A Talk by Dr. Yan Xu, Microsoft Research
Thursday, November 15, 2007, 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Library Auditorium

Dr. Xu will give an overview of Microsoft Research, the External Research and Programs group at Microsoft Research, and the academic collaboration strategies of her group. She will then discuss in detail an exciting new program at Microsoft Research: Computational Education for Scientists.

Yan joined Microsoft Research in March 2006. Her research has been focused on exploring technologies and pedagogical strategies that facilitate and enhance interdisciplinary computational education and computational thinking. She is responsible for the Computational Education for Scientists program, which enables collaborations with academia, infusing computational thinking into science education to create tomorrow's scientists. Yan is also responsible for applying Microsoft Phoenix technology to computer science education as part of the Phoenix Academic Program.

Yan has over ten years experience working in the software industry. Prior to joining Microsoft Research, she worked for several startup software companies as a senior software architect. She also served as a principal member of the W3C XML Protocol working group. Yan received her Ph.D. in Physics from McGill University, Canada.

Out of Phase: How Trailing Indicators Have Shaped Software Engineering and CS Enrollment

I didn't realize it at the time, but something very interesting happened in the early 90s. The importance of the personal computer exploded onto the scene and caught unaware most of the suits. Programmers all of the sudden became valuable employees with leverage over their paymasters. Salaries went up, the workplace became more of a clubhouse, and while it was a pressure cooker, it was an intensely satisfying one both from a financial and pleasure standpoint. Two factors in the mid to late 90s drove growth in the industry to an even more lunatic level: the Y2K boogieman and the internet craze.

Axioms changed. Y2K turned out to be the paper tiger it always was and the market collapsed. Many undergraduates finished CS degrees that were started during the boom cycle and realized they didn't really like coding. Ultimately, these two factors made a huge change in how computer software is written which will impact you as you begin your careers.

In my talk, I'll frame out the changes that have taken place in software development in the last 15 years and discuss some of the triggers which caused them. Along the way, we'll talk about the difference between dev, test, and program management and why the rise in program management is deeply linked to large numbers of CS graduates in the late 90s combined with the dot com collapse. We'll chat about waterfall, agile, paired programming and how to recognize the difference between technique and dogma. Cross group collaboration, career velocity, and bozo bits will come up and somewhere in there I'll try and touch on how computing for the creative disciplines is different. Finally, we'll talk about your generation of CS majors and how you are different from the set that graduated just half a decade ago. You are part of another trailing indicator and unlike the last, a harbinger of good things.

The talk will be part technical, part sociological, and about half of it will be question time.

Bio:

Charles F. Rose is a Senior Computer Scientist at Adobe Systems Incorporated specializing in compilers for hybrid CPU/GPU image processing languages within the Adobe Image Foundation team. He is a 1992 TCNJ graduate of the computer science department and the honors program. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from Princeton University in 1999 specializing in controllable human figure animation.

He was a member of the Microsoft Research Graphics Group from 1995-2000 and then decided to learn about production software in the Microsoft product teams, working primarily in security policy expression using declarative programming and digital rights management for documents. His first work on graphics compilers was in Direct3D's HLSL compiler team and he is now working on similar problems at Adobe's Seattle office.

An enthusiastic amateur photographer, he's very pleased that his current work is helping folks to do interesting new things more quickly with images. You can find out more about his current work at http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/AIF_Toolkit and his past work at http://www.cfr3.com/professional.html.

Computer Graphics Film Show -- SIGGRAPH Video Review
(joint meeting with ACM SIGGRAPH and Princeton Media Communications Association)
Our first meeting of the season is our ever-popular computer graphics film show. Our speaker this year is Jeff Posdamer. He will be showing and talking about the latest and greatest computer animations direct from the ACM SIGGRAPH conference in San Diego this summer.

Our kickoff meeting will include the following Pre-Show events:
- Free Refreshments (coffee, soda, munchies) starting at 7pm
- Free Raffle (give-aways of computer / graphics equipment,
books, and supplies)
- Silent Auction - a sale to benefit the David Sarnoff Library, our kind hosts
- Poster/Demo Sessions - informal exhibits of graphics work being done in our area

Date: Thursday October 18, 2007
Pre-show events and refreshments at 7:00pm, Meeting at 8:00pm
Place: Sarnoff Corp., Routes 1 and 571, Princeton, NJ
Information: Dennis Mancl (908) 582-7086, David Soll (215) 854-3461
On-line info: http://www.acm.org/chapters/princetonacm

All ACM / IEEE-CS meetings are open to the public. Students and their parents are welcome. There is no admission charge, and refreshments are served.

Recent Advances in Requirements Engineering
This talk will describe current challenges in requirements engineering and present some emerging technologies that hold great promise for meeting those challenges: dynamic and rich traces, UML, software reconnaissance, natural language processing, and automated test generation.

Date: Thursday November 15, 2007, 8:00pm (refreshments and networking at 7:30)
Place: Sarnoff Corp., Routes 1 and 571, Princeton, NJ
Information: Dennis Mancl (908) 582-7086, David Soll (215) 854-3461
On-line info: http://www.acm.org/chapters/princetonacm

The Geometry of Music
This talk will show how to use "orbifolds" to model the way listeners, composers, and performers abstract away from musical information. The speaker is Dmitri Tymoczko, a composer and music theorist with the Music Composition faculty at Princeton University. Date: Thursday December 13, 2007, 8:00pm (refreshments and networking at 7:30)
Place: Sarnoff Corp., Routes 1 and 571, Princeton, NJ
Information: Dennis Mancl (908) 582-7086, David Soll (215) 854-3461
On-line info: http://www.acm.org/chapters/princetonacm

This past summer two of our students spent their time in National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs) at other universities. One student joined the Google Summer of Code team (yet another did this the previous summer). In the past we've had students participate in the TCNJ Summer Undergraduate Research Program. Others have interned at companies.

Come to Holman Hall 252 on Thursday October 4, 2007 at 11:30 am to hear what our students have to say about some of these experiences. You can find out how to get more information about these experiences, how to apply for them.

It's not too early to start thinking about a summer experience that could change your life!