Faculty

01/22/2024 - David Zuckerman is a professor of computer science whose research focuses primarily on pseudorandomness and the role of randomness in computing.

11/15/2023 - Academia can be opaque from the outside to folks who wonder what being a professor is like. This can be a hurdle for aspiring graduate students, who are interested in the role, but are anxious about all the different things that are required as a professor. Vijay Chidambaram, Professor of Computer Science at UT Austin, has authored a book, "The CS Assistant Professor Handbook: Essential know-how for new and aspiring computer science professors", to tackle this challenge.

11/08/2023 - In mathematical optimization, a new approach is emerging, promising to transform how we tackle intricate challenges across various domains. Consider the complexity of bilevel optimization, a problem that has confounded experts in machine learning, engineering, and other fields. Recent advances are providing new insights into this intricate landscape, presenting a streamlined technique that has the potential to significantly enhance our ability to navigate these complex problems.

09/29/2023 - Simon Lam has been inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame for creating the first secure sockets layer in 1993 for internet applications.

05/02/2023 - UT Computer Science Isil Dillig has been named one of the Texas 10 award winners for 2023 by the Alcalde. The Texas 10 award is an annual recognition given to ten outstanding UT Austin faculty members who have made significant contributions to their respective fields. Dillig's selection for the Texas 10 award is a well-deserved recognition of her contributions to the field of computer science and her dedication to teaching and mentoring.

05/01/2023 - The work relies in part on a transformer model, similar to the ones that power ChatGPTA new artificial intelligence system called a semantic decoder can translate a person’s brain activity — while listening to a story or silently imagining telling a story — into a continuous stream of text. The system developed by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin might help people who are mentally conscious yet unable to physically speak, such as those debilitated by strokes, to communicate intelligibly again.

02/17/2023 - ​The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation announced today the early-career researchers across the U.S. and Canada who are recipients of the 2023 Sloan Research Fellowship, including UT Computer Science Assistant Professor Greg Durrett. ​Based on a "candidate's research accomplishments, creativity, and potential to become a leader in their field," independent panels composed of senior scholars select 126 recipients every year out of more than a thousand who are nominated by fellow scientists.

02/16/2023 - The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) has selected Risto Miikkulainen as one of 11 fellows for 2023. Founded in 1990, AAAI's Fellows Program seeks to highlight the individuals who contribute greatly to the field of AI. Miikkulainen was honored for "significant contributions to neuroevolution techniques and applications."

02/06/2023 - The IEEE Computer Society has selected Keshav Pingali to receive the 2023 IEEE CS Charles Babbage Award for his "contributions to high-performance compilers and graph computing." At The University of Texas at Austin, Pingali is the W.A. "Tex" Moncrief Chair of Grid and Distributed Computing and a professor in the Department of Computer Science and core faculty in the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences.

02/01/2023 - UT Computer Science Professor Scott Aaronson is one of six faculty in The University of Texas at Austin, to be elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)— the world's largest general scientific society. His research interests center around the capabilities and limits of quantum computers, and computational complexity theory more generally. He has won numerous awards throughout his career, most recently the 2020 Association for Computing Machinery Prize for groundbreaking contributions to quantum computing.