Fifth NSF CAREER Award in 2021 Granted to Stevens
Computer science professor joins two previous SSE recipients, two previous SES recipients
Stevens computer science professor Yue Ning has received a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award, the fifth such award granted to Stevens researchers this year. The CAREER award is a prestigious award to promising early-career investigators, typically for five years of ongoing research.
Ning's project, "Towards Deep Interpretable Predictions for Multi-Scope Temporal Events," will explore improved artificial intelligence-powered methods for predicting human events such as hospital visits, flu outbreaks and mass protests. She hopes to create new interpretable paradigms and tools for analyzing, forecasting and unfolding these types of events, over time, by drawing upon multiple data streams. Ning's planned activities over the course of the project will not only generate new machine learning algorithms, but also advance techniques for data analytics in other domains such as healthcare and social science.
In February, NSF selected two School of Engineering and Science professors for the award for projects in materials and analytics.
Civil engineering professor Weina Meng will work to enhance the mechanical properties of cementitious materials by mimicking natural materials created by some mollusks in her project, "Consecutive Assembly-and-Mineralization Processed Calcium-Silicate-Hydrate Nacre with High Specific Flexural Strength and Fracture Toughness." The newly developed materials will have broad applications for building and transportation infrastructure construction, energy facilities and aerospace. Alongside novel nanoscale fabrication methods, Meng will also deploy machine learning technologies during the course of the research.
Electrical and computer engineering professor Hang Liu will pursue methods to power the development of more rapid, efficient and effective graph analytics in his project, "An Algorithm and System Co-Designed Framework for Graph Sampling and Random Walk on GPUs." Potential applications of Liu's work include pandemic research, circuit design and software vulnerability evaluation.
In April, two School of Systems and Enterprises faculty members were also selected for CAREER awards.
Software engineering researcher Lu Xiao was chosen for her project "AI-Empowered Architecture-Centric Framework for Systematic Software Performance Optimization." Xiao's investigation will address gaps in the research and practice of software performance engineering, including issues with large-scale databases, performance issues, harmful architectural connections and optimization tactics.
Sustainability design researcher Steven Hoffenson also received an NSF CAREER award for his project, "Multidisciplinary and Life Cycle Holistic Sustainable Design." Hoffenson will work to develop a more holistic approach to product design, one that accounts for more comprehensive life cycle phases, stakeholders and sustainability outcomes — designing products with multiple perspectives and longer time horizons.
Learn more about research in the Department of Computer Science →