Alumni

12/14/2022 - For decades, natural language processing (NLP) has provided methods for computers to understand language in a way that mimics humans. Since they are built on transformers, complex neural network layers, these large language models' decision making processes are usually incomprehensible to humans and require large amounts of data to be trained properly. In the past, researchers have tried to remedy this by having models explain their decisions by providing rationales, short excerpts of data that contributed most to the label.

02/23/2022 - An artificial intelligence system made history recently by beating a human world champion in Sony's popular video racing game, Gran Turismo Sport. The technological feat, which made the cover of the journal Nature, involved an AI system designed in part by three University of Texas at Austin computer science Ph.D. alumni and professor Peter Stone.

12/03/2021 - From a young age, Dr. John gravitated towards math and logical problem-solving. Although most of her family were in the humanities, they nurtured her unique interests in her early years. The definite logic and reasoning of mathematical concepts struck a chord with her that encouraged her curiosity in the field. As she pursued this curiosity as an undergrad at the Indian Institute of Science, it became clear to her that she had found her purpose. Dr. John had always planned on moving to the US for her Ph.D. and when she visited Austin she immediately knew that this was the place for her.

08/19/2021 - UT Computer Science alum Natalie Berestovsky struggled to speak English at the level of her peers as a sophomore in high school when she first migrated to Texas from Moscow. Coincidently, this hardship is what pushed her to begin her journey in computer science. The high school she went to offered computer science classes to its students which gave Natalie more confidence as they evened the language playing field between her and her classmates. Suddenly they were all learning a new language, Java, and no student was more proficient than the others.

07/01/2021 - Alum Romelia Flores was born and raised in Eagle Pass, Texas along the Mexican border. When she first arrived at UT, Romelia tried out a few different majors before landing on computer science. She came in as a biology major, then declared a math major due to her love of mathematics. She thoroughly enjoyed mathematics courses, particularly calculus because the formulas and equations were natural for her to understand and logically obtain correct results.

05/17/2021 - Alum Ron Green might not have always known what he wanted to major in, but he always knew he wanted to attend UT Austin. He grew up watching Longhorn football legend Earl Campbell play at a young age and recalls being a die-hard Longhorn ever since.

04/19/2021 - Tarun Nimmagada Graduated the from UT Computer Science with a bachelor's in 2009. He was accepted to the Turings Scholar program, a computer science honor program that requires students to complete an honors thesis before graduating.

04/05/2021 - Yaskawa, a global manufacturer of servos, motion controllers, AC motor drives, switches, and industrial robots, is establishing a partnership with The University of Texas at Austin. This partnership is marked with a gift of a dual-arm, SDA10F robot that will be available for the use of the Texas Robotics faculty. The partnership aims to facilitate interdisciplinary research and innovation within the robotics community in the university.

12/01/2020 - Alumnus Greg Kuhlmann was introduced to computers and programming by his family at a young age. During Kuhlmann’s childhood, his grandfather taught him how to program on his VIC-20 when he was just six years old and his father would take him to Amiga Users Group meetings. The ability offered by programming to change bits of code and see a new outcome right before his eyes was what really drew Kuhlmann in. Unbeknownst to him, he would go on to earn a graduate degree in computer science and start his own cybersecurity startup.

11/06/2020 - This fall, the National Science Foundation selected The University of Texas at Austin — a world leader in artificial intelligence research — to lead a new, $20 million national institute for machine learning.