2010 Highlights

Open House, December 2010

The School of Computing held an open house on Friday December 10, 2010 in honour of Computer Science Education Week. Most of our labs prepared demos for the occasion, and guides led tours through the School. We opened our doors to welcome high school students and their teachers, colleagues in the Queen's administration, alumni, and members of the community. Our thanks to Dean McKeown who was the principal organizer of the event, and to the faculty members, staff, and students, undergraduate and graduate, who made it happen.

Fall Preview (November 13)

The venue had changed (Mackintosh-Corry Hall) but the enthusiasm was as high as usual among School of Computing volunteers, as they participated in Part 2 of the 2010 Fall Preview held on Saturday, November 13. Much thanks to the volunteers for their creativity, their skill, their energy, their eloquence, and their courtesy, when welcoming our prospective students and their parents, showing the visitors what we do, and answering questions about the School and its programs.

Fall Preview (October 30)

The School of Computing presented an amazing display at the Annual Queen's Fall Preview, on Saturday October 30. Twenty members of the School where on hand to promote our undergraduate programs, and the discipline of computing in general. Their beautiful demos and eloquent presentations to high school students and their parents attracted a great deal of attention. There were approximately 2,400 visitors, and one could see a renewed interest in the excitement and wonder of computing, among female and male young people alike.

Ontario Celebration of Women In Computing (ONCWIC) 2010

Congratulations to Wendy Powley and everyone else involved in the "Ontario Celebration of Women in Computing", for a fabulous conference. The event, which took place on the October 23rd weekend, was superbly organized and run. Its attendance exceeded all expectations, especially for a first-time edition. Details about the proceedings can be found at: http://sites.cs.queensu.ca/wisc/ONCWIC/, and more photos found here on PicasaWeb. The conference is to become an annual event, and that the Queen's School of Computing will play an important role in its future.

Technology Showcase

The Queen's School of Computing will be represented this year at the IBM CASCON 2010 Technology Showcase in Toronto by 13 posters. The school's posters will constitute 18% of the total displayed at CASCON. Given the large number of posters from Queen's, it was decided to hold a pre-CASCON event to showcase the work on October 26. The posters represented small samplings of the cutting-edge research being carried out within five of the School of Computing research labs. They were prepared and presented by graduate students. Well done, presenters and organizers.

Business Plan Competition Launched

School of Computing Director Selim Akl was one of the speakers at the launch of the Business Plan Competition for Prince Edward County and Lennox and Addington County, held in Goodes Hall on Wednesday October 20, 2010. Said Dr. Akl: "I am delighted that the Queen's School of Computing has been invited to be a partner in organizing this important competition. The School of Computing is a dynamic and forward-looking organization. As the banner behind me says, the School fosters entrepreneurship, creativity, and innovation. Indeed, my colleagues and I work with professionals from all disciplines, from physicians to physicists, from engineers to artists, creating and disseminating knowledge, and providing practical solutions to a multitude of problems. Today, all progress in science and technology rests on a firm computing foundation. There is no doubt, therefore, that information technology can play an important role in the economic development of our region."

EQUIS Demos at KingCon

On September 25th, the School of Computing's EQUIS Lab lab took a van-full of demos to KingCon, a local gaming convention. The researchers spent the day advertising the School, and showing off some of the lab's ongoing work. Photos by Chris Wolfe and Joey Pape.

Quantum Chess Competition

On Friday the 13th of August 2010, 14 volunteers gathered in the School of Computing to participate in the first ever Quantum Chess Competition. The competition was organized by Alice Wismath, a fourth year undergraduate in the School of Computing and a summer NSERC student working with Selim Akl.

Quantum Chess, a variant of the chess game invented by Selim Akl, uses the weird properties of quantum physics. Unlike the chess pieces of the conventional game, where a pawn is a pawn, and a rook is a rook, a quantum chess piece is a superposition of "states", each state representing a different conventional piece. In Quantum Chess, a player does not know the identity of a piece (that is, whether it is a pawn, a rook, a bishop, and so on) until the piece is selected for a move. Once a piece is selected it elects to behave as one of its constituent conventional pieces, but soon recovers its quantum state and returns to being a superposition of two or more pieces.

Why Quantum Chess? Conventional chess is a game of complete information, and thanks to their raw power and clever algorithms, computers reign supreme when pitted against human players. The idea behind Quantum Chess is to introduce an element of unpredictability into chess, and thereby place the computer and the human on a more equal footing. Because a true quantum board may be a few years in the future, for her summer project, Alice Wismath created a program to model one variation of Quantum Chess, as well as a computer strategy to play the game.

The competition consisted of each person playing three games against the computer and scoring points based on the number of games won or lost. The two winners of the competition won two of their three games against the computer, with many players losing all three games.

For details of the rules or to play Alice's game online visit HERE

Ian Bentley receives The Ian MacLeod Award

The Ian MacLeod Award was established by friends, colleagues and students in memory of Professor Ian A. Macleod, who was a member of the Department of Computing and Information Science (currently School of Computing), from its inception in 1969 until 1995.

To commemorate his belief in the importance of a strong departmental spirit, the award is granted in the fall to the graduate student in the school who made the greatest contribution to the intellectual and social spirit of the School of Computing during the preceding academic year.

The recipient is chosen on the basis of a recommendation made to a committee formed by the Head of the Department. A plaque bearing the names of the recipients is on display in the department. Value $550.

This year's winner is Ian Bentley (left in photo). Presenting the award is Dr. David Skillicorn (right)

Adam Clarridge receives The Distinguished Thesis Award

Regularly M.Sc. students ask us to show them examples of "good" M.Sc. theses. The department responds to such requests by designating several theses as exemplary. An exemplary thesis should be well written and present high quality research. The department also chooses an outstanding thesis and awards it the annual "Distinguished Thesis Award". The Distinguished Thesis is the best exemplary thesis received in the given year.

This year's winner is Adam Clarridge (2009). Presenting the award is Dr. Selim Akl (right), Director. Accepting the award for Adam is Dr. Kai Salomaa (left), Graduate Coordinator.

2010 Undergraduate Students Spring Convocation

The Spring Convocation on June 9 was preceded by an informal ceremony at Goodwin Hall featuring the presentation of "People's Choice" awards for outstanding research project posters, and the first ever Director's Award for Outstanding Contributions to School Life which went to graduand Jennifer Clarke. At the convocation held that evening, another student of the school, Mark Wu, received both the Medal in Computing, and the Governor General's Academic Silver Medal for receiving the highest academic standing in a bachelors degree program across all disciplines. Congratulations to Mark, to Jennifer, and to all School of Computing graduates.

2010 Graduate Students Convocation

The Spring Convocation on June 4 in Grant Hall was the first convocation in a long time devoted entirely to graduate students. All Queen's M.Sc.s and Ph.D.s graduated together that day, including those from the School of Computing. The guest speaker was the Director of the School of Computing, Selim Akl.

Dr. Akl's Convocation Address (requires flash player)

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School of Computing 7th Annual Concert

Thanks to Dave Dove for putting together another great concert on May 11. This year's talented participants were:

• Carolyn and Margaret Lamb
• Dorothea Blostein, Linda Stroud, and Bob Tennent (with Katie Legere)
• Katie Legere
• Hamid Taha
• Davin Carlson
• The Dave Dove Blues Band featuring Lisa Marzano (and Bob Crawford, Ben Hall, and Dave Rappaport)

School of Computing Awards – 2010 Edition

Congratulations to this year's recipients of the School of Computing Awards:

• COMPSA Howard Staveley Award for Teaching Excellence: Dave Dove; Runners-Up: Jim Cordy, Doug Wightman
• COMPSA First Honorary Member: Irene LaFleche
• Excellence in Teaching Assistance Award: Ian Bentley
• Ph.D. Research Achievement Award: Manar Alafi
• Graduate Student Distinguished Service Award: Sharief Oteafy
• Distinguished Graduate Supervision Award: Juergen Dingel and Hossam Hassanein
• Distinguished Service Award: Karilee Reinbold

The awards were presented at a well-attended ceremony on April 8. Photos by Dave Dove and Tom Bradshaw.