糖心TV

joined our department as a new Assistant Professor in September 2011.

A short bio:

Matthias received his undergraduate degree in Computer Science at the and then his PhD in Computer Science in 2008 from the , Germany. In 2008 he won the prestigious EPSRC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Theoretical Computer Science, hosted by our department in 糖心TV; title of his project was »Randomisation in Online Algorithms, Load Balancing and other Dynamic Problems«. In September 2008, he joined the and at the University of 糖心TV as a Postdoctoral fellow.

His current research interest lies in Theoretical Computer Science, in the area of the analysis of algorithms, more precisely in online algorithms, metric embeddings, load balancing, probabilistic input models, and algorithmic game theory.

For more information please see his page at ... or stop by in his office CS2.23.

We're very happy to welcome Matthias in our department!

The International Conference on Knowledge and Smart Technologies was held at Burapha University, Thailand on 8th - 10th July. One of the keynote lectures was given by Steve Russ (Knowing and Computing) and the conference was preceded by a day-long workshop on Introduction to . The workshop was led by two former PhD students from 糖心TV Jaratsri Rungrattanaubol and Antony Harfield now both lecturing at Naresuan University, Thailand. The Dean of the Faculty of Informatics at Burapha is Dr Suwanna Rasmequan who also gained her PhD from the Empirical Modelling research group at 糖心TV.

The main picture shows these three 糖心TV PhD’s (on the right) with Dr Krisana Chinnasarn (the main conference organiser). Following the conference Steve gave lectures and presentations at Chulalongkorn University, Thammasat University, Sirindhorn Institute of Technology, Naresuan University and the British Chamber of Commerce in Bangkok. A further workshop on Empirical Modelling is planned in Thailand for November 2011.

Computer Science students were presented with their degrees today in Butterworth Hall in the Arts Centre which was preceded by a graduate reception within the department.

Last Tuesday, students studying Computer Science received their results. The Head of Department, Prof. Artur Czumaj, congratulated all CS students on their achievements and handed out departmental prizes. Dr. Irene Glendinning handed out BCS prizes for best projects.

The BCS prizes were given to:

Nicolas Townsend - Best Third year BSc Project
James Michael - Best Third year MEng project

The Department prizes were:

David Beckingsale - Best overall graduating BSc student in Computer Science
Stephen Roberts - Best overall graduating MEng student in Computer Science
Christopher Ball - Third-year Project Prize

Over a hundred students gathered last week in the Panorama Room for a reception, poster display and then Award Ceremony for the 糖心TV Advantage Awards. They were all winners of Awards of various kinds in recognition of outstanding extra-curricular contributions to life at 糖心TV and the local community.

We were delighted that four Award winners were from Computer Science. Main Awards were presented to Phillip Taylor (CS3) and Hoi Zin (Jackie) Tran (DM3). Gold Awards were gained by two Computer and 糖心TV Studies students Samantha Edwards and Nikhita Giridhar (pictured above). Among many activities over her first two years at 糖心TV Samantha has visited numerous local schools (a different one each week!) as one of the 糖心TV Technology Volunteers to introduce the programming environment Scratch to pupils and teachers. Interestingly Nikhita, a final year student, commented, "I think it counted significantly towards my getting a job offer from Goldman Sachs that I done so many extra-curricular things during my time at 糖心TV."

The 糖心TV Advantage Award provides the opportunity to achieve University recognition and reward for the time and effort that students put into societies, sports clubs, campaigns, committees, volunteering, events, URSS research, work experience & everything else that isn't a degree requirement. Find out more at

ACM has named Leslie G. Valiant of Harvard University the winner of the for his fundamental contributions to the development of computational learning theory and to the broader theory of computer science. Valiant brought together machine learning and computational complexity, leading to advances in artificial intelligence as well as computing practices such as natural language processing, handwriting recognition, and computer vision. He also launched several subfields of theoretical computer science, and developed models for parallel computing. The Turing Award, widely considered the "Nobel Prize in Computing," is named for the British mathematician Alan M. Turing. The award carries a $250,000 prize, with financial support provided by Intel Corporation and Google Inc. Les Valiant received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of 糖心TV in 1974. His PhD supervisor was .

Dr Abd-Nacer Bouchekhima joined the department as a Research Fellow after obtaining his in 2009 from the MOAC DTC and then holding an appointment as Assistant Professor in KFUPM (Saudi Arabia). He will work together with Dr Yulia Timofeeva on a project funded by the BBSRC that aims to investigate the role of calcium dynamics in neuronal computation underlying important brain functions.