Dear Alumni and Friends —
Hello again from Madison, Wisconsin! We hope this issue of Badger Bytes finds you and yours doing well during these unusual times.
As for life in Madison, after a mild Winter, Spring is seemingly springing, and we are all looking forward to being outside more as the world allows it. Some of our educators have already received vaccinations, and our hope is to return to fully in-person instruction and operation by the Fall.
Many exciting new things are happening on campus. Among other priorities, we
have been making great progress on a new building and hope to be able to
share more news with you on this topic soon. The building would house the
entire School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences (CDIS) and serve as
a key part of an emerging "tech corridor" on campus (near the Wisconsin
Institute of Discovery, Biotechnology, Chemistry, and Engineering). It is an exciting time as we move forward with this critical effort.
In this issue we have some exciting stories to share with you. Three new faculty members have joined us this spring, and you can read all about them below. Jelena Diakonikolas and Shivaram Venkataraman received a grant from Google that we're using to help undergraduates - particularly from underrepresented groups - conduct research with faculty and graduate student mentors. Somesh Jha won a prestigious US Department of Defense MURI grant and will lead a multi-university team to build better human-bot cybersecurity teams. We're also including a profile of Kayla Gross, the new CS Inclusion Manager, and a piece about Bart Miller's efforts to achieve acceptance for fuzz testing - a story that is more universally about the challenges of academic publishing. Finally, please read a short update on CDIS's progress and the new building that is well underway.
I'd also like to encourage you to participate in Day of the Badger, UW-Madison days of giving on April 6-7. This year we're using any donated funds for the undergraduate experience, including scholarships, support for the Computer Sciences Learning Center and WES-CS, and creating an undergraduate collaboration space where students can work together and connect. We have a $2,000 match from generous donors that will be unlocked, with that amount going to the department after 57 people participate. CDIS donors have also contributed an extra $20,000 for matching donations to all three CDIS departments. We appreciate your gifts and participation!
We do hope you are doing well and look forward to being able to reconnect in
person sometime soon. Take care!
Remzi
Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau
Chair