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The Department of Computer Science (CS) at the University ofIllinois Urbana-Champaign invites applications for multiplefull-time teaching faculty positions at all levels and in all areasof computer science. Special areas of focus include informationretrieval, data mining, and artificial intelligence. We seek highlyqualified applicants with a strong commitment to excellence inteaching and the ability to teach at all levels.The University of Illinois is an Equal Opportunity, AffirmativeAction employer that recruits and hires qualified candidateswithout regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation,gender identity, age, national origin, disability or veteranstatus. For more information, visit http://go.illinois.edu/EEO.Teaching faculty positions are renewable, career-oriented,non-tenure-track positions. Initial appointments are typically atthe rank of Instructor or Teaching Assistant Professor, with thepossibility of promotion to the ranks of Senior Instructor orTeaching Associate Professor and Teaching Professor. Applicants forInstructor positions must have at least a B.S. (M.S. preferred) andapplicants for Teaching Professor positions (all ranks) must have aPh.D. or equivalent degree in CS or a closely related field.Competitive applicants will show the promise of excellence inclassroom teaching and will demonstrate strong CS and teachingknowledge, as well as demonstrate evidence of a commitment todiversity, equity, and inclusion. Senior-level appointments areavailable for candidates with significant additional experience,stature, and demonstrated teaching excellence. Multi-year contractsare available for all positions.Successful applicants will join the department's thriving communityof creative, passionate, and innovative teaching faculty whocontribute to high-quality instruction, curriculum development, andstudent mentoring. Many faculty also engage in other studentengagement activities and outreach activities. Teaching Professorsare expected to have a deep interest in improving pedagogy beyondthe CS department, may take on leadership roles on campus, and manyengage in research in computer science education or other areas ofcomputer science.The University of Illinois has one of the strongest CS departmentsin the country, with more than 100 faculty and nearly 2000undergraduate majors and 1900 graduate students across eighteendifferent degree programs. In addition to our flagshipundergraduate program in the College of Engineering, which includesmore than 30% women in our freshman class, our innovative CS+Xprograms incorporate a strong grounding in CS with technical orprofessional training in the arts and sciences across 13 differentdisciplines. Both our undergraduate and graduate programs areranked in the top five in the country by US News & WorldReport. We are also one of the leading teaching units on campus,offering computing education to students in every discipline. Wewelcome applicants that will contribute to the diverse and vibrantatmosphere in the department as we seek to make computing'sremarkable opportunities available to everyone through thecontinued expansion of our programs and offerings inUrbana-Champaign, in Chicago and online.The start date for these positions is flexible. Application reviewand interviews will begin immediately. In order to ensure fullconsideration for a Fall 2021 start date, applications must bereceived by April 1, 2021. Salary will be commensurate withqualifications. Applications should be submitted by visitinghttp://jobs.illinois.edu anduploading a cover letter, curriculum vitae, teaching statement, astatement on commitment to diversity, and the names and contactinformation for three references. Applicants may also submitsupporting material relevant to evaluating their teachingabilities. For inquiry, please email HR@cs.illinois.edu.The University of Illinois conducts criminal background checks onall job candidates upon acceptance of a contingent offer.The University of Illinois System requires candidates selected forhire to disclose any documented finding of sexual misconduct orsexual harassment and to authorize inquiries to current and formeremployers regarding findings of sexual misconduct or sexualharassment. For more information, visit Policy on Consideration ofSexual Misconduct in Prior Employment."As a qualifying federal contractor, the University of IllinoisSystem uses E-Verify to verify employment eligibility. TheUniversity of Illinois must also comply with applicable federalexport control laws and regulations and, as such, reserves theright to employ restricted party screening procedures forapplicants.

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Teaching Faculty (Open Rank) - Computer Science-The Grainger College of Engineering, UIUC job with University of Illinois Urbana Champaign | 329826 -...

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR4.0) is here. Artificial intelligence, 5G cellular networks, and Internet-of-Things-based devices, while still nascent, continue to fundamentally alter our personal and professional lives. While this change has long been predicted, the sudden onset of the pandemic only further revealed how states increasingly rely on technology to remain competitive. Southeast Asian nations, in particular, have noticed this opportunity and laid in motion various initiatives to turn the region into an innovative powerhouse, taking advantage of the opportunities these emerging technologies provide.

From Singapore, which is believed to be on the verge of becoming a new epicenter of technological development, to Vietnam, which aspires to become a leader in AI research and development, Southeast Asia appears poised as a pioneer in its embrace of twenty-first-century innovation. Nevertheless, the IR4.0 is both a blessing and a curse. The inevitable global shift could increase the economic disparities both regionally and globally unless nations take the necessary measures to keep pace with rapid, and often chaotic, change emerging technologies inevitably bring.

This rapid pace of technology development and innovation makes scientific collaboration between nations indispensable. Indeed, science diplomacy between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states in the wake of IR4.0 makes such cooperation ever more essential. Such information-sharing initiatives present the region with unique opportunities for shared growth, transformation, and success. Science diplomacy further provides opportunities for Southeast Asian nations to create mutual solutions to various complex and challenging problems, ones that prevent the individual states from realizing the true potential the advanced technology development capabilities provide them.

The technologically driven diplomacy does more than ensure the region remains competitive on the global stage. These programs have strengthened relations between Southeast Asian nations, bolstered ASEAN centrality, and allowed partnerships and cooperation with global juggernauts like Microsoft, Google, IBM, Intel, and Amazon. These companieswith their massive tech infrastructuresare increasingly interested, involved, and invested in the region. But these American companies do not have a monopoly. China has pledged increased technology cooperation with Brunei and Indonesia. Chinas own tech juggernaut, Huawei, has signed memoranda of understanding with Cambodia and Singapore. Even Eurasian nations including Italy and Russia have diplomatic technology ties to Southeast Asia.

While these technology-based relations between ASEAN states and foreign actors benefit Southeast Asian technology development, they also risk domestic dependence on international entities. The geo-strategic implications of said dependence prove especially challenging for ASEAN when considered against the backdrop of increasingly tense technological competition between China and the West. From this perspective, foreign investment in Southeast Asia could be used as a tactic to further carve out an international sphere of influence and acquire new, or reinforce old, regional allies. For countries like Cambodia which have technological ties to both China and the West the situation is especially fraught. It remains paramount, then, that Southeast Asian countries collaborate both internally with universities, corporations, and other institutions and externally with other member-states. The necessity of building indigenous, sustainable, and robust ASEAN technology development structures will only increase in the coming decade.

IR4.0 is significantly impacting the private sector, and ASEAN states can benefit greatly from the engendered changes. Indeed, private corporations are increasingly integrating emerging technologies into their workstreams and business solutions; and start-ups based on robotics, AI, blockchain, and other emerging technologies are appearing all over Southeast Asia as evidenced by Filipino-based start-ups Plentina and Expedock and Thai-based start-up Robowealth. In general, institutions across industries including the financial, medical, and energy industries are beginning to implement innovative, technology-based solutions.

For instance, in Indonesia, Pertamina the nations largest state-owned energy company is using AI and machine learning to derive deeper business insights; and BRI Group one of the worlds largest micro-finance institutions launched an AI platform to reduce the loan approval process. ASEAN states should leverage the resources of such institutions across industries to devise novel solutions to societal problems. Thailands AI Consortium and the Philippines SPARTA program provide good examples of what such a multi-industry partnership could look like. An ASEAN-wide partnership of the same nature would allow for even more fruitful and productive collaboration and research and development efforts in the region. It would also lay the foundation for the creation of an economically sustainable model of innovation, lead to the creation of more value and capital for the region, and incentivize the regions population to further embrace innovation.

Universities and educational institutions, both private and public, have also begun to modify their course offerings and shift their research efforts to reflect the advent of emerging technologies. For example, Singapore Management University has rebranded an entire school now the School of Computing and Information Systems to introduce a greater focus on computer science and emerging technologies. Strong and relevant educational opportunities are critical for keeping pace with IR4.0, and partnerships between states and universities in the region allow for more people to learn about emerging technologies and may even attract professors, researchers, and students from around the world. ASEAN states should continue to work with educational institutions to increase scope and encourage more students to start learning about emerging technologies from a younger age.

There are, however, a number of challenges to technology development preventing some of the countries in the region from establishing the advanced technology development capabilities necessary to keep pace with the global changes of IR4.0. Limited resources including finances, computing power and hardware, educational resources, and people knowledgeable about or available to work with emerging technologies cultural or language barriers, brain drain, lack of national strategy or coordination, and with Myanmar providing a notable recent example political instability are keeping ASEAN states from individually leveraging the opportunities of IR4.0.

Rather than working alone, countries in the region should band together to develop new technologies to overcome these challenges. ASEAN states should pool their resources together to better streamline innovation, focus on high-value propositions, and offer an attractive reason for the most talented and motivated individuals to stay in the region. Vietnam has taken steps in this direction, having recently announced plans to build several ASEAN-wide data centers for AI research and development, but more needs to be done. States such as Indonesia, Singapore, or Malaysia that have more advanced algorithmic governance structures could provide support to countries with underdeveloped or developing innovation infrastructure such as Laos or Myanmar. ASEAN governments could fund university technology exchanges for students from other member-states to increase the spread of ideas and mutual understanding. These efforts, combined with increased collaboration between public and private institutions and governments, would give ASEAN a sustainable and indigenous workforce and pave the way for the region to become an international cornerstone for algorithmic governance and technology development.

As nations around the world become increasingly reliant on the emerging technologies of IR4.0, science diplomacy and a streamlined approach to innovation in Southeast Asia have the potential to transform the region into a global leader in technology development and innovation and to strengthen ASEAN identity and independence.

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Science Diplomacy and its Opportunities in Southeast Asia Winston Michalak - International Policy Digest

Scientists have created small, synthetic living machines that self-organize from single cells, move quickly through different environments without the need for muscle cells, can remember their experiences, heal themselves when damaged, and exhibit herd behaviors.

Earlier, scientists have developed swarms of robots from synthetic materials and moving biological systems from muscle cells grown on precisely shaped scaffolds. But until now the creation of a self-directed living machine has remained beyond reach.

Biologists and computer scientists from Tufts University and the University of Vermont have created novel, tiny self-healing living machines from frog cells (Xenopus laevis) that they call Xenobots. These can move around, push a payload, and even exhibit collective behavior in a swarm.

In an article titled A cellular platform for the development of synthetic living machinespublished in the journal Science Robotics, the researchers report a method for creating these of Xenobots from frog cells. This cellular platform can be used to study self-organization, collective behavior, and bioengineering and provide versatile, soft-body, living machines for applications in biomedicine and environmental biology.

The next version of Xenobots have been createdtheyre faster, live longer, and can now record information [Doug Blackiston, Tufts University]

We are witnessing the remarkable plasticity of cellular collectives, which build a rudimentary new body that is quite distinct from their defaultin this case, a frog despite having a completely normal genome, says Michael Levin, Distinguished Professor of Biology and director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University, and corresponding author of the study. In a frog embryo, cells cooperate to create a tadpole. Here, removed from that context, we see that cells can re-purpose their genetically encoded hardware, like cilia, for new functions such as locomotion. It is amazing that cells can spontaneously take on new roles and create new body plans and behaviors without long periods of evolutionary selection for those features.

Xenobots can move around in a coordinated manner with the help of cilia present on their surface. These cilia grow through normal tissue patterning and do not require complicated architectural procedures such as scaffolding or microprinting, making the high-throughput production of Xenobots possible. And while the frog cells are organizing themselves into Xenobots, they are amenable to surgical, genetic, chemical, and optical stimulation. The researchers show that the Xenobots can maneuver through water, heal after damage and exhibit predictable collective behaviors.

The scientists also provide a proof of principle for a programmable molecular memory using a light-controlled protein that can record exposure to a specific wavelength of light.

Compared to their first edition, Xenobots 1.0, that were millimeter-sized automatons constructed in a top down approach by manual placement of tissue and surgical shaping of frog skin and cardiac cells to produce motion, this updated version of Xenobots 2.0 takes a bottom up approach. The biologists took stem cells from frog embryos and allowed them to self-assemble and grow into spheroids, where some of the cells after a few days differentiated to produce ciliatiny hair-like projections that move back and forth or rotate in a specific way. Cilia act like legs to help the new spheroidal Xenobots move rapidly across a surface.

In a way, the Xenobots are constructed much like a traditional robot. Only we use cells and tissues rather than artificial components to build the shape and create predictable behavior. Says Doug Blackiston, PhD, senior scientist and co-first author on the study with research technician, Emma Lederer. On the biology end, this approach is helping us understand how cells communicate as they interact with one another during development, and how we might better control those interactions.

Scientists at UVM ran computer simulations that modeled different shapes of the Xenobots and analyzed its effects on individual and collective behavior. Robotics expert, Joshua Bongard, PhD, and a team of computer scientists used an evolutionary algorithm on the Deep Green supercomputer cluster at UVMs Vermont Advanced Computing Core to simulate the behavior of the xenobots under numerous random environmental conditions. These simulations identified Xenobots that excelled at working together in swarms to gather large piles of debris in a field of particles.

We know the task, but its not at all obviousfor peoplewhat a successful design should look like. That is where the supercomputer comes in and searches over the space of all possible Xenobot swarms to find the swarm that does the job best, says Bongard. We want Xenobots to do useful work. Right now, were giving them simple tasks, but ultimately were aiming for a new kind of living tool that could, for example, clean up microplastics in the ocean or contaminants in soil.

Xenobots can quickly collect garbage working together in a swarm to sweep through a petri dish and gather larger piles of iron oxide particles. They can also cover large flat surfaces and travel through narrow capillaries.

The Tufts scientists engineered the Xenobots with a memory capability to record one bit of information, using a fluorescent reporter protein called EosFP that glows green but when exposed to blue light at 390nm wavelength, the protein emits red light instead.

The researchers injected the cells of the frog embryos with messenger RNA coding for the EosFP protein before the stem cells were excised to create the Xenobots so that the mature Xenobots have a built-in fluorescent switch which can record exposure to blue light.

To test the memory capacity, the investigators, allowed 10 Xenobots to swim around a surface on which one spot is illuminated with a beam of blue light. After two hours, they found that three bots emitted red light. The rest remained their original green, effectively recording the travel experience of the bots. This molecular memory in Xenobots could be harnessed to detect the presence of radioactive contamination, chemical pollutants, drugs, or a disease condition.

When we bring in more capabilities to the bots, we can use the computer simulations to design them with more complex behaviors and the ability to carry out more elaborate tasks, said Bongard. We could potentially design them not only to report conditions in their environment but also to modify and repair conditions in their environment.

The biological materials we are using have many features we would like to someday implement in the botscells can act like sensors, motors for movement, communication and computation networks, and recording devices to store information, says Levin. One thing the Xenobots and future versions of biological bots can do that their metal and plastic counterparts have difficulty doing is constructing their own body plan as the cells grow and mature, and then repairing and restoring themselves if they become damaged. Healing is a natural feature of living organisms, and it is preserved in Xenobot biology.

Cells in a biological robot can also absorb and break down chemicals and work like tiny factories, synthesizing and excreting chemicals and proteins.

Xenobots were designed to exhibit swarm activity, moving about on cilia legs. [Doug Blackiston, Tufts University]

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Scientists Create Living Machines That Move, Heal, Remember and Work in Groups - Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

Study shows embodying the actions of a robot aids in computational thinking

Teaching children how to think like a computeror computational thinkingand equipping them with the skills to outthink the computer when problems arise, may be an effective way to help young students acquire the knowledge and skills to succeed in a range of STEM-related careers, including computer science.

New research from the University of Georgia suggests that computational thinking in young children extends beyond the brain to include bodily movements and interactions with both people and tools in the environment to aid in effective problem solving.

Were trying to change the perspective that learning happens entirely in the brain, said Theodore Kopcha, principal investigator of the study and associate professor in the Mary Frances Early College of Educations department of career and information studies. We need to move away from this perspective because it promotes learning as rote memorization rather than rich engagement with the environment and with the tools we provide them.

UGA researchers collected and analyzed video data of two fifth grade students across a two-week period as they worked together to move a robot around a 3-by-3-foot grid. The students were tasked with using a coding program to navigate the robot around several obstacles on the map to collect samples from three areas.

The researchers noticed that the students embodied the robots movements to help them calculate the distance or direction the robot needed to move in. For example, while trying to navigate around an obstacle on the map, one of the students formed a 90-degree angle with his arms to help demonstrate a possible direction.

Theodore Kopcha.

Our study shows how students use more than their brains when theyre learning, and thats not a typical way of thinking about learning, said Kopcha. They were constantly using their bodies to think through and engage in these core skills that are at the heart of computer science. Its giving them the opportunity to envision themselves like a robot and think like a computer, so they can do computer science better.

Understanding mathematical concepts can be cognitively demanding for young students. However, by linking mathematics curriculum with the physical world using robotics, students can form a stronger connection with these abstract concepts.

In the study, students negotiated the demands of the activity as if they themselves were the robot while they were interacting with each other, the small map and the computer program. The robot became an object to help ground and align their knowledge and thinking with their own bodily experience.

When you take an abstract math concept and put it in the real world, its not always a one-to-one fit and having opportunities to explore that is really important, said Kopcha. And because the world we exist in is a bodily world, we dont necessarily make the jump to thinking more mathematically about the world. Thats why its so important to see kids using their bodies to engage in mathematics because it helps them link what they know specifically in this world with what theyre learning in the abstract mathematical world in a very concrete way.

In fact, students who ignore these nonverbal gestures and interactions are missing out on an important source of information that they naturally gain while embodying mathematical concepts.

Researchers also noticed that while students started the activity using formal mathematics, such as multiplication and division, they began moving toward a more visual and intuitive problem-solving system to achieve the same outcome. If these formal calculations failed, the students reconvened to discuss their findings and adjust their coding until they achieved their goal.

An important takeaway is that we are clever human beings who come up with creative solutions when formal math is cumbersome, and we tend to ignore that in schools, said Kopcha. To me, learning how to apply mathematical concepts in multiple ways to achieve your goal can be a better outcome than being able to calculate a proportion with precision. There is a history of advocacy for discourse as a natural part of a math environment. Students need to present their mathematical thinking to the class and to the teacher, and its through that dialogue and discourse that learning happens.

While K-5 mathematics curriculum stresses the importance of teaching students how to solve a problem using multiple methods, researchers believe there is still too much emphasis placed on rote memorization and standardized testing.

Some scholars and educators assume that students learning is associated with their ability to successfully complete a task or execute specific computer commands, and we see this in the use of standardized testing to measure and assess their learning, said Ceren Ocak, co-researcher on the study and UGA alumna who received her Ph.D. in 2020. However, in the very same classroom, were going to see different solutions formed by different students, so we need to consider this while designing our instruction. Computational thinking should be treated as a learning process rather than a product of that process.

According to Kopcha, theres more than one way to tell if a student is doing math. Students use their bodies to do mathematics, so theres an opportunity to assess or evaluate their learning through that activity instead of through the accuracy of their calculations, he said. We each have this bodily understanding of the world that connects with the more formal math we teach in school, and we can learn a lot about how children understand mathematics by focusing on the way that the two come together.

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Childrens problem solving extends beyond the brain - University of Georgia