14 New Faculty Members Join Purdue Computer Science

08-30-2024

 The 14 new faculty members joining the Purdue Computer Science Department, starting in the fall of 2024.

 

Purdue University’s Department of Computer Science is excited to announce the addition of 14 new faculty members, eight of whom have joined the department for the 2024-2025 academic year. This influx of talent strengthens Purdue’s commitment to world-changing education, research, and innovation in the field of computer science.

The new faculty members bring a wealth of expertise in robotics, machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, large language models and cryptography. Their research backgrounds will enrich the department and drive world-changing discoveries. 

"This remarkable addition of 14 new faculty members highlights our commitment to advancing the frontiers of computer science. Their diverse expertise not only strengthens our department but also accelerates Purdue Computes’ mission to lead in education, research, and innovation. We are excited to welcome these outstanding scholars to our community."

Computing is one of four dimensions within Purdue Computes, a major initiative that enables the university to advance to the forefront with unparalleled excellence at scale. This latest addition of faculty underscores the University’s dedication to leadership in computer science research and education. 

 

Joining the Purdue Department of Computer Science in the fall of 2024

 

Michael Borkowski earned his PhD in computer science from the University of California, San Diego. He has joined the department as an assistant professor of practice. Borkowski is interested in developing software verification techniques to make correct and performant software systems easier to write and understand, as well as having stronger theoretical soundness guarantees.

 

Joseph Campbell earned his PhD in computer science from Arizona State University. He has joined the department as an assistant professor. Campbell’s research interests are artificial intelligence and machine learning methods for making safe and adaptable human-robot interactions. His research focuses on developing explainable machine learning models that allow robots to operate with full transparency.

 

Aarushi Goel earned her PhD in computer science from John Hopkins University. She did postdoctoral research in the Cryptography and Information Security (CIS) Lab at Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) Research. Goel has joined the department as an assistant professor. Her research interests are cryptography and related areas of security and theoretical computer science.

 

 

Zak Kingston earned his PhD in computer science from Rice University, where he worked with the Robonaut 2 team at NASA Johnson Space Center. Kingston has joined the department as an assistant professor. His research interests include robot motion planning and long-horizon robot autonomy, with a focus on manipulation planning, planning with constraints, and hardware and software for planning.

 

Chris May earned his PhD in computer science from Purdue University. He has joined the department as an assistant professor of practice. May’s research interests are graphics, machine learning and generative neural networks. 

 

 

 

Xupeng Miao earned his PhD in computer science from Peking University. He conducted postdoctoral research in the Catalyst Group and the Parallel Data Lab at Carnegie Mellon University. Miao has joined the department as an assistant professor. His broad research interests are machine learning systems, data management and distributed computing.

 

 

Abulhair Saparov earned his PhD in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University. He conducted postdoctoral research at New York University. Saparov’s research focuses on the applications of statistical machine learning to natural language processing (NLP), natural language understanding (NLU), and reasoning. He is currently interested in improving the generalizability and robustness of ML, NLP, and NLU models especially on data and tasks beyond those encountered during their training, for example, by leveraging symbolic and neurosymbolic methods.

 

Mary Anne Smart earned her PhD in computer science from the University of California, San Diego. She has joined the department as an assistant professor of practice. Her research interests are identifying shortcomings in privacy communication and developing explanations and tools to help people deepen their understanding of privacy.

 

  

About the Department of Computer Science at Purdue University

Founded in 1962, the Department of Computer Science was created to be an innovative base of knowledge in the emerging field of computing as the first degree-awarding program in the United States. The department continues to advance the computer science industry through research. US News & Reports ranks Purdue CS #8 in computer engineering and #19 and #18 overall in graduate and undergraduate computer science. Additionally, the program is ranked 6th in cybersecurity, 8th in software engineering, 13th in systems, 15th in programming languages and data analytics, and 18th in theory. Graduates of the program are able to solve complex and challenging problems in many fields. Our consistent success in an ever-changing landscape is reflected in the record undergraduate enrollment, increased faculty hiring, innovative research projects, and the creation of new academic programs. The increasing centrality of computer science in academic disciplines and society, and new research activities—centered around foundations and applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning, such as natural language processing, human-computer interaction, vision, and robotics, as well as systems and security—are the future focus of the department. cs.purdue.edu