | December 2, 2020

At a public event celebrating LGBTQ+ inclusion, the International Business Machines Corporation presented Lynn Conway, professor emerita of electrical engineering and computer science, with a rare lifetime achievement award. The award accompanied IBM’s apology to Conway, which came 52 years after the company fired her for coming out as transgender.  In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Conway… Read More »

Major side-channel discovery wins NSA contest

By | December 2, 2020

The National Security Agency recently recognized a major breakthrough in the field of side-channel attacks as the winner of the 2020 Best Scientific Cybersecurity Paper competition. Daniel Genkin, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science, worked on the paper with collaborators from around the world. The winning paper, describing an exploit called Spectre, broke open a new… Read More »

Flint ITS FY20 annual report highlights successes

By | December 2, 2020

Flint Information Technology Services recently issued its annual report for FY20. (The entire report (PDF) is available online.) The report provides updates on the organization’s eight operational areas as well as bios of ITS professional staff. Below are highlights of the report: ITS-Classroom Services: ITS-Classroom Services completed a number of upgrades across general classroom spaces. After the transition… Read More »

Conversational assistants could be used to improve African American health around COVID-19

By | December 1, 2020

U-M researchers say employing a conversational assistant could be one way to narrow the gap in health disparities impacting the African American community, particularly around the current COVID-19 pandemic. Lionel Robert, associate professor at the School of Information and senior author of a study in the journal Digital Government: Research & Practice, says a technological solution could keep… Read More »

Engineering undergrads prep for a modern workforce with expanded data analytics courses and support

By | November 25, 2020

In 2018, U-M Industrial and Operations Engineering (IOE) faculty set their sights on fully-preparing students for the modern workforce and advanced studies by incorporating computing and data analytics into many existing courses, creating a new advanced analytics course for seniors, and implementing a new help desk to support students. One of the main changes was to emphasize R and Python… Read More »

Young kids’ YouTube viewing dominated by consumerism, ads

By | November 24, 2020

A recent report by Michigan Medicine and non-profit Common Sense Media finds children are often consuming pervasive and inappropriate advertising, violence, and other questionable content while watching online videos. Children ages eight and under are now spending more time on YouTube than ever before, with online video viewing for the first time surpassing live television and streaming video… Read More »

2020 CSE Graduate Student Honors Competition highlights outstanding research

By | November 23, 2020

Computer Science And Engineering held its seventeenth annual CSE Graduate Student Honors Competition on November 11, 2020. The competition recognizes the research done by PhD students at CSE and the final competition is the culmination of a process that narrows a field of entrants to a handful of finalists, each of whom gives a summary presentation on an… Read More »

Democratizing genetic data for cancer research

By | November 20, 2020

By distilling information from hundreds of data sources, U-M Precision Health researchers have launched an open-access, online repository called Cancer PRSWeb that will help accelerate advancements in cancer prevention and prediction. The researchers created polygenic risk scores (PRS) for 35 cancer traits and then evaluated the scores using electronic health record data from the Michigan Genomics Initiative and the… Read More »

UM-Dearborn’s artificial intelligence center having great first year

By | November 20, 2020

U-M Dearborn founded the Dearborn Artificial Intelligence Research Center less than a year ago with a strategy of “think big, start small, and scale fast.” Organizers have already made impressive progress toward making AI one of Dearborn’s topline areas for research, education, and industry collaboration. Over the past year, several DAIR Center projects have won funding and the… Read More »

Dearborn prof’s wearable technology improves at-home physical therapy

By | November 19, 2020

Samir Rawashdeh, UM-Dearborn assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, and a colleague have developed RehabBuddy, a physical therapy system that employs a wearable sensor that records a “map” of the correct movement of exercises. The RehabBuddy system starts with an in-person visit to a physical therapist. The patient wears a small sensor that records a “map” of… Read More »