cse collaborative design students help boeing look … fileundergraduates in computer science and...

Undergraduates in computer science and engi-neering are helping Boeing envision the futureof flight … literally. Since the fall of 2002, stu-

dents in the CSE capstone design course have workedwith the aerospace giant to develop and perfect a flightvisualization program for the F/A-18 E/F SuperHornet. The program takes the raw data from the air-craft flight recorder and translates it into an on-screenimage of the plane’s flight, allowingpilots, flight instructors, and groundpersonnel to view and critique aircraftperformance.According to Don Akers, a Boeingassociate technical fellow and sys-tems software architect, applications like thisone can be used in pilot training and incident/accidentreconstruction. “We tried to offer students a projectthat could be useful to Boeing — one that has real-world impact, involving real-world data,” says Akers.“This project has always proven to be a favorite.”The original requirements of the assignment havechanged very little since theinception of the capstone class,but each new group of studentshas added to and refined thefeatures and performance ofthe visualization program.Previous classes devel-oped the graphic inter-face, allowed forthree-dimensional,360-degree views ofthe aircraft, and added aheads-up display (HUD)

for pilots. The fall 2005 team — including CSE seniorsBrian Hasselbeck, Robert Rutherford, Chul Park, andJayson Vincent — programmed visualization andmovement of flight terrain, landing gear, wing flaps,

tail flaps, and takeoff and landingmaneuvers. “Students add a new

twist each semester and the sophisti-cation of the product has always

advanced,” says Akers.Project sophistication is something that

Wayne Dyksen, professor and capstonecourse instructor, appreciates about the

Boeing assignment. “This is intended to be a real-world project for the students,” says Dyksen. “Theyhave almost total responsibility for the outcome. Theyare given purposely vague information and are requiredto deliver a finished product, manuals and all, by theend of the semester.”The class may be difficult for students, but the realisticnature of the course gives them priceless experience

solving problems that practic-ing engineers face in thefield. “It’s the most valuable

class I’ve taken at MSU,”says Rutherford. “Thisis as real-life as you

Left to right: BrianHasselbeck, RobertRutherford,

Chul Park, and JaysonVincent are helping Boeing

develop innovative software as part of the computer science and engineering capstone course project.

INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Undergraduate Research

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pg 7

High-Assurance Systems

Curriculum . . . . . . . . . . . pg 6

continued on page 3

CSE Collaborative Design Students Help Boeing Look to the Future

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE & ENGINEERING | SPRING 2006 | COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

By any account, the “IT rev-olution” is transforming ourworld in profound and funda-mental ways, affecting everyaspect of our lives and everysegment of society, and lev-eling the playing field fornew participants around theglobe. While revolutionarytimes make looking into thefuture uncertain, a predictionby Carly Fiorina, a former

Hewlett-Packard CEO, is a sure bet. Forina describesthe last 25 years as merely “the warm-up act” for theupcoming “main event,” which will “truly transformevery aspect of business, of government, of society, oflife.”

Unfortunately there is today a serious misunderstand-ing that the demand for computer science graduates isweak. An equally damaging myth is that computer sci-ence is only for “geeks” — individuals who prefermachines over people, thrive on coffee and donuts, andlack social graces and outside interests. These misper-ceptions could not be farther from the truth.

Alarmingly, these misperceptions have dissuadedyoung people from entering the field at a time whencomputing has become foundational to virtually allenterprises. American youth are losing interest in com-puter science just as foreign countries are ramping uprigorous math, science, and IT programs. To make mat-ters worse, minority and female participation—alreadylow—is declining at a disproportionate rate. With near-ly 50 percent of the workforce made up of women andminorities, we simply cannot afford to ignore the con-tributions they can make. We must do a better job ofattracting and retaining a diverse body of talented stu-dents for computer science.

Occupational employment projections for 2002-2012from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics forecast thatgrowth rate, new jobs, and total job openings for ITprofessionals will far outstrip those for scientists, engi-neers, and mathematicians. Seven of the thirty occupa-tions that are predicted to be the fastest growing are“computer-related,” and all seven of these rank in thetop salary category. The number of computer-relatedjobs has already surpassed the previous peak in 2000.

Few disciplines provide the breadth of career opportu-nities that computing does. But today technical expert-ise is just one skill among many that employers seek.IT professionals must be versatile and flexible. Theymust innovate, strategize, and exercise excellent lead-ership and communication skills. They need to workequally well alongside domain experts — for instance,chemists, biologists, engineers, economists, medicaldoctors, business experts, and customers and otherstakeholders — whether technical novices or experts,often bridging nations and cultures.

The Department of Computer Science and Engineeringat MSU is advancing computing and information fron-tiers beyond the traditional disciplinary boundaries.The Department is leveraging internationally recog-nized achievements and expertise in foundational com-puting areas to create innovative research and educa-tional programs in campus-wide multidisciplinaryareas. Examples include biometrics, bioinformatics,digital evolution, health informatics, high-assurancecomputing systems, entertainment-driven computing,and the Center for Humane Arts, Letters, and SocialScience On-Line.

The department is recognized by employers for itsdesign-oriented and hands-on courses, offered as inte-gral components of undergraduate specializations incognitive science, criminal justice, information tech-nology, and game design, as well as a number of dualdegree graduate programs and multidisciplinary gradu-ate specializations. By taking bold strides to cross dis-ciplinary boundaries, the CSE Department is helping tomake computing truly ubiquitous.

Yes, change is inevitable, and those who keep pacewith change are best suited to make an impact in thefield. In CSE we are striving, not just to keep up, butto set the pace. Thank you to everyone who has helpedus in our efforts.

~ Laura Dillon~ Professor and Chairperson~ Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Laura Dillon

CSE Pipeline | SPRING 20062

Chair’s Message

Cover Story Continued from Page 1

can get in a class-room setting. Theassignment hashelped me learnhow to workeffectively in ateam on a large-scale project.”Delivering a prod-uct is one thing,but delivering aquality product isquite another, asAkers found outwhen Boeing

worked with other universities on similar projects. “Wehave seen some great products at other schools, butwe’ve also experienced difficulties,” he says.“However, MSU has consistently been on top of whatneeded to be done, and is always able to handle thetasks associated with the project in a proficient manner.If they didn’t know what to do or how to do it, theyasked the right questions and did the required researchto find the answers.”Dyksen agrees with Akers’s assessment of the talent atMSU. “In general these kids are just incredible,” saysDyksen. “You look at the products they deliver andwonder, ‘Could I do that?’ Their skill continuallyamazes me.”In some cases, Boeing continues to reap the benefits ofthat skill after graduation. A few students from previ-ous semesters, including Jayson Vincent (see sidebar,this page), have gone to work full-time at Boeing aftertheir experience inthe capstonecourse. Accordingto Akers, “Theability to performon this project,along with anexcellent educa-tion, has giventhese students ahead start in begin-ning a career withBoeing.”

Vincent Trades in ShootingHoops to Shoot for the Sky

Some might say Jayson Vincent was born to play bas-ketball at Michigan State. His father, Jay Vincent,played on the 1979 MSU National ChampionshipTeam with hoops icon Magic Johnson, and his uncle,Sam Vincent, played with legend Scott Skiles. So itwas no surprise that Jayson’s name was on the rosterwhen he came to MSU as a freshman. The surprisecame two years later when the shooting guard hung uphis jersey to concentrate full-time on studying comput-er science.

“It was very hard to do both well,” explains Vincent.“There came a time when I had to decide what I want-ed to do, and I saw a much brighter future in computerscience.”

It looks like Jayson made the right choice. After grad-uation in December 2005, he headed to St. Louis,Missouri, to join the engineering team at Boeing as afull-time staff member. It’s an environment thatVincent is familiar with. He has completed two sum-mer internships at Boeing already. During the firstinternship, Jayson worked on redesigning and upgrad-ing the cockpit of the F/A-18 E/F flight simulator. Forhis second internship, he programmed mission datacontrols for an unmanned, full-scale military plane.

Vincent’s technical savvy and dedication did not gounnoticed by the people at Boeing. “Jayson is anextremely impressive candidate on all levels,” saysBrian Bernsen, Boeing manager of software engineer-ing and integrated defense systems. “He has tremen-dous potential at Boeing; he’s a very well-roundedperson.”

Jayson Vincent gave up basketball but scored a career at Boeing.

3MSU department of computer science & engineering

The fall 2005 Boeing project groupimproved on previous flight visualizationdesigns by adding terrain movement andlanding gear capabilities.

CSE capstone design students worked withBoeing to develop a flight visualizationprogram for the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet.

Chai Receives NSF Grant to Improve Automated Spoken

Language Interpretation

Joyce Chai, assistant professor, andFernanda Ferreira, psychology professor,received a three-year, $300,000 NationalScience Foundation grant through theInformation and Intelligent Systems (IIS)program. The researchers will study the rolethat eye movement plays in human languageproduction during interaction with a comput-er interface and how it can be used toimprove computer speech recognition and

understanding. Previous psycholinguistic studies have shown thatdirectly before speaking a word, humans already move their eyesto the mentioned objects. The perceived visual context influencesspoken word recognition and mediates syntactic processing.These findings suggest that a computer capable of monitoring eyemovement in addition to speech would more accurately interpretspoken language. Chai says this research will benefit from the lat-est advances in eye-tracking technology. “It’s great,” she says.“We’re very glad to have the opportunity to work on this excitingproject.”

Cheng and Konrad Receive Award, Cheng Receives Gift

Betty Cheng, professor, and Sascha Konrad,PhD student and co-author, received theaward for best paper at the MoDELSWorkshop on Models Design and Validation.The title of the paper was “AutomatedAnalysis of Natural Language Properties forUML Models.”

Cheng also received a gift from SiemensCorporate Research to support the project

“Behavior-Oriented Assurance Patterns for RigorouslyDeveloping Real-Time Embedded Systems.” The project willinvolve collaboration between Cheng and her students, SiemensCorporate Research, Siemens Dematic, and Siemens CriticalHealthcare Systems group.

Dillon Serves as Panelist and Receives Multiple Honors

Laura Dillon, CSE chairperson, recentlyserved as a panelist during the ComputingResearch Association’s Committee on theStatus of Women in Computing Research(CRA-W) Graduate Cohort Workshop. Theannual CRA-W workshop brought 220female graduate students together with 26women successful in the computing researchfield. The CRA-W Graduate Cohort Program

strives to build peer support networks for female students in amale-dominated field in order to bolster retention and post-gradu-

ate success. Dillon shared her experiences and offered advice onthe question: “To Continue for a PhD or Not?”

Dillon was also named a 2005-2006 Committee on InstitutionalCooperation Academic Leadership (CIC-ALP) fellow. She is oneof 60 professors selected from 12 Committee on InstitutionalCooperation (CIC) research universities. The fellows will takepart in programs aimed at providing a greater awareness andunderstanding of the complex nature of the research university.

In addition, Dillon was recently elected to serve a third term onthe executive board of the Association for Computing MachinerySpecial Interest Group on Software Engineering.

In Memory of Professor Moon Jung Chung

With deep regret and sense of loss, we reportthe untimely death of our colleague,Professor Moon Jung Chung on October 27,2005. He was only 55 years old. Diagnosedwith cancer in the spring of 2005,Chung wasin Korea pursuing a special treatment andwas with family and friends at the time ofhis death.

Chung was an internationally renownedscholar, teacher, and mentor who cared deeply about his students.His work on design automation in general and in process manage-ment in particular has had a transformational effect on the fieldand on industry. His former work on parallel algorithms had asimilar impact.

Chung received his PhD at Northwestern University in 1981 andjoined the MSU Department of Computer Science in 1987 afterserving on the faculty of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for sixyears. He advised 12 PhD students — 8 completed and 4 inprogress — and has mentored 6 MS thesis students and severalundergraduate research assistants. Chung published 30 journalpapers during his career. Just this year he was associate editor ofthe International Journal of Agile Manufacturing and theInternational Journal of CAD/CAM. He was also president ofKorean Computer Scientists and Engineers. Chung taught coursesin computational theory, parallel systems, algorithms, and datastructures. His research impact in the manufacturing area hadblossomed in the last three years.

Chung was the beloved husband of wife SeJin, and father of sonHeesoo and daughter Catherine. He was an avid downhill skierand hiked 100 miles of the Appalachian Trail with his son lastfall. As he leaves us behind on the trail, we miss his steps andmourn our loss.

~ George Stockman, Professor


Joyce Chai

Betty Cheng

Moon Jung Chung(1950 – 2005)

Laura Dillon

Faculty Pipeline


Jain Publishes Two Books and Receives Multiple Honors

Anil Jain, university distinguished professor,edited two books published in 2005:Handbook of Face Recognition, co-editorS.Z. Li, Springer, 2005; and BiometricSystems: Technology, Design andPerformance Evaluation, co-editors J.L.Wayman, D. Maltoni, and D. Maio, Springer,2005. In addition, Jain’s survey paper, “DataClustering: A Review,” co-authored by

Murty and Flynn and published in the November 1999 issue ofACM Computing Surveys, was ranked second for December andthird overall among all publications downloaded in 2004 from theAssociation for Computing Machinery electronic archives.

Jain was also elected a fellow of the American Association for theAdvancement of Science (AAAS). He received the fellowship inrecognition of his significant contributions to pattern recognitionand data clustering with applications in biometrics. In addition,Jain has been appointed a member of the National AcademiesCommittee on Determining Basic Research Needs to Interrupt theImprovised Explosive Device (IED) Delivery Chain. He is alreadyserving on the National Academies Committee on WhitherBiometrics.

Ofria Receives Teachers–Scholar Award,

NSF Research Award

Charles Ofria, assistant professor, was giventhe Teacher-Scholar Award at the All-University Award Ceremony on February 9at the Pasant Theatre, Wharton Center. Ofriais one of only six faculty members universi-ty-wide to receive the award. The Teacher-Scholar award is presented to faculty mem-bers who have earned the respect of studentsand colleagues for their devotion to and skill

in teaching. The essential purpose of the award is to providerecognition to the best teachers who have served at MSU forseven years or less.

The National Science Foundation also recently granted Ofria andHannah Professor of Microbial Ecology Richard Lenski a three-year award to study the dynamics of evolving populations. Theproject is entitled “Reimagining Evolutionary Computation” andwill attempt to design new problem-solving techniques that aremore grounded in the natural world than traditional evolutionarycomputation approaches.

Owen Promoted to Associate Professor

Charles Owen’s promotion to associate professor with tenure wasrecently approved by the MSU Board of Trustees. Owen receivedhis PhD from Dartmouth University in 1998, and is currently thedirector of the Media and Entertainment Technologies Laboratoryat MSU. His areas of research include augmented reality and mul-timedia systems.

Hughes Receives Sigma Xi Meritorious Faculty Award

Herman Hughes, professor emeritus, received the SeniorMeritorious Faculty Award from Sigma Xi Honorary ScientificSociety at the annual awards dinner April 28, 2005.

Stirewalt Chosen to Chair IEEE/ACM Conference

Kurt Stirewalt, associate professor, has beenchosen to organize and chair the 22nd Instituteof Electrical and Electronics Engineers(IEEE)/Association for Computing Machinery(ACM) International Conference on AutomatedSoftware Engineering. The conference will beheld in Atlanta, Georgia, in November 2007.

VanderSloot and Radford Talk “Soft Skills” at the

NACADA Conference

Computer science and engi-neering undergraduate advis-ers Teresa VanderSloot andAmy Radford-Popp offered apresentation entitled“Employers Call for ‘SoftSkills’ From TechnicalMajors: How is Your CampusAnswering?” at the NationalAcademic Advising

Association conference in Toronto March 17–19. The programwas designed to help educators and advisers encourage leadership,problem-solving, communication, and interpersonal skills to pro-mote workforce marketability among students in technical fields.

Wojcik Takes on Assistant Vice President Position

Anthony Wojcik, professor, joined the Officeof the Vice President of Research andGraduate Studies as assistant vice presidentfor research planning. As part of his assign-ment he will oversee internal grant programsat MSU. Wojcik remains half-time in CSEwhere he continues to serve students and fac-ulty as the graduate director.

Xiao Receives NSF Research Grant

Li Xiao, assistant professor, and Gang Bao,mathematics professor, received a three-yearNSF grant through the Division of Computerand Communication Foundations. The pro-posal was titled “Foundations of SolvingLarge Direct and Inverse Scattering Problems— Algorithm Analysis and System Support.” The project will develop both computationalmethods and system solutions for large data-intensive applications on cluster-basedhigh-end systems.

Anil Jain

Charles Ofria

Kurt Stirewalt

Anthony Wojcik

Li Xiao

Teresa VanderSloot (left) and Amy Radford-Popp

A university-wide initiative to establish a high-assurance systemscurriculum is underway. High-assurance systems are designed totolerate failures, and even direct attacks, in order to continue sys-tem operation and preserve system integrity.

In an age where advanced computing technology touches allaspects of our lives, high-assurance systems are a necessity. Thefrequency of identity theft and database breaches, the widespreadpower outage of 2003, and incidents such as the cell phone servicefailure that occurred on September 11, 2001, are a few examples ofthe critical need for dependable systems in our increasingly tech-nology-based society. It is imperative that systems are able toadapt to problems such as sudden surges in the number of users,hardware failures, network outages, software faults, and securityattacks.

“Many important aspects of society depend on computing technol-ogy: business, patient care, transportation, power grids, and so on,”says Philip McKinley, professor. “However, today’s cyber infra-structure is very brittle and insecure, due in large part to the quali-ty of the underlying software. This project is intended to help traina new generation of developers to build systems that are morerobust and better protected against cyber attack.”

The aim of the high-assurance systems initiative is to build under-graduate and graduate curricula, foster multidisciplinary research,and create a “laboratory chassis” infrastructure that gives studentshands-on experience designing and building high-assurance sys-tems. The eventual goal for this innovative program is to establisha center for high-assurance systems. The center could serve as aresource for students and faculty and will provide extension servic-es to local industry and state government.

Initial efforts toward this endeavor recently received financial sup-port through Michigan State University’s Quality Fund. The fund

is a component of President Lou Anna K. Simon’s Boldness byDesign initiative, a strategic positioning process that aspires tohave MSU recognized worldwide as the country’s leading land-grant institution by 2012. Funds for this project will support bothundergraduate and graduate assistantships in this multidisciplinarycollaboration between the College of Engineering, the College ofAgriculture and Natural Resources, the Eli Broad College ofBusiness, and the College of Natural Science.

In its early stages, the project will target four application domains:

• Embedded control systems for manufacturing and transporta-tion systems

• Sensor networks and related technologies for homeland secu-rity

• Information assurance technologies for e-commerce and sup-ply-chain management

• Computing technologies for monitoring and assessing thequality of ecosystems

Betty Cheng, professor, stresses the importance of a collaborativeeffort that includes a diverse group of researchers and educators.“High-assurance systems transcend a broad spectrum of applica-tions and technology,” she says. “It is essential to have a multidis-ciplinary team, including industrial partners, working together toeffectively address the complexity and the changing needs of thesesystems.”

Ten faculty members from four colleges across campus areinvolved in the initiative. Led by Cheng and McKinley, the projectincludes Subir Biswas, electrical and computer engineering associ-ate professor; Laura Dillon, CSE professor and chairperson; StuartGage, entomology professor; Sandeep Kulkarni, CSE assistant pro-fessor; Brian Pentland, accounting professor; Clark Radcliffe,mechanical engineering professor; Kurt Stirewalt, CSE associateprofessor; and Xiaobo Tan, electrical and computer engineeringassistant professor.

The high-assurance systems project is the first of its kind inMichigan. The program’s unique approach seeks to give studentsexperience developing and implementing systems that benefit awide range of commercial and environmental applications, medicaltechnology, and social infrastructures. The laboratory chassis willinclude programming assignments, data analysis experiments, andterm projects in each application domain. Strong communicationand outreach efforts with industrial partners will ensure the successof the program by providing students with relevant applications forthe cutting-edge technologies they will develop.

~ Kim Thompson


Project leaders Philip McKinley, professor, (left) and Betty Cheng, professor, (right) work with lifelong learning student Stephane Kamdoum in the SENS lab.

Department Establishes New High-Assurance Systems Curriculum


Think it’s only professors and graduate students who perform uni-versity research? Think again. More and more undergraduates atMSU are putting on the lab coat and pitching in on engineeringprojects as part of the school’s Undergraduate Research InternProgram. The program started over 10 years ago as a way to getjuniors and seniors thinking about graduate school, and hasexpanded through the years to provide paid research employmentfor approximately 32 students per summer.

According to Thomas F. Wolff, associate dean of undergraduatestudies, the goal is to connect students with faculty members andfoster an understanding of graduate school. “Undergraduate curric-ula are prescriptive and aimed at integrating knowledge,” saysWolff. “Graduate programs are custom-designed; they are muchmore focused on a specific topic. This experience helps studentsunderstand what that’s like.”

The undergraduate researchprogram is extremely valu-able, but also highly competi-tive. According to Wolff, thecollege receives more than100 applications for the 32available slots, and mostinterns have a 3.4 grade pointaverage or better. Successfulstudents will have the oppor-tunity to work with facultymembers on their projects,and perhaps even presenttheir findings at conference.Regardless of whether theytake their research to a con-ference, all summer internsparticipate in a fall college-wide luncheon and publicposter session to showcasetheir work.

Thanks to the Quality FundInitiative, the College ofEngineering will be able tooffer even more paid research positions to undergraduates in sum-mer 2006. The quality fund is the one percent of student tuition set

aside to finance proposals to benefit students at MSU. The collegesubmitted a successful proposal to sponsor additional undergradu-ate interns. They will add a number of paid positions to the pro-

gram, and areconsidering offer-ing employmentduring spring andfall semesters.

This is greatnews for students, according to computer science and engineeringsenior Ee Foong Lee, who worked with Li Xiao, assistant profes-sor, in summer 2005 studying radio signals and ultrasound. “Thisexperience will definitely help me in the future,” says Lee. “The

skills I’ve learned have prepared mefor graduate school and the job mar-

ket.”

Students aren’t the only oneswho benefit from the summerresearch program. The collegepays half of the student’ssalary, meaning that facultyresearchers can get full-timeassistants for half the cost — adefinite perk when grantmoney is spread thin. “Myundergraduate research internperformed extremely well,”says Jonathan Shapiro, assis-

tant professor. “Our projectwas not something that

most undergrads coulddo, and the quality of

his systems skillsbrought immeasurablevalue to our work.”

The UndergraduateResearch Intern Program is notthe only way that students canparticipate in faculty projects.

Many contract directly with instructors to perform research for payor credit. The Honors College also funds paid research opportuni-ties for the top five percent of incoming freshmen. According toWolff, the emphasis on participation in faculty research is all partof the presidential expectation that 95 percent of faculty interactwith undergraduates in a meaningful way. “Undergraduate studentresearch is real in the College of Engineering,” says Wolff. “Thereare opportunities at all levels.”

“The skills I’ve learned have prepared me for graduate

school and the job market.” – Ee Foong Lee, CSE senior

“Undergraduate research is real in the College of Engineering. There are

opportunities at all levels.” – Thomas F. Wolff, associate dean of

undergraduate studies

Undergraduates Get an Early Start on Research in the College of Engineering

CSE Student Spends Spring Break Helping Others

It’s no surprise that PhD student Chad Meinerswanted to go somewhere warm for springbreak. It’s what he did when he got there thatbroke all the college spring break rules.Meiners and other students spent their week offreedom in New Mexico visiting BandelierNational Park, Petroglyph National Park, SanIldefonso Pueblo and San Juan Pueblo. There

the students met with Pueblo elders and leaders to learn about theirculture and the challenges that the people face. Meiners and theothers helped the San Ildefonso prepare some of their woodlandsfor a controlled burn to restore the habitat.

Sascha Konrad is Honored as 2005 Most Outstanding Graduate

Student in CSE

For his superb academic and publication record,work in the Software Engineering and NetworkSystems (SENS) Laboratory and leadership inthe International Student Association (ISA), theDepartment of Computer Science andEngineering named Sascha Konrad the MostOutstanding Graduate Student for 2005. Konradreceived his intermediate diploma at theUniversity of Kaiserslautern, Germany in 2001.

He earned a master’s degree at MSU in 2003 and is currentlyworking on his PhD with Professor Betty Cheng. Konrad main-tains a 4.0 graduate school grade point average and serves as theISA financial officer. His research has centered on safety-criticalindustrial applications and he was recently awarded a summerinternship at Siemens to apply his research to their automationsand control systems areas.

CSE Student Volunteers Get High School Students SET to be

MSU Engineers

Computer science and engineer-ing students helped pave the wayfor the next generation of MSUengineers February 26, 2005, atthe annual Science, Engineering,and Technology (SET) Day. Theopen house gave prospective stu-dents and their parents an oppor-tunity to visit the engineeringbuilding, tour the researchlabs,and talk to faculty and cur-

rent students. Visitors got to see demonstrations in the EmbodiedIntelligence Laboratory, the Genetic Algorithms Research andApplications Laboratory, the Media and Entertainment Laboratory,and the Pattern Recognition and Image Processing Laboratory.

Bierlein Receives Scholarship from Ann Arbor Association for

Women in Computing

Senior Randee Bierlein was recently awardeda scholarship from the Ann Arbor Associationfor Women in Computing (AWC-AA). Theassociation’s scholarship program recognizesoutstanding women pursuing careers in com-puter-related fields. Bierlein was honored atAWC-AA’s Top Michigan Women inComputing Gala held in November. TheAssociation for Women in Computing selectsscholarship recipients based on motivation,

passion, thoughtfulness, creativity, skillful communication, andparticipation in the computing community.

Student Pipeline


Sascha Konrad

Chad Meiners

Current engineering students showcase the MSU program for prospective students and their parents.

Randee Bierlein

Annual CSE Poster Workshop: An Impressive Display

The annual CSE Poster Workshop on April 8 chronicled recent dis-coveries and advancements in research. A total of 62 teams took partin the workshop. Each team was made up of one or more studentsand a faculty adviser. Entrants competed for prizes donated by theCSE Strategic Partners Council, including software packages andNotebook computers. Eighteen posters were selected by a panel ofjudges to be recognized for outstanding presentation and researchcontribution.

Algorithms and Theory CategoryFirst Place: “Optimizing Hydrogen-bond Networks in Protein-Ligand Interfaces” (Sameer Arora; Phillip Dunsbury, Leslie Kuhn;Bill Punch, associate professor; )Second Place: “UR-A-MESS: Uniform Resource Allocation withMultiple Edge-Sharing” (Abishek Patil; Abdol Esfahanian, associate professor)

Third Place: “Average Case Analysis of a Load BalancingAlgorithm” (Christopher Osborn; Eric Torng, associate professor)

Software Engineering CategoryFirst Place: “UAF - A Distributed Adaptation Framework forService-Oriented Overlay Streaming” (Farshad Samimi; ChipinTang; Phillip McKinley, professor)Second Place: “SzumoC++: Extending C++ with Improved Supportfor Concurrency” (Scott Fleming; Kurt Stirewalt, associate professor)Third Place: “Metrics- and Patterns-Based Analysis of UMLDesigns” (Ryan Stephenson; Betty Cheng, professor)

Intelligent Systems 1 CategoryFirst Place: “Multimodal Biometric Systems” (Karthik Nandakumar;Anil Jain, professor)Second Place: “FFV: Fingerprint-based Fuzzy Vault” (Umut Uludag;Anil Jain, professor)

Computer science andengineering studentsnow have the chance toturn a favorite pastimeinto a career opportuni-ty through a new spe-cialization in gamedesign and develop-ment. The area of con-centration will prepare

undergraduates for jobs in the inherently multidisciplinary comput-er game industry by teaming up students from CSE, telecommuni-cations, information studies and media (TISM), and studio art.

The program’s unique courses provide intensive specializedinstruction in game design and development and give studentshands-on experience working on a collaborative project withindustry-based clients. Students learn design fundamentals, princi-ples, and theory, but they also learn about the history of digitalgames and explore issues involving the benefits and controversiesgames have brought to our society.

Although the traditional focus of the industry has been entertain-ment, there are a number of companies that develop games foreducation, military training, and advertising. The game design fieldis a dynamic industry that fluctuates to meet the demands ofincreasing consumer sophistication, but CSE senior Scott Brodiefeels that MSU’s fledgling curriculum is ready to rise to the chal-lenge.

“I've been extremely impressed with all of the professors and fac-ulty involved with the program, and the relevancy of the materialthey cover,” he says. “It would be very easy to focus on the current

technology for making games, but those setting up the program doa great job in helping students prepare for the reality of a rapidlychanging industry.”

Brodie is the president of Spartasoft, an MSU student organizationdevoted to all aspects of game design and development. Thegroup’s membership is largely composed of CSE majors, butincludes other talented students from a diverse range of back-grounds. Spartasoft’s most recent project, Ballistic, was demon-strated at the Future Play 2005 International Conference on theFuture of Gaming held at MSU October 13 – 15. The challenge ofthe game is to guide a ball through a maze-like level by manipulat-ing the surrounding environment. Overall reactions to the gamewere positive, and the group received some useful feedback onways to improve their project.

Brodie says his involvement with the specialization will allow himto demonstrate to game studios that he takes the profession seri-ously. “I think the fact that I now have a class that I can dedicateto building up a solid game portfolio is extremely beneficial,” hesays. “Whereas students in Spartasoft have had to organize proj-ects on their own, the specialization offers a lot of helpful structureand built-in milestones to make sure that students will actuallycomplete something that they can show off at a future interview.”

Designing games is fun and rewarding work, according to Brodie,but it can be difficult. As for his plans after graduation — well,that’s easy: “Hopefully I’ll land a job at a major game studio, andhelp it create the next big hit.”

Additional information about Spartasoft, including game demos,can be found at http://www.spartasoft.msu.edu.

~ Kim Thompson

Senior Scott Brodie specializes in games.


Computer Engineers Play Games with Their Education

Third Place: “Non-homogeneous Poisson Point Process Models forFingerprint Individuality” (Yong Fang Zhu; Anil Jain, professor)Fourth Place: “Regularized Parameter Estimation for Facial ViewSynthesis” (Miguel A. Figueroa-Villanueva; George Stockman, pro-fessor)Fifth Place: “A Computational Framework for the Motor Cortex andIts Development” (Matt Luciw; John Weng, professor)

Intelligent Systems 2 CategoryFirst Place: “A Maximum Coherence Model for Dictionary-BasedCross Language Information Retrieval” (Yi Liu; Rong Jin, assistant professor)

Second Place: “A Quasi-Optimally Efficient Algorithm forIndependent Component Analysis” (Nan Zhang; John Weng, professor)

Third Place: “Efficient Detection of Arbitrary Shaped Clusters inData Streams” (Jing Gao; Pang-Ning Tan, assistant professor)Fourth Place: “A Statistical Model of Context Question Answering”(Shaojun Zhao; Joyce Chai, assistant professor)

Systems CategoryFirst Place: “TDMA Based Reliable and Energy-EfficientCommunication Services for Sensor Networks” (Mahesh Arumugam;Sandeep Kulkarni, assistant professor)Second Place: “QoS Management of Supermedia EnhancedTeleoperation via Overlay Networks” (Zhiwei Cen; Yang Liu; AmitGoradia; Matt Mutka, associate professor; Ning Xi, professor)Third Place: “Sensor Localization in an Obstructed Environment”(Chen Wang; Li Xiao, assistant professor; Rong Jin, assistant profes-sor)

James Avery (BS ’72) is an associate professor inelectrical and computer engineering at the Universityof Colorado, Boulder, where he teaches computer engi-neering and freshman design and conducts research onatmospheric remote sensing and radar development. Heearned his PhD in analytical chemistry at theUniversity of Illinois in 1978, and he was a member ofthe chemistry faculty there for four years.

Julie Louis-Benaglio (BS ’79)received the Department ofComputer Science andEngineering Distinguished Alumniaward during the Alumni AwardsBanquet May 7 at Kellogg Hoteland Conference Center. TheDistinguished Alumni award rec-ognizes an alumnus who has dis-tinguished himself/herself as aleader in the computer science andengineering field through profes-sional contributions, public serv-

ice, and personal accomplishments. Louis-Benagliorecently celebrated her 25th anniversary with Hewlett-Packard in Livonia, Michigan. She has provided tech-nical consulting to HP customers across the UnitedStates, and overseen numerous customer computer sys-tem implementations. Over the years HP managementhas honored her with Most Valuable Player and TopPerformer awards for outstanding customer support.

Julie has encouraged females in technical fieldsthrough her participation in the Society of WomenEngineers (SWE) and her mentoring activities in localschools. She has judged science fair experiments andspoken at several career day assemblies to encouragegirls to pursue technical studies. She has also servedfor more than 10 years as professional field counselorto MSU’s student chapter of SWE.

Julie has served on the alumni board of directors forthe College of Engineering and various advisory com-mittees for the CSE department. She recently estab-lished the Julie Louis-Benaglio Endowed ExcellenceFund, which supports the Department of ComputerScience and Engineering and the MSU student chapterof SWE. With this endowment, which includes HPmatching funds, Julie’s intent is to provide scholarshipfunds for female students pursuing a degree in comput-

er science and engineering and to support SWE activi-ties such as attendance at national conferences.

Julie’s husband, Jim, is an electrical engineer andUniversity of Michigan graduate. Their mutual love ofmusic and guitar playing brought them together in achurch folk group. Their school rivalry is obvious onlyon MSU vs. U of M game days. Jim and Julie havetwo daughters, Jessie and Jamie, both of whom demon-strate strengths in math, music, and sports. Their colle-giate preferences are undetermined, but Julie has madeclear her allegiance to the green and white.

Dustin H. Bettendorf (BS ‘01) joined WarnerNorcross & Judd LLP, a Michigan law firm, inNovember 2005. As an associate in the firm's technolo-gy and intellectual property group, Bettendorf concen-trates his practice on patent law, including patent pros-ecution, infringement, and other issues. He received hisJD from DePaul College of Law in 2004.

Molly Brennan (BS ’82) wasawarded the MSU AlumniAssociation (MSUAA) ServiceAward on October 20 during theGrand Awards ceremony at theKellogg Hotel and ConferenceCenter. Brennan lives and worksin Farmington Hills as an engi-neering group manager for theTruck and Bus Division ofGeneral Motors Corporation.After a brilliant career at MSU,during which she was a two-time

All-American in track and MSU Sportswoman of theYear in 1982, as well as one of the top two studentsacademically, Brennan won a Rhodes Scholarship toOxford University, England. She later joined GeneralMotors and won the first World Solar Challenge, set-ting four solar and electric land speed records in theGuinness Book of World Records. She became TauBeta Pi’s first National Laureate recipient and hasserved in a wide range of community positions.

As an alum, Brennan has been involved in both MSUathletic and academic activities. She served on MSU’sCapital Campaign 2000 and on committees for theCampaign for MSU. Brennan was also a keynotespeaker at MSU’s 1990 fall commencement cere-monies. She has been a member of the MSUAA’s

Alumni Pipeline

Julie Louis-Benaglio

Molly Brennan


National Alumni Board. She is currently the presidentof the Honors College Alumni Board. She and her hus-band, William Derlin, have made many donations toMSU and endowed a joint Honors College/College ofEngineering student scholarship. She served as anational committee chairperson for the MSU Student-Athlete Academic Center campaign. She has wonnumerous awards, including the 1996 Nell JacksonOutstanding Alumna Award and induction into MSU’sAthletics Hall of Fame.

Niharika Joglekar (BS ’05) wasawarded a fellowship to attendthe Richard Tapia Celebration ofDiversity in ComputingConference October 19–22,2005, in Albuquerque, NewMexico. Joglekar, who served asthe co-president of the MSUchapter of Women in Computing(WIC), was selected from a poolof hundreds of applicants toattend this year’s program. Theannual conference celebrates the

technical contributions and career interests of womenand ethnically diverse people in computing fields.

Niharika, who was born in Mumbai, India, came to theUnited States in 2000 and enrolled at MSU in 2001.After graduation from MSU, she joined IBM inRochester, Minnesota as a software engineer. Joglekarsays the most important thing she took away from theconference was confidence to continue her education ina male-dominated field.

“There are so many women who drop out or don’t goto graduate school because they don’t like the culture,”says Joglekar. “There are more and more jobs in com-puter science and fewer and fewer diverse people. Weneed to remedy that — to say ‘Hey, there are success-ful people in this field who look like you.’”

The Tapia conference was sponsored by theAssociation for Computing Machinery (ACM), IEEEComputer Society, and the Computing ResearchAssociation (CRA). Additional supporting organiza-tions included the National Science Foundation, theRice-Houston Alliance for Graduate Education and theProfessoriate, IBM, Google, and Microsoft.

Christopher Krupiarz (BS ‘89) is a senior profession-al staff member at The Johns Hopkins UniversityApplied Physics Laboratory. He wrote software for theMercury Messenger spacecraft and is currently work-ing on designing and testing communications protocolsfor the telecommunications and navigation division ofNASA's Mars Exploration Program.

Tony Lewis (BS ‘81) is a senior information securityanalyst with Intuit, the company that produces Quickenand Turbo Tax software. He coordinates the securityawareness program, maintains information securitypolicies, and conducts security assessments of Intuitapplications.

Alan Russell (BS ‘69, MS ‘71) is a senior accountmanager for global information technology at AirProducts & Chemicals, Inc. In this position he is a liai-son between their 900-person IT department and themany users of IT services, including users in nearly 40countries, many of which he has had the opportunity tovisit.

James Von Ehr II (BS ‘73) wasrecently appointed to the board ofdirectors for Foresight NanotechInstitute. Foresight is the leadingthink tank and public interestorganization focused on nan-otechnology. Von Ehr is thefounder and CEO of ZyvexCorporation, the world’s firstnanotechnology company.

Niharika Joglekar

James Von Ehr II


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