Brown CS News

Brown University’s Dean of the Faculty gives out five different awards annually to recognize continued excellence in teaching, and this year, Brown CS and Data Science Institute faculty member Ritambhara Singh has received the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching for a junior faculty member from the physical or life sciences.

Late last year, Brown University’s Roberto Tamassia (Chair of the Department of Computer Science and James A. and Julie N. Brown Professor of Computer Science) gave an invited talk at the Italian National Cybersecurity Agency (ACN), the branch of the Italian government devoted to the protection of national interests in the field of cybersecurity. Reporting directly to Italy's Prime Minister, ACN is responsible for safeguarding Italy's security and resilience in cyberspace, preventing and mitigating cyber attacks, and promoting cybersecurity awareness and education in government, business, and society.

Okta Ventures, the venture investment arm of cloud-based identity solutions provider Okta, has recently announced the Identity 25, a list of trailblazers in the burgeoning field of digital identity, and Brown University’s James A. and Julie N. Brown Professor of Computer Science Anna Lysyanskaya is one of the honorees.

The International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR) is a nonprofit scientific organization whose purpose is to further research in cryptology and related fields. Every year at the Real World Crypto Symposium (RWC), they award the Levchin Prize for Real-World Cryptography, which honors major innovations in cryptography that have had a significant impact on the practice of cryptography and its use in real-world systems. Two prizes are awarded each year, and one of this year’s winners is Brown University James A. and Julie N. Brown Professor of Computer Science Anna Lysyanskaya. 

Brown CS is happy to announce that faculty members Tim Nelson, Daniel Ritchie, and James Tompkin have received promotions. Pending the approval of Brown’s Corporation and effective as of July 1, 2024, Tim has been promoted to Senior Lecturer, Daniel to Associate Professor with tenure, and James to Associate Professor with tenure.

By using a phone camera and a new set of Instagram augmented reality filters, anyone can dive into the depths of space, encountering nebulae, pulsars and even remnants of exploded stars.

The Randy F. Pausch '82 Computer Science Undergraduate Summer Research Award, given this year to Jay Lin to support his work with Brown CS faculty member Amy Greenwald, recognizes strong achievement from undergraduate researchers and offers them the opportunity to continue their work over the summer.

Brown CS faculty member Robert Y. Lewis has just co-founded the Annals of Formalized Mathematics, a new diamond open-access journal that will publish original articles about formalized mathematics and mathematical applications of proof assistants. Also known as interactive theorem provers, these tools are used to produce formally correct mathematics: users write definitions, theorems, and proofs in a specialized language and receive instant feedback from the computer about each line. Rob will serve as Managing Editor alongside Filippo A. E. Nuccio Mortarino Majno di Capriglio of the Université Jean Monnet Saint-Étienne in France.

Now in its seventh year, the Brown Venture Prize, given by Brown University’s Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship, awards a total of $50,000 to empower the most advanced entrepreneurial ventures by Brown students. It’s intended to help them accelerate and scale their innovations through funding, critical mentorship, and access to leaders in the Brown entrepreneurial community and beyond. This year, four of the eight honorees, including the first place and second place winners, were teams that included Brown CS students, faculty, or alums.

Held in Orlando, Florida, this week, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Virtual Reality conference (IEEE VR) is widely considered the premier international venue for the presentation of research results in the broad area of virtual reality (VR). The event’s Best Paper Awards are given to approximately the top 1% of total submissions, and new work, “Evaluating Text Reading Speed in VR Scenes and 3D Particle Visualizations”, from Brown CS alum Johannes Novotny and faculty member David Laidlaw, his doctoral advisor, is one of just six winners.