News

If you are interested in new computer display technology you may wish to look up the article Water droplets create multilayered display in the July 1st, 2010 edition of New Scientist, in which Dr. Roel Vertegaal of the Queen’s School of Computing is quoted.

The paper “Studying the Impact of Social Structures on Software Quality” yesterday received the best paper award at the 18th IEEE International Conference on Program Comprehension (ICPC 2010) in Braga, Portugal. This year is the most competitive year in ICPC’s history, where fewer than 20% of the papers submitted were accepted for presentation.

The authors (Ph.D. candidate Nicolas Bettenburg and Dr. Ahmed E. Hassan, of the Queen’s School of Computing) were presented with a unique and artistic statue for the award, along with the usual award plaques!
The research described in the winning paper is part of Nicolas’ Ph.D. thesis.

Great work Nicolas, what a way to celebrate Canada Day!

Selim

For the second time this month, a group of researchers from the Queen’s School of Computing has garnered an award at a conference held in France.

Congratulations to Khalid Elgazzar (Ph.D. candidate, QSC), Mohammed Salah (M.Sc. student, ECE), Abd-Elhamid Taha (Post-Doctoral Fellow, QSC), and Professor Hossam Hassanein (QSC) who received a Best Paper Award for their paper “Comparing Uplink Schedules for LTE” at the Sixth International Wireless & Mobile Computing Conference (IWCMC 2010) held in Caen, France.

Cheers,
Selim

Dear all,

I am pleased to report that Dr. Amir Tahmasebi, a recent graduate of the Queen’s School of Computing (supervisors Drs. Purang Abolmaesumi and Ingrid Johnsrude), was the winner of the “Best Ph.D. Thesis Research Award” awarded by the IEEE, and presented at the IEEE Kingston Section banquet last night.

Well done Amir, and congratulations to the Biomedical Computing Group whose members have won this award repeatedly in recent years.

Selim

Please join me in congratulating the following students in their successful scholarship applications

OGS

• Lauren Gordon
• Kashif Ali
• Nicolas Bettenburg
• Scott Grant
• Kathrin Tyryshkin

OGSST

• Thanh Nguyen
• Cheryl Savery
• Doug Wightman

RS McLaughlin

• Andrew Stevenson
• Helen Xu

Carmichael

• Gehan Selim

Cheers,
Debby

This past weekend School faculty members Jim Cordy and Igor Jurisica (cross-appointed from the Ontario Cancer Institute) completed the 220 km / 320 km Ride to Conquer Cancer as part of the IBM / OCI Integrative Discovery Team. Under the Igor and Liz Sauter’s leadership, the team raised over $66,000 to aid in world-leading cancer research at the Campbell Family Institute at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto. Altogether a total of over 4,100 riders raised more than $16.1 million in the Ride.

Topcoder announced Alcatel-Lucent $40,000 Location-Based iPad App Challenge.

Check it out.
—
Thanks

Mahmoud Ouda

Dear all,

Last night, at the June 9, 2010, Bachelor of Computing Convocation, it was with great pleasure that we saw our own Biomedical Computing graduate Mark Wu step on the stage to receive from Chancellor Dodge’s hand two medals:

1. The Medal in Computing
2. The Governor General’s Academic Silver Medal (This is awarded to the student deemed to have the highest academic standing in a bachelor degree program, across all disciplines).

In the midst of enthusiastic applause from the audience, cheered on by the Chancellor and Principal Woolf, Mark received a standing ovation from five professors, in full regalia and beaming with pride: Robin Dawes, Randy Ellis, Gabor Fichtinger, Mary McCollam, and yours truly.

Congratulations Mark on this wonderful achievement, and all the best for the future. And congratulations to the members of our faculty, staff, and students, who contributed to this success. A fitting conclusion to a fantastic year.

Selim

Dear all,

It is with great pleasure that I announce the promotion of Dr. Gabor Fichtinger to the rank of Professor with tenure, and the promotion of Dr. Nick Graham to the rank of Professor (with tenure, awarded previously), both effective July 1st, 2010.

Please join me in congratulating our two colleagues for this well deserved recognition of their contributions to the Queen’s School of Computing, the University, and the community at large.

Well done and best wishes,
Selim

Dear all,

The last weekend in May was busy and beautiful at the Queen’s School of Computing.

On Friday, the School held a Research Showcase event. Faculty members, representing various research projects in the School, were featured speakers:

• Software Technology: Juergen Dingel
• Biomedical Computing: Randy Ellis and James Stewart
• Wireless Networks: Hossam Hassanein
• Human Computer Interaction: Roel Vertegaal and Doug Wightman.

On Saturday, the School’s labs traveled to Ban Righ Hall where displays, experiments and demos where presented to the alumni. On hand were the School’s ever dependable and characteristically enthusiastic volunteers: Mervat AbuElkheir, Andrew Dickerson, Ed Kouch, Manuela Kunz, John Lee, Dumitru Oceanu, Mahmoud Ouda, Cheryl Savery, and Kathrin Tyryshkin.

Thanks to Dean Mckeown for organizing these two events. And to our amazing School staff, a cheerful nod of appreciation for going way, way beyond the call of duty (nothing new here): Tom Bradshaw, Dave Dove, Irene LaFleche, and Lynda Moulton.

On Sunday, a new tradition was born with the launch of the First Annual Queen’s Graduate Computing Society Conference, a conference organized by the School’s graduate students for graduate students. The event included oral presentations and poster exhibits by the graduate students, as well as keynote talks by Randy Ellis, Jim Cordy, and yours truly. After a full day, and a rich technical program, awards were presented for the best presentation in each of two tracks (Abdulrahman Abahsain and Sara Salehi) and the best poster (Ed Kouch). A tip of the hat for the superbly organized conference to: Sharief Oteafy, Dumitru Oceanu, Layan Nahlawi, Sunny Gupta, Karolina Zurowska, Gehan Selim, Imad Abdallah and Katie Legere.

Sum ergo computo,
Selim