Dr. Mohammad Atiquzzaman Presents IEEE Distinguished Lecture Tour

As part of the Distinguished Lecture Program of the IEEE Communication's Society, OU Professor Mohamed Atiquzzaman will embark on a series of lectures and networking events to Austin, Dallas, Atlanta, and Huntsville during the week of October 3-7, 2022.

OU Team Collaborates with Universidad Nacional de San Agustin (UNSA) in Peru

From April 3 to 8, Dean Hougen, Associate Professor and Associate Director of the School of Computer Science, traveled with seven OU colleagues to Arequipa, Peru to meet with administrators, faculty, staff, and students of the Universidad Nacional de San Agustín (UNSA) as part of a collaborative project between OU and UNSA to establish the Integrated Center for Monitoring and Control of Public Health (CMCPH) in the Arequipa region, which is focused on public health issues such as COVID-19 and other communicable diseases. This visit also brought to light other pressing health concerns for the people of Arequipa including diabetes, rabies transmission among canines, and negative health impacts from mining the mountains of the region.

Along with Prof Hougen, the interdisciplinary team from OU traveling to Peru consisted of David Ebert, Associate Vice President for Research and Partnerships, Director of the Data Institute for Societal Challenges (DISC), and Professor of Computer Science and Electrical & Computer Engineering; Hank Jenkins-Smith, Co-Director of the National Institute for Risk and Resilience (NIRR) and Professor of Political Science; Aaron Wendelboe, Professor and Edward E. & Helen T. Bartlett Chair of Biostatistics & Epidemiology; Charles “Charlie” Kenney, Director of the Center for the Americas and Associate Professor of Political Science; Charles Nicholson, Associate Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering; Andrés González, Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering; and Victor Maqque, Operations Manager for the Latin American Sustainability Initiative (LASI) at OU.

While in Peru, the team met extensively with UNSA representatives including UNSA President Hugo Rojas Flores; Vice President for Research Henry G. Polanco Cornejo; and Jesús Silva Fernández, Professor of Production and Services Engineering and UNSA principal investigator for the project, numerous other faculty and students, and public health officials including Dr. Carlos Cuya Mamani, Executive Director of the Arequipa–Caylloma Health Network. They also traveled to Quequeña, Peru to see better understand the operation of regional clinics and their roles in their communities. This effort is part of a larger group of collaborative efforts between OU and UNSA to establish the Arequipa Research Institute for Global Change and Human Health.

See also:

• https://www.unsa.edu.pe/arequipa-contara-con-un-centro-de-monitoreo-y-control-de-salud-publica-gracias-a-proyecto-de-la-unsa-y-universidad-de-oklahoma/
• https://ou.edu/research-norman/news-events/2021/ou-peru-university-partner-on-health-climate-research-projects
• https://www.ou.edu/research-norman/news-events/2021/victor-maqque-selected-as-operations-manager-for-latin-american-sustainability-initiative-at-ou

Dimitris Diochnos Serves as NSF AI2ES Senior Personnel

Dimitris Diochnos is Senior Personnel at the NSF AI Institute for Research on Trustworthy AI in Weather, Climate, and Coastal Oceanography (AI2ES). The lead PI in the project is Amy McGovern (OU) and the institute is funded for approximately 20 million dollars over 5 years, in order to make significant advances in foundational and applied AI research. Dimitris is working on foundational issues related to robustness and reliability of machine learning algorithms that have applications to environmental sciences. In this one and a half year that the institute is running, Dimitris had two papers in top AI conferences, one of which was based on work done with Conner Flansburg, an undergraduate student at OU, who participated in the REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) of 2021 in terms of the AI2ES institute. The work of the institute was also presented in the recent AGU (American Geophysical Union) meeting that was held in December of 2021, where Dimitris's work on robust AI was also highlighted --

View clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNFu4LXxLqQ
AI2ES Institute: https://www.ai2es.org

David Ebert Elected to IEEE Computer Society

Congratulations to Dr. David S. Ebert, Associate Vice President for Research and Partnerships, Gallogly Chair Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Professor of Computer Science, and the Director of the Data Institute for Societal Challenges, as he was recently elected second vice president of the IEEE Computer Society.

The IEEE Computer Society advances the theory, design, practice and application of computer and information-processing science and technology, as well as the professional standing of its members.

Dr. Deborah Trytten Awarded NSF Grant That Includes Scholarship Support to 23 Students

Deborah Trytten, Ph.D., a computer science professor, is leading an OU research team focused on creating pathways to STEM disciplines for students with demonstrated financial need. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the project will support scholarships to 23 full-time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in computer science and interested in building Tribal Nations. The team includes Dean Hougen, Ph.D., associate professor in the School of Computer Science, and Randa Shehab, Ph.D., a professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Dr. Heather Shotton, and  Dr. Natalie Youngbull, from Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in the Jeanine Rainbolt College of Education and Dr. Deborah Moore- Russo and Ms. Casey Haskins from the Department of Mathematics in the Dodge College of Arts and Science. Follow the link below for more information.

https://ou.edu/research-norman/news-events/2021/new-scholarship-program-focuses-on-computer-science-and-tribal-nation-building

Graduate Teaching Assistants Honored with Provost's Certificate of Distinction in Teaching

Congratulations to Jalal Saidi and Khaled Abdelaal upon receiving the Provost's Certificate of Distinction in Teaching.

FROM THE PROVOST:
On behalf of Senior Vice President and Provost André Wright, we are pleased to share that you will receive recognition to honor the hard work and dedication of outstanding graduate students who teach at OU: The Provost’s Certificate of Distinction in Teaching. You represent the top 10 percent of all graduate assistants across campus by student evaluations for courses taught during the Fall 2021 semester.

A Statement from the Association for Computing Machinery's Diversity and Inclusion Council

In the United States, and throughout many regions around the world, current events have brought attention to the urgent need for equality and respect for all individuals. We have witnessed racism and violence against Black people in the United States and in our communities. Most recently, the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd have re-focused attention to the long-standing racism and injustice that plagues the United States and many other nations. In response, there are worldwide demonstrations and protests. ACM members are directly impacted by these events and we, the volunteer leadership of ACM, are outraged by this all-too familiar pattern of enduring injustice. Black Lives Matter.

This is a hard problem, and we will continue to make change and actively seek ways to take meaningful action. The Diversity and Inclusion Council’s role is to serve as a convener and focal point for these issues within ACM and to serve as a resource for those seeking to effect positive change; the D&I Council does not set policy. We will continue to listen, to learn, to engage and to explore new ways to actively foster diversity and fight against racism. In the immediate aftermath of these most recent events, we commit to the following actions:

• Perform a systematic and complete review of ACM policies and practices that can be shared and communicated throughout ACM’s activities and programs to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Encourage ACM’s Boards/Councils and Committees to nominate and recruit black and underrepresented members of the community for positions within ACM.
• Recommend ACM fund travel grants to support conference attendance for students and scholars from Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority Serving Institutions.
• Encourage Special Interest Groups (SIGs) to include sessions and activities at conferences and workshops focused on combating implicit bias and other forms of bias, particularly as applicable to technological development and impacts on creating a more inclusive society.
• Encourage SIGs to further diversify conference organizing committees, persons serving in conference leadership roles, and those invited to serve as plenary/keynote speakers, and to report on their progress.
• Recommend expansion of funding for events that focus on amplifying the scholarship of Black and other groups underrepresented in computing and to broaden the participation of aspiring scholars from these communities in computing—undergraduate and graduate students, and junior researchers and faculty.