The University of Maryland Department of Computer Science’s latest News and Events roundup showcases a wide span of activity across research, awards, student initiatives and institutional partnerships. A faculty spotlight profiles Assistant Professor Ruohan Gao, whose Multi-Sensory Machine Intelligence Lab studies how vision relates to sound and touch, building models that reflect human and animal perception. In wearable computing, new research explores how proactive agents embedded in augmented reality glasses can offer smarter, subtler assistance, citing recent innovations such as Google’s Project Astra while noting current limitations that depend on explicit verbal commands.
Core research achievements feature prominently. A UMD team led by Jack and Rita G. Minker Professor Mohammad Hajiaghayi won the Best Paper Award at the 66th IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science for solving the long-standing Steiner Forest problem in network design, a breakthrough that could help make computer and Artificial Intelligence chips more efficient. Another item examines systemic bias in today’s large-scale chatbots, arguing that piecemeal fixes are insufficient and calling for deeper solutions, illustrated by recent high-profile failures and misguided attempts to reduce bias.
Entrepreneurship and experiential learning continue to expand. The department selected four student teams – Capy’s Journey, Cube, SenseGuard and ThinkEx – for the 2025-2026 Mokhtarzada Hatchery Program, which offers annual funding, shared workspace in the Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering and resources to advance projects from concept to implementation. On campus recruiting remained strong at the Fall 2025 Career and Internship Fair, where 1,994 students engaged face to face with 223 representatives from 58 employers seeking talent in Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity and software engineering at the Adele H. Stamp Student Union on September 22.
UMD researchers and programs also earned external recognition. Distinguished University Professor Aravind Srinivasan received a Test of Time award at KDD 2025 for a 2014 paper on forecasting civil unrest using open source indicators, coauthored with former Ph.D. student Khoa Trinh, now at Google, Naren Ramakrishnan and collaborators. The undergraduate computer science program rose to 16th overall in U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Colleges,” ranking No. 9 among public institutions and top 10 among publics in Artificial Intelligence and cybersecurity specialties.
Looking ahead, UMD will host a major new Microsoft quantum research center in the Discovery District, announced by Gov. Wes Moore during the Quantum World Congress as part of a partnership between the state of Maryland, the University of Maryland Enterprise Corporation and Microsoft. The department also paid tribute to Professor Howard Elman, who passed away on September 18, 2025, honoring his leadership in scientific computing, his advances in numerical algorithms for large-scale models and his impact across UMIACS and generations of students.
