Brown CS News

“I don’t think retirement means much to Stan,” says Nesime Tatbul. Currently a Senior Staff Research Scientist for Intel Labs and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), she’s one of his former PhD students. After more than four decades as a Brown CS faculty member, Stan Zdonik is retiring at the end of this semester.

Tom was the fifth hire in the Department’s history and has served in multiple leadership roles, including Vice-Chair, Director of Undergraduate Studies, and Director of the Master’s program. He’ll retire at the end of the semester after almost five decades in the classroom.

A new AI model created by researchers at Brown can generate motion in all kinds of robots and animated figures — humanoids, quadrupeds and more — from simple text commands.

With Someone, Please Knock, says the digital sign outside CIT 403, but not for much longer. Brown CS faculty member Steven P. Reiss, one of the Department’s seven co-founders, will be retiring at the end of the semester after almost five decades in the classroom.

As a PhD candidate in Malte Schwarzkopf's Efficient and Trustworthy Operating Systems (ETOS) group, Dak Albab has made a significant impact through his profound dedication to going above and beyond for his students.

Brown CS has just announced that it's recognizing twenty-four graduating seniors for their academic accomplishments as well as their service to the department this year.

Brown University’s Dean of the Faculty gives out five different awards annually to recognize excellence in teaching, and this year, Eliot Horowitz Assistant Professor of Computer Science Malte Schwarzkopf has received the Philip J. Bray Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Physical Sciences.  

After forty-five years at Brown, Kathy Kirman Billings, Project and Financial Manager for Brown CS Technical Staff (tstaff), is retiring. Above everything else, she describes the Department as a tight-knit community: “People care about each other and look out for each other. I’ve gotten to know so many students over the years, and I’m still friends with some of them.”

Skylar, a member of the Class of 2026, has earned one of the nation's leading undergraduate scholarships for her achievements in mathematics, engineering and the natural sciences.

Brown CS alum Layla Oesper has been honored with the 2025 Computing Research Association (CRA) Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award, which recognizes individual faculty members who have provided exceptional mentorship, undergraduate research experiences, and in parallel, guidance on admission and matriculation of these students to research-focused graduate programs in computing. Currently an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Carleton College, Layla specializes in developing algorithms for computational biology, with a particular emphasis on cancer research.