- Careers in Computer Science - Opportunities at UAB Jeff Gray, Ph.D. - Associate Professor Alabama Professor of the Year UAB – CIS Department

The Benefits of a Diverse Education You don’t need to be a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist to appreciate an English class… …nor a world-renowned scientist or mathematician to understand the wonders of our world. We believe that understanding computational thinking also offers skills useful for your future. Your Photo Here

Software is Everywhere Think of some of the things that entertain and enrich your daily life All of the above are driven by software Software developers equipped with a computer science degree have opportunities to work on exciting and cutting-edge projects

Software is Everywhere 98% of all microprocessors control devices other than desktop computers –Automobiles, airplanes, televisions, copiers, razors… These devices also need software and often require strong technical skills to develop >10Mb embedded software 15-20Kb 1-1.5Mb > 1M SLOC

Meteoric Opportunities February 15, 2005: Domain registered (youtube.com) Jawed Karim, Chad Hurley, and Steve Chen Around 25 years old at this time November 2005: Official Debut 100 Million Clips viewed daily; 65,000 uploads per day 20 Million visitors each month October 2006: Time Magazine Invention of the Year Great Talk: From Concept to HyperGrowth October 6, 2006: Google purchased for $1.65B

Alabama Technology Leaders Jimmy Wales Wikipedia Founder Huntsville Native The biggest multilingual free-content encyclopedia on the Internet. Since its creation in 2001, nearly 10 million articles in over 250 languages. Over 680 million visitors each year; 75,000 active contributors.

“… the software industry is going to make more breakthroughs in these next 10 years than it's made in the last 30 … software is really going to transform not just what we think about as the computer industry, but the way that everything is done …” Intellectual Opportunities Re-architecting the Internet Harnessing parallelism Quantum computing Transforming all fields of science and engineering Wreckless driving Prosthetics / augmentation / access Transforming the nation’s defense

The Demand for Computer Scientists Offshore hysteria: Many companies with high paying jobs within the US are unable to fill positions with computer scientists. Source:

The Demand for Computer Scientists Computer Science occupations are projected to grow twice as fast as the average for all occupations. Source: Between a projected 822,000 new jobs will be available in Computer Science occupation areas in the United States alone.

The Demand for Computer Scientists Source: Among the fastest growing occupations, software engineers had the highest median annual salary - $79,780.

The Demand for Computer Scientists Source: IEEE Spectrum, August 2008 Computer science has the highest engineering salary and the fastest growing salary increase.

Communications of the ACM, July 2008, pg. 32.

The Demand for Computer Scientists According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, 5 of the top-10 growing jobs have a computer science focus. (Reprinted with Permission from onInvesting)

The Demand for Computer Scientists National Job Outlook –$61,407 is the average starting salary for computer science degrees in the class of 2009 (among top 3 highest starting salaries); 9.7% increase over 2007 offers –1000s of openings each at Microsoft Game Studios, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Google –Epic Games President: “We do not hire anyone under $100k”

The Demand for Computer Scientists Local Job Outlook –In Birmingham, there was a recent need for 200 Java programmers; exceeded university’s ability to deliver employees –CTS hiring several new developers each month –Summary of recent openings in Birmingham: JAVA/J2EE/EJB ($60/hr), Peoplesoft ($95/hr), SAP Technical ($85/hr), SAP Functional ($95/hr), Corba ($55/hr), Oracle DBA ($70/hr), DB2 DBA ($70/hr), Sybase DBA ($75/hr),.Net,vb.net,C#,asp.net ($60/hr), C/C++ ($55/hr), Cobol ($55/hr) Recent Birmingham Software Success –UAB CIS Graduates –Dr. Stephen Brossette (Founder) Dr. Daisy Wong (Dir. IT) –Estimated $100M –179% growth – tops among Birmingham companies

The Potential for Alabama Per capita, Huntsville is one of the top five cities in the US with concentration of software developers, and #1 in terms of total engineers. Cummings Research Park is the second largest in the United States and the fourth largest in the World. Huntsville

Myth of Computer Science According to the Alabama Learning Exchange (ALEX) 1, computing is equated to learning Microsoft Word and various mechanical tasks; this is not Computer Science! 1

Number of schools passing AP CS audit Computer Science in Alabama StateNumber of Schools Alabama3 (out of > 460) Tennessee16 South Carolina18 North Carolina28 Florida69 Georgia78 New Jersey133 California165 Texas271

Number of students taking AP CS exams Georgia’s Success Story State Georgia69 CS A exams 422 CS A exams 585 CS A exams 15 CS AB exams107 CS AB exams105 CS AB exams Alabama22 CS A exams 27 CS A exams 41 CS A exams 12 CS AB exams7 CS AB exams11 CS AB exams

High School Outreach at UAB CIS Mentoring for Science Fair CompetitionsSummer Camps Weekly mentoring at UAB throughout academic year; students treated like a PhD student with office space Programming Contest and Alice Festival 6 weeks High School; 1 weeks Middle School Tuition Scholarships Available Taught by UAB Faculty Topics include Java, robotics, graphics, game programming, scientific computing In 2009, over 65 students attended May 2010 Over 150 students and parents from across Alabama Prizes: Laptop, Xbox, software, books, gift certificates Alice Film Festival!

$1,080,000 from National Science Foundation In collaboration with Birmingham City Schools –UAB CORD, Computer Science, Mathematics, Education, and Mechanical Engineering Three-year engagement of 60 students per year –10 th grade: Game Programming with Alice; Linear algebra –11 th grade: Java and Robotics; Advanced mathematics –12 th grade: Computer Visualization; Science fair project –Teachers: Training of BCS teachers in parallel with student camps Seeking students and teachers for Fall08/Summer09 ALADDIN Drawing the GENIEous out of the kid emPowering the next generation for information technology

Field Trips to the CIS Department The UAB CIS Department offers outreach opportunities to local high schools through hosted field trips. The 3-hour field trip provides students with a broad range of exposure to computer science concepts, such as: –Career Opportunities in Computer Science –Computer Chess –Introduction to Game Programming with Alice –Tour of UAB CIS (including "Fastest Computer in Alabama" and visualization wall) –Pizza lunch featuring demonstrations of Lego NXT Robots

Guest Lectures for Technology Clubs An Introduction to Alice at Gardendale High School –The Technology Club at Gardendale High School, which is sponsored by faculty member Juanita Vann, has invited Dr. Jeff Gray to conduct a series of talks to the club members. The club will meet twice a month throughout the school year to learn how to program in Alice. The Technology Club members will create projects in Alice that will be submitted to the Alice Film Festival, which will be held at the UAB High School Programming Contest on May 12,

Alabama K-12 Computer Workshop July 31, 2006; 16 state-wide participants Purpose: To discuss critical issues needed to raise awareness of computing within Alabama schools. Participants: –Public: Bob Jones High School, Vestavia Hills –Magnets: ASFA (Birmingham), ASMS (Mobile) –Private: Tuscaloosa Academy –K-5: Cameron McKinley (AL Teacher of Year)

CS 201 CS 201 is our introductory programming course in Java –Greatly speed up mentoring experience in Fall –Prepare students for programming contest next May “Concurrent/Dual” enrollment agreement –Requirements: 3.0 GPA and 25-ACT (1140-SAT) –Receive 4 college credit hours over summer for CS 201 Approximate tuition: $700 However - A deal to consider: –We will pay for 1/3 tuition for this course upfront for those who qualify for Concurrent enrollment –If you later commit to UAB CIS, we will reimburse the full amount Those not qualifying for Concurrent enrollment may still “sit in” on the course, but without receiving credit hours

Possible Mentoring Ideas LEGO NXT is a great experimental platform –Exciting new capabilities include wireless communication and vision At UAB, we have 15 of these robots for experimentation purposes

Possible Mentoring Ideas Self-Parking Robot –Simulates a car that identifies open spaces and parallel parks Target Recognition in a Rescue Mission –A group of coordinated robots will work together to conduct a search/rescue mission Sniper Identification –A group of autonomous robots will be used to isolate the location of sniper fire in a military application (using triangulation) Speech and Vision Recognition –Voice controlled commands to a robot that also can use the vision camera to avoid colliding with objects Game Playing Robot –Tic-tac-toe; Othello –2-on-2 soccer YOUR IDEA HERE! –Of course, we encourage creativity if you have new ideas!

Reasons to Consider UAB CIS Scholarship Availability –For outstanding high school students, UAB offers several scholarships to incoming freshmen (from $2000-$8000 per year) –The CIS Department offers the Joseph Fontana Scholarship each year to two CIS students (typically awarded to Junior and Senior students). This scholarship provides $4,000 over the academic year. –The recently established Joyce Iannuzzi fellowship provides $2,000 to a CIS undergraduate each year. –The new S-STEM scholarship is designed to increase retention and graduation rates of CIS majors. This award provides up to $10,000 per year for a two year maximum to help students with unmet financial need.

Reasons to Consider UAB CIS Outstanding Faculty –The 12 professors and instructors in the CIS Department obtained their degrees from the top schools in the country (e.g., Cal Tech, Cornell, Northwestern, Pennsylvania, and Vanderbilt). In addition to being leaders in their fields, our professors are dedicated to spending time with students. Outstanding Facilities –Among the fasters computers in Alabama! –Computer visualization wall UAB CIS recently acquired a 128 node compute cluster which has been benchmarked at 1.41 teraflops per second. This is the fastest general purpose supercomputer in the state of Alabama. UAB CIS recently acquired a 13 megapixel, nine tile visualization wall that measures approximately 10' wide by 8' high.

Reasons to Consider UAB CIS Excellence in Research and Service – UAB is the largest employer in the state of Alabama and is the only school in Alabama with the highest research rating (“RU/VH”), which is based on grant funding and PhD production. The University has over $430M in external funding this year, which is several times that of all other universities in Alabama combined. –Research in the CIS department is funded by the Army Research Office (ARO), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), International Business Machines (IBM), National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Office of Naval Research (ONR).

Reasons to Consider UAB CIS Undergraduate Research Opportunities –For undergraduate students with a high GPA, there is an opportunity to do Honors research with faculty members. There is a special course available that allows a student to be mentored by a faculty member in a manner that provides the student a taste of the graduate school experience. Students participating in CIS Honors receive a special designation on their diploma at graduation. –The CIS department has an Undergraduate Honors Research Lab to host those students participating in Honors research. The students in this special lab will have exclusive access to high-end computers, with accommodations similar to those of doctoral students.

Reasons to Consider UAB CIS Undergraduate Research Opportunities –CIS undergraduates are awarded summer internships to participate in special research programs sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The students participating in these opportunities continue their research throughout the academic year and prepare research talks and papers that are published at regional conferences. Over the past two years, CIS students placed in the top 3 at the ACM Mid- southeast conference in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. 3 First Place Winners: UAB CIS students have received first place in all categories (Undergrad, Masters, PhD) amid students from 7 states. Freshman Research Undergraduate Amos Smith presented his research as a true Freshman (first in conference’s 30 year history), and was awarded first place as a Sophomore.

Reasons to Consider UAB CIS Programming Contest Team –Each year, the CIS department sends our top 9 students to compete in the annual ACM programming contest (held the last few years in Melbourne, Florida). To prepare students for this competition, a new course has been introduced in the curriculum that teaches students problem solving techniques not typically covered in core courses. The 2008 UAB CIS Competitive Programming teams placed 1 st and 2 nd at their contest site for the ACM International Computer Programming Competition, beating all other schools in Alabama and Mississippi and producing UAB's best-ever finish in the Southeast region overall (5 th and 13 th place overall in Southeast).

For more information… UAB Main Web SiteUAB CIS Web Site You all are invited to come take a tour and visit our department! Summary of K-12 Outreach Activities (videos and photos)