Past News

Faculty Spotlight: Professor Nikolay "Nick" Ivanov

The CS Department prides itself in its experienced, knowledgeable faculty. Recently, the department has gained several new staff members, including associate professor Dr. Nikolay “Nick” Ivanov. The recipient of awards such as Outstanding Graduate Achievement in Computer Science Award and the Othmer Exceptional Scholar, on top of being a Certified College Teacher, graduating summa cum laude, and a member of Phi Kappa Phi– Professor Ivanov is a wonderful addition to our faculty.

To learn more, click here. 

Posted 10.13.23

2022-2023 At A Glance

This year, the CS department has seen an explosion in events and activities. From new reserach, the reopening of several facilities, and new club activities, Robinson has been livelier than ever. 

To learn more, click here. 

Spotlight on New CS Grad Advisor

Academic advisors exist as a critical component of college life, especially at the graduate level. As the Rowan CS community expands, our graduate students need an expert level of care. As such, Michael B. Schillo was recently appointed graduate advisor for all students within the CS department.

To learn more, click here.

Posted 2023.4.17

Computer Science Student Worker Spotlight

The student’s hunt for job experience is a common struggle. Experience is vital in the modern market; it can elevate a resume from good to great, giving a potential employee a head start above their competition. The earlier a student can gain work experience, the better prepared (and more marketable) they’ll be post graduation. The Computer Science department offers paid on-campus jobs to students that help provide the experience and skills needed in the job market. Positions include the Computer Science Web Team developers, tutors, learning assistants, and staff for the CS Makerspace and Tech Longue.

To learn more, click here.

Posted 2023.3.5

Cybersecurity Club Spotlight

Cybersecurity is an exciting new field of study in the world of computer science. This field of study mainly focuses on securing computers and computer networks against cyber attacks. Cybersecurity is extremely important in our modern, computer-centric society, and many people are eager to spread the word about it. Among those spreading the word, few people are more passionate than Rowan University’s Cybersecurity Club.

The Cybersecurity Club is a club that is dedicated to getting more people interested in cybersecurity. The club is spearheaded by Joshua Figueroa (President) and Ian Manahan (Vice President). They want to encourage Rowan students to learn more about this emerging field. More often than not, learning a new subject can be pretty intimidating. Many people are afraid to take that first step into the unknown. Joshua, Ian, and the rest of the club are here to guide students and provide a warm welcome into the world of cybersecurity.

To learn more, click here.

Posted 2022.12.8

Deep Neural Network Inference at SURP

This past summer, the Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) gave Rowan students an opportunity to demonstrate and expand upon their skills through their research projects. These research projects, which were based on a variety of unique topics, were ultimately presented to the public at the SURP Poster Session this past July.

One of the projects that was presented at the SURP Poster Session came from Nicholas Bovee. His project focused on the implementation of deep neural networks in everyday technology, such as cars. Even if you don’t realize it, stuff like machine learning is becoming more and more relevant to people’s daily lives. This means it’s becoming increasingly necessary for this type of technology to improve and become more efficient. This is the task Nicholas decided to take on with his research project.

To learn more, click here.

Posted 2022.11.21

Club Spotlight: ACM Club

The Association for Computing Machinery, also known as the ACM club, is a club available to all Rowan students, regardless of major. The club primarily focuses on computer science and coding, acting as a casual space for students to explore potential passions in computer science.

To learn more, read here.

Posted 2022.11.17

"Grand Re-Opening" of CS Facilities

The Computer Science Department has no shortage of great places for students to learn and have fun. Recently, the CS Department hosted their “Grand Re-Opening,” which showcased many of the great places on campus where CS students can get involved. The Computer Science Grand Re-Opening event was held on Wednesday, October 26 on the third floor of Robinson Hall. Students were treated to an afternoon of fun, food, and computer science.

The Grand Re-Opening was divided into five parts, each of which took place at a different “station” in the CS Department. Each student received a folder containing a little quiz card with questions about each station. As students traveled to each station, they filled out corresponding questions on their quiz cards. Once they reached the end of the tour, they could turn in their completed quiz cards for a prize, such as a CS t-shirt or a full-size candy bar.

To learn more, click here.

Posted 2022.11.10

Student Spotlight: Julia Bowes

Rowan’s Computer Science students are always hard at work advancing their education and their careers. Third year Computer Science major Julia Bowes is no exception. Julia has been a tutor in the CS Department for about a year now. In addition, she is also an admissions ambassador coordinator, a member of the NCAA D-3 volleyball team, and a Learning Assistant in Computer Science courses. Even with this wide array of responsibilities to juggle, Julia excels in her classes and has even landed a summer internship working in Computer Science.

UPDATE: Julia Bowes's internship has expanded into a full-fledged job, which she will start some time next summer. Read to the end of the article to get the full details!

Click here to learn more.

Posted 2022.3.22

Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Jennifer Kay

Jennifer Kay, Professor of Computer Science (CS) in Rowan University’s College of Science and Mathematics, has been selected for the Class of 2022-2023 of Drexel University’s Executive Leadership in Academic Technology, Engineering and Science (ELATES) program and is also the recipient of a scholarship from the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) in support of her participation in the program. The ELATES program is a national leadership development program designed to promote women in academic STEM fields, and faculty allies of all genders, into institutional leadership roles.

To learn more about Dr. Kay's selection, read the full article here.

Posted 2022.10.27

Improving AI Performance at SURP

The Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) provided Rowan CS students with an opportunity to apply the skills they’ve learned by working on a research project. One such student was Tyler Casas, who presented the findings of his research project at the SURP Poster Session in July. For his project, he developed ideas for improving AI performance on Internet of Things devices.

To learn more about Tyler's work, read the full article here.

Posted 2022.10.17

Aneurysm Detection at SURP

The SURP Poster Session served as an opportunity for the students of Rowan’s Computer Science Department to demonstrate the culmination of their work over the summer. Many groups of students showed up to the Poster Session to show off their research projects and what they’ve learned from working on them.

One such group of students is Michael Provenzano, Carter Profico, Felix Hakimi, and Sean Pandolfo. For their SURP research project, these students have been developing a program for detecting aortic aneurysms, the most common and deadly type of aneurysm.

To learn more, click here to read the full article.

Posted 2022.10.10

Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Silvija Kokalj-Filipovic

Dr. Silvija Kokalj-Filipovic is a professor in the Computer Science department at Rowan University, teaching Computer Organization this semester. Her central research interests lie in artificial intelligence (AI), especially in regards to the area of deep learning.

To learn more, read the full article here.

Posted 2022.10.3

Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Guimu Guo

Rowan University’s Computer Science Department is home to a lot of great faculty members. There are many professors and researchers here who are guiding CS students on the path towards success. One of the newest people to join this group is none other than Dr. Guimu Guo.

To learn more, read the full article here.

Posted 2022.9.29

Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Andrea Lobo

Dr. Andrea Lobo is a professor in the Computer Science department. Her central research interest is currently Digital Health, the use of computing and technology to improve healthcare. Dr. Lobo teaches courses in design and analysis of algorithms, as well as computer networks.

To learn more, read the full article here. 

Posted 2022.9.22

Blueberry Drone AI at SURP

Rowan’s students in the Computer Science Department are hard at work all year round. Even during the summer, you can find them learning and expanding their skills through Rowan’s Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP for short). This past July, students involved in SURP presented the results of their research at the SURP Poster Session. This event was home to a multitude of innovative projects created by Rowan students. One such project, made by Anthony Thompson, Harper Zappone, and Brandon McHenry dealt with the development of drone AI for scanning blueberry farms. 

To learn more, read the full article here. 

Posted 2022.9.8

President’s Award for Excellence in Innovative Instructional Delivery

Congratulations to our own Dr. Jennie Kay for winning this year’s President’s Award for Excellence in Innovative Instructional Delivery!

The President’s Award for Excellence in Innovative Instructional Delivery is designed to recognize faculty who have gone above and beyond to adapt to an ever-changing classroom environment, or who have provided outstanding contributions to learning via coursework, programs, or certificates. The Faculty Center and the Award Selection Committee are pleased to announce the winners of this award for Spring 2022 and recognize their hard work and dedication. 

Dr. Kay developed a complete package of material for teaching students, including a manuscript used in lieu of a textbook, a YouTube Playlist of videos, and a set of Jupyter Notebooks with dynamic in-class activities and homework assignments.

As Advanced Robotics students use this web-based interactive platform, it helps them to visualize transformations by rotating homogeneous transformation matrices, three-dimensional mathematical models. When students change lines of code, they receive instant feedback as this produces differences in graphical output in the Jupyter Notebook. Next, students use this information and forward kinematics to inform, for example, the placement of joints in robot arms, taking learning to the next level.

Read more here.

Posted 2022.5.18

RunSignup Mobile App Collaboration

RunSignup is an organization that specializes in providing footrace management tools for the running community. From promotion to fundraising to technology, RunSignup has tons of tools at their disposal for anyone who is interested in hosting or managing a race.

Recently, RunSignup teamed up with a group of Rowan students in order to develop a phone app that could be used to help manage races. The Rowan students split up into two teams – known as Team Tigers and Team Lions – and got to work developing their app. Team Tigers consisted of Patrick Conway, Marc Harris, James Gregory, Gabriel Cicione, Nicholas Rossi, and Jeremy Mongeau. Team Lions consisted of Marko Pantovic, Andrew Servis, Nathanael Costa, Ryan Schwegel, Ariestle Diza, and Anthony Polanco. The two teams worked hard over the course of 12 weeks, and were recently able to show off the culmination of their efforts.

Click here to learn more.

Posted 2022.4.21

Steminist Squad Wins 1st Place in 2021 Rohrer New Venture Competition

The 14th Annual Rohrer New Venture Competition took place virtually on Friday, April 23rd, where five finalist companies, Beach Picnic Co., Biodome, Elemeat, Power Gum, and Steminist Squad, pitched their business plans to an industry-leading judge panel. Steminist Squad, a community that aims to educate, empower, and inspire young women to pursue careers in STEM founded by Talia Tomarchio, took home First Place and was awarded $4,000 towards the venture. Steminist Squad provides professional development, a network of like-minded individuals, and a student-centered learning approach to help women feel comfortable in a male-dominated industry.

Click here to learn more.

Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Bo Sun

Dr. Bo Sun is an associate professor in the Computer Science Department. She mainly teaches the courses Computer Animation and Visual Analytics (AKA Information Visualization). Her main research area is in computer graphics and data visualization. She has also done research in virtual reality, and has two grad students who use the technology as well.

To learn more about Dr. Sun, click here.

Posted 2022.2.15

Computer Science students develop new algorithms to develop ECOC Matrices at the SURP poster session

This summer at SURP, many Computer Science students were able to demonstrate their research accomplishments from the summer. One interesting project was presented by Nicholas Kaegi, who researched an innovative algorithm to more efficiently develop ECOC matrices.

ECOC matrices are large data tables that are made by classifying complex data and are often very time-consuming and expensive to develop. Nicholas's research aims to develop algorithms to make these matrices faster and cheaper.

Click here to learn more about Nicholas's research.

Posted 2021.11.5

Computer science students show research of the optimization of bike sharing at the SURP poster session

The SURP Poster Session this past July was a great opportunity for Computer Science students to show off what they had accomplished over the summer. One project from the event, presented by Brian Campana, aimed to optimize city bike sharing solutions through deep reinforcement learning.

Due to concerns about traffic and pollution, more and more people are turning to alternative modes of transportation, namely bicycles. This has led to an ever-growing demand for rental bikes in major US cities like NYC. Bike rental stations often find themselves off balance, unable to meet the local demand. This issue is what Brian’s research aims to address.

Click here to learn more about Brian’s research.

Posted 2021.10.22

Computer science students demonstrate research on smart home energy optimization at the SURP poster session

The SURP Program has no shortage of new ideas and developments to show off. Students from many different parts of Rowan came together to demonstrate the culmination of their work at the Poster Session. Two weeks ago, the work in question was the anomaly detection projects by Owen Anderson and Nirav Patel. This week, there is another Computer Science project from the Poster Session worth shining a spotlight on. That project is the research into smart home energy optimization, presented by Dylan Perry.

It’s certainly no secret that the technology we use in our daily lives is rapidly advancing. Many people have lights, heating systems, and other devices in their homes that can be managed or controlled at the tap of a button in their "smart homes." With the rise of smart fridges, smart thermostats, and many other “smart” inventions, it’s only natural that people will be hard at work to further improve this technology. What Dylan's research aims to accomplish is to optimize smart home technology through the use of Deep Reinforcement Learning.

To read more about Dylan's research, click here.

Posted 2021.09.29

See what's new at the Makerspace when it opens up this Fall

There’s no shortage of things for students to look forward to in their return to Rowan this fall. One specific place where that rings true is in one of the latest additions to the Computer Science Department: the Makerspace. The Makerspace is an exciting new space for Rowan students that will be opening up for the first time this September. This article will provide a brief overview of the space, so you know exactly what to expect before you visit. The information in this article comes courtesy of the Makerspace’s student manager, Tyler Jones.

Click here to read more about the Makerspace.

Computer science students demonstrate research on anomaly detection at the SURP poster session

Even during the summer, Rowan’s students in the Computer Science Department are hard at work. Nowhere is that clearer than with the SURP Program. Through the SURP Program, students have conducted research on various topics over the course of several weeks during the summer. On July 21, students had the opportunity to demonstrate the culmination of their work at the Poster Session. It was at this Poster Session that some of the brilliant minds at Rowan got to show off their research and discuss it with visitors. This article will provide a spotlight on some of the Computer Science projects that were present at this event.

Two of the projects in question were on the subject of anomaly detection. At the Poster Session, Owen Anderson and Nirav Patel both shared their individual takes on this research topic. In short, an anomaly is essentially any data point that stands out as unusual, though the implications vary depending on what you’re measuring. It’s important to know when something like that happens so that the problem can be addressed as soon as possible. This is what the research conducted by Owen and Nirav seeks to accomplish, as they developed and tested a system that can help detect these anomalies.

Read more about what CS students were up to at SURP here...

Google's Developer Student Club is here at Rowan University!

Rowan University’s Computer Science department is excited to announce the addition of a new club, the Google Developer Student Club. We got a chance to sit down with the head officer of the club, M Sarosh Khan, for an interview about the club. He stated in the interview that one of the main reasons he and the other officers started the club was to take advantage of the opportunities that are available now that might not be available later down the line. Sarosh also notes that this is a good way to network with other people to expand your network. When asked about the objective of the club, Sarosh stated that he wants to focus on projects solving community problems with technology, adding that it is great experience for students who want to apply the theories they are learning in lectures to the real world.

When bringing up the vision and impact for the club at Rowan, Sarosh talked about how he wants this club to be an auxiliary club to clubs and organizations that are already on Rowan’s campus. He hopes that clubs on campus that need help with projects that include software development will reach out to them and ask for some assistance to get the ball rolling. In terms of the members of the club, Sarosh explains that anyone from any grade level can join the club, even if the person has little to no experience at all. He notes that it is a great opportunity to foster personal growth and experience with technology. When asked about the mission statement for the club, Sarosh explains that the club is a place where developers, entrepreneurs, and problem solvers come together to foster and grow their skills while working on projects within the community. He notes that this is not another classroom; this is a community of self-driven peers that are ready to help with any idea.

Posted 2020.9.23

Lockheed Martin Co-ops available until 9/25!

Due to the pandemic in Spring 2020, applicants for the Lockheed Martin Co-op position for Spring 2021 were closed early. Now, Lockheed Martin has reopened their co-op position applications for Spring 2021! These applications are due Friday, September 25, 2020. Check out our Co-op page to view the application process for this great Co-op.

Posted 2020.9.4

Dr. Heydari: Two newly accepted papers

Dr. Heydari has had two papers recently accepted by both the IEEE International Symposium on Networks, Computers and Communications as well as the National Cyber Summit. The first paper, "A New Security Framework for Remote Patient Monitoring Devices," accpeted by IEEE, details a framework that can be used for patients using wearable medical devices to ensure private and secure communications between the device and the doctor. The paper aims to mitigate any cyber-attacks that could impact the medical devices that are connected to the Internet. In the other paper, "Using Least-Significant Bit and Random Pixel Encoding with Encryption for Image Steganography," accpeted by the National Cyber Summit, details a new Steganographic encryption algorithm that is effective and secure, based on five steganalysis techniques. This paper was co-written by Dr. Andrea Lobo, Tapan Soni, and Richard Biard of Rowan University.

Posted 2020.4.3

Two new student camps for high schoolers within the Philadelphia and Delaware areas!

THIS HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO COVID-19!

For high school students (grades 9-12) within the Greater Philadelphia Metropolitan area and Delaware schools, a new summer camp is available offered by Rowan University's Computer Science Department. This camp, the "NSA-GenCyber: GenCyber Summer Camp" will have participants exposed to the core areas of cyber science: networking, programming, and security. For participants from the Philadelphia area, this camp will take place on Rowan University's Glassboro campus. For participants within Delaware, this camp will take place on Archmere Academy's campus, located in Claymont, Delaware. If you have any questions about this, contact Dr. Vahid Heydari (heydari@rowan.edu).

Posted 2020.4.3

Nhan Huynh Medallion Award

The CS Department has selected Eric Zielonka to be awarded the 2020 Nhan Huynh Medallion Award for Excellence in Computer Science. Dr. Hnatyshin will be presenting him with the award during the UPE induction ceremony held on Friday, March 6th, 2020 in Business Hall 104.  Congratulations Eric!

Congratulations to Joseph Tagliaferro and Madeline Presnell! Joseph is the recipient of the 2020 Dean’s Outstanding Senior Award and Madeline has been selected as the 2020 Department Head’s Outstanding Senior Award.

Posted 2020.03.05

Dr. Ho & Bayesian-Based Anonymization Framework against Background

Dr. Shen-Shyang Ho, along with F. Amiri, N. Yazdani, and A. Shakery: Bayesian-based Anonymization Framework against Background Knowledge Attack in Continuous Data Publishing. Transactions on Data Privacy 12(3): 197-225 (2019).

Abstract. In many real world situations, data are updated and released over time. In each release, the attributes are fixed but the number of records may vary, and the attribute values may be modified. Privacy can be compromised due to the disclosure of information when one combines different release versions of the data. Preventing information disclosure becomes more difficult when the adversary possesses two kinds of background knowledge: correlations among sensitive attribute values over time and compromised records. In this paper, we propose a Bayesian-based anonymization framework to protect against these kinds of background knowledge in a continuous data publishing setting. The proposed framework mimics the adversary’s reasoning method in continuous release and estimates her posterior belief using a Bayesian approach. Moreover, we analyze threat deriving from the compromised records in the current release and the following ones. Experimental results on two datasets show that our proposed framework outperforms JS-reduce, the state of the art approach for continuous data publishing, in terms of the adversary’s information gain as well as data utility and privacy loss.

Read the article HERE!

The Cybersecurity NSF SFS Scholarship is available again!

The CS Department seeks applications for the National Science Foundation (NSF) Scholarship for Service (SFS). The target applicants must be full-time students entering their senior year (by Fall 2020) and pursuing the accelerated (4+1) BS/MS in CS program. The applicants are also expected to enroll in the Cybersecurity Concentration.

Applications are due by March 31st, 2020.

Click here for more information.

Posted 2019.12.05

Monica Mahon wins scholarship for Women in Cybersecurity!

Monica has been selected as a scholarship recipient to attend the 2020 Women in Cybersecurity
Conference (WiCyS). At the conference, there are going to be technical presentations and workshops, panel discussion, a career/graduate school fair, and more. The conference is being held March 12-14, 2020 in Denver (Aurora), Colorado.

Posted 2019.11.27

ProfHacks 2020: Registration: Now Open!

The Department of Computer Science at Rowan University has been awarded a grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) program. 

Posted 2019.10.25

October's Featured Student Research Profiles: Matt Schofield & Gabriella Mayorga

To view their Research profiles, click the links below.

Matt's profile

Gabriella's profile

Posted 2019.10.17

Matthew Schofield Travels to Hong Kong for Research Presentation

Undergraduate student Matthew Schofield traveled to Hong Kong with Dr. Shen-Shyang Ho in June for a research presentation on detecting anomalies from flight data. Matthew was able to travel with the support from COURI, the College Office of Undergraduate Research Initiatives, a growing program that allows students to work with experts in a field they are interested in. Matthew hopes to earn a doctorate in computer science and/or become a machine learning engineer. More information on COURI and Matthew Schofield can be found here.

Posted 2019.10.11

GAANN Fellowship for AI and Cybersecurity

Dr. Bo Sun and Dr. Vasil Hnatyshin have been awarded a grant in AI and Cybersecurity amounting to $300,486 by the US Department of Education. To apply please e-mail a single PDF file with all application documents to Dr. Bo (Beth) Sun (sunb@rowan.edu) and Dr. Vasil Hnatyshin (hnatyshin@rowan.edu). Applications are being accepted from October 1st- November 15th, 2019 and more information can be found here or on our flyer.

Posted 2019.09.24

E-Sports at Rowan

N3rd Street Gamers (NSG) recently partnered with the school to develop a $1 million gaming facility. There are plans for new curricula, internships, and gaming teams over the course of the academic calendar. Interested in more? Read about it at Rowan Today.

Posted 2019.09.13

The Computer Science Co-Op Experience

Congratulations to Monica Mahon! Her co-op experience was featured in an article in the Rowan University Student Affairs Blog "Beyond the Classroom".

Posted 2019.07.31

Summer Research by Computer Science Students

Rowan CS students present their summer research at a COURI poster session held in the Science Hall Atrium.

Posted 2019.07.25