My Computer Science and Engineering Department

Three computer science and engineering undergraduates have teamed up to create an artificial intelligence (AI) toolkit designed to help students study more efficiently. Junior Arshia Eslami and seniors Julia Grove and Matthew Linder launched the toolkit on their website, JAMAi, in late March. 

These classmates, now also friends, discovered they complemented each other’s talents after working together inside and outside of the classroom. Eslami and Linder met while interning together at Swampfox Technologies in Columbia, while Eslami and Grove met during a hackathon, a programming competition for improving or building new software programs. Eslami introduced Linder and Grove, and the three decided to merge their strengths to create one product that would help their fellow students.

Read the full article here.

What began as a student project in Ramtin Zand’s course in 2022 on neuromorphic computing—an area of computer science that designs artificial intelligence systems inspired by the human brain—has rapidly grown into an award-winning University of South Carolina research initiative with real-world applications in education and AI.

Zand, an assistant professor in the Molinaroli College of Engineering and Computing’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering and principal investigator of the Intelligent Circuits, Architecture and Systems (iCAS) Lab, calls the journey of this facial expression recognition project a prime example of “classroom to research—and beyond.”

Read the rest of the story here.

While machine learning and artificial intelligence perform repetitive processes and simple tasks, they use an extensive amount of data that causes memory bottleneck issues. This is when a system’s memory resources are insufficient to meet data processing and storage demands. With memory bottleneck, transferring data between processors and memory consumes a significant amount of energy, particularly in large data centers.

Zand plans to address this issue by utilizing in-memory analog computing (IMAC), which reduces the processor-memory bottleneck by performing computations directly where the data resides, saving both time and energy. His team will develop a novel IMAC architecture and a corresponding framework for deploying machine learning workloads to eliminate the need of a separate memory and processor.

Read the full article here. It talks about Dr. Zand and Dr. Bakos research into IMAC architectures.

To provide more real-world experience, Achanti, a member of both the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) and Department of Integrated Information Technology’s Industrial Advisory boards, collaborated with CSE Chair Homayoun Valafar to develop and teach a two-course certification track to familiarize students with key topics they will encounter in the work environment.

Read the full article here. The classes mentioned in the article are CSCE 590: Topic: Azure Cloud Native Development and CSCE 547: Windows Programming.

Undergraduate students Gavin Hewitt (CS) and Ke’Shunna Morton (CE) have received the 2025 Molinaroli College of Engineering and Computing’s Dean’s Award for Outstanding Leadership in recognition of significant contributions to the Molinaroli College of Engineering and Computing.  Each award recipient has provided outstanding leadership to an MCEC student organization and has positively impacted the college's brand through service to the college. Congratulations!

Each year the Faculty of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) award four Outstanding Senior Awards. This process is never easy given the many excellent and accomplished students in our program. This year, we have decided that the 2024 Computer Science and Engineering Outstanding Senior Awards go to:

CS Outstanding Senior Award

• Matthew Hughes: Computer Science Outstanding Senior Award
• Suprawee Pongpeeradech: Computer Engineering Outstanding Senior Award
• Alexander Anderson-McLeod: Computer Engineering SCSPE Award
• Ryan Malone: Computer Information Systems Outstanding Senior Award

awardees will be honored at the University Awards Day ceremony.

We would like to announce the receipt of the following grants in the new year. Congratulations to everyone!

Pooyan Jamshidi, "Modular Performance Modeling and Analysis for Multi-Component Distributed ML Systems", Carnegie Mellon University/NSF.

Ramtin Zand: "Precision Processing of Autonomous Maritime Perception System Data - Phase III", Office of Naval Research (ONR)/DOD. Also "Advanced Perception for Autonomous Platforms in the Littorals", Office of Naval Research (ONR)/DOD.

Homayoun Valafar,  "South Carolina IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (SC INBRE) - Bioinformatics Core (BIPP) - Year 5 of 5", National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)/NIH. Also "SC IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research (SC INBRE): Increasing Data Science Capacity", National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)/NIH

The iCAS Lab, directed by Dr. Ramtin Zand, has just published an outreach audiobook on the science communication channel, SciPod! 

The audiobook highlights a recently awarded NSF CAREER project: "Heterogeneous Neuromorphic and Edge Computing Systems for Realtime Machine Learning Technologies." Tailored for a general audience, it emphasizes the potential broader impacts of the research, particularly in real-time sign language translation.

The audiobook is available on all major streaming services. We invite you to listen and reach out to Dr. Zand at ramtin@cse.sc.edu if you are interested in collaborating to advance real-time AI and ML technologies for assistive applications and beyond! The iCAS Lab is also looking to recruit undergraduate research assistants for this exciting project!

Link to Audiobook: Dr Ramtin Zand | A Hybrid System for Real-Time Sign Language Translation • scipod.global

Navigating the ever-changing world of technology, Sara Hendrix, a senior computer information systems student and Carolina Scholar, has forged a path defined by adaptability, innovation, and leadership. And she still has time to showcase her creative side through theatre. 

Hendrix’s college journey began with groundbreaking research in neuromorphic technology, working alongside Computer Science and Engineering Assistant Professor Ramtin Zand. Neuromorphic technology is a field of computer science that aims to mimic the human brain’s function, and her project focused on bridging communication gaps by developing a system to translate American Sign Language (ASL) into English, a cause she is deeply passionate about. Read the rest here.

If you ask Emma McBride about the role that computers and technology have played in her life, she can’t answer fast enough.  

“I grew up doing robotics through elementary, middle and high school,” says the senior South Carolina Honors College computer science major. “My dad was into technology, and so he would always be coming home with different computer parts, and he’d bring me and my sisters up to the office and be like, ‘All right, guys, look at this, what does this do?’”

For Madeleine McBride, sophomore Honors computer information systems student, her fascination with all things cyber developed upon her arrival to the University of South Carolina.  Read the rest of the article here.

Computer science doctoral candidate Aakriti Adhikari is making this technology a reality through her dissertation. With next generation wireless networks looking to merge high-speed data connectivity with sensing, Adhikari’s work focuses on reconfiguring existing 5G and beyond at-home networking devices with sensing capabilities to enable healthcare applications. Read full article here.

Computer Science and Engineering Assistant Professor Forest Agostinelli has received a nearly $350,000, three-year National Science Foundation grant to study the use of heuristic (experimental) search and machine learning to solve complex pathfinding problems. Agostinelli’s project is expected to advance artificial intelligence (AI) techniques that solve problems faster or find approximate solutions. Read full article here.

We are proud to report the following new research awards received by our faculty:

• Csilla Farkas, "Department of Defense Cyber Scholarship Program 2024-2025", funded by Department of Defense (DOD)
• Forest Agostinelli, "Scalable Learning in Heuristic Search", funded by National Science Foundation (NSF)
• Amit Sheth, "Enhancing the Security and Mitigating Bias in Vision Language Models to Combat Hateful Image Generation and Detoxify Hateful Images", funded by National Science Foundation (NSF)

We are pleased to announce that Aakriti Adhikari, a PhD student working for Dr Sur, has been awarded the Best Doctoral Consortium Presentation Award at the Richard Tapia Conference 2024. She has also been invited to a seminar talk at UT Austin in Spring 2025.

According to Forbes Advisor, the artificial intelligence market is expected to reach $407 billion by 2027. In addition, 64% of businesses believe that AI will help increase their overall productivity, which indicates a growing confidence in its potential to transform business operations. Homayoun Valafar, director of the Artificial Intelligence Institute of South Carolina (AIISC) and chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, is looking forward to leading efforts for the institute to provide resources and outreach opportunities to the university and Columbia area communities. Read full article here.

Professor Vignesh Narayanan from the Artificial Intelligence Institute of the University of South Carolina recently started an NSF-funded research project that aims to understand the vulnerabilities of learning-based controllers and enhance an understanding of possible cyberattacks.  Read full article here.