computing atthesouthcarolinahonorscollege

U N I V E R S I T Y O F S O U T H C A R O L I N A

John Heather

Stacey Matt

Meet four South Carolina Honors College computing graduates and current

students: current Carolina student John Flowers, and graduates and NSF

graduate fellowship winners Heather Wake (now at Duke), Stacey Ivol (now

at Carnegie Mellon), and Matt Elder (now at Wisconsin). Together they

represent the new face of computing at the University of South Carolina.

University of South Carolina computing students

arebuildingsoftwareandhardware,designingweb

applications,andcreatingmachinesthatmakelifebetter.

Theyaredesigningmoreefficientalgorithms,solving

problemsinbiologyandchemistrythroughcomputation,

andmakingrobotsworkharderandgamesmorefun.As

undergraduates in the South Carolina Honors College,

computingstudentslikeJohn,Heather,Stacey,andMatt

combinedtheresourcesofalarge,comprehensiveresearch

universitywiththebenefitsofsmallerclassestaughtby

facultywhoactivelyengagestudentstoformtheirown

ideasandpursuelearningfromnewperspectives.Explore

your options in computing.

computing

U N I V E R S I T Y O F S O U T H C A R O L I N A

John FlowersA computer science major, John came to Carolina from Lexington, impressed

by the high-quality, well rounded educational programs of the Honors College.

Besides classes and work, he tutors for the student chapter of the Association

for Computing Machinery and works with the Carolina Service council to

organize community service events on campus. In 2007, John was awarded

a scholarship from Upsilon Pi Epsilon, one of only seven undergraduates

in the nation to receive this scholarship. How will you change the world?

I’m a senior in the University’s Honors College and currently

work in the IT office at the College of Education doing Web

programming. After graduating in December, I plan to begin

pursuing my masters degree in computer science at USC. The

topics of greatest interest to me are the Web 3.0 movement, Internet

security, and the developing field of Web Science. – John

South Carolina Honors College courses

oftenexploreglobalperspectives.For

example,studentsintheCryptologyand

PublicPolicycomputerscienceand

engineeringhonorscoursedebatedthe

legalissuesofnewtechnologyandprivacy.

Theyalsocanresearchanddiscusstheroleof

governmentinsettingprivacystandardsand

publicpolicyininternational“infospace.”

Can you fold it?Well,askElizabethTimko,an

honorsundergraduatestudentenrolledinthe

DepartmentofComputerScienceand

Engineering.UnderthementorshipofDr.

HomayounValafar,shedemonstrated

successfulfoldingofproteinsfrom

orientationalconstraints.Protein

foldingisoneofthemost

challengingproblemsin

theareaofcomputational

biology.Carolinaprovides

anumberofopportunities

forstudentstobecome

involvedincomputational

biologyandbioinformatics.

“

”

South Carolina’s College of Engineering and Computing gave

me the technical abilities I need to be successful, while the

Honors College ensured that I have a breadth of knowledge I may

not have gotten otherwise. The Honors College Undergraduate

Research Fellowship, along with an extremely supportive advisor in

computer science and engineering, gave me a start in research as an

undergraduate, which really helped prepare me for graduate school.

My Honors College thesis and the work leading up to it provided a

glimpse of what graduate school would be like and convinced me of

my interest in solving problems. – Heather

“

”

If you are interested in graduate school, we offer

accelerated programs in all our engineering and

computing disciplines.TheOfficeofFellowshipsand

ScholarProgramshelpsyouwiththerigorousprocessof

applyingforawardsforadvancedacademicstudy.The

officehashelpedstudentslikeHeather,Matt,andStacey

applyforandwinnearly$9millionincompetitionssuch

astheTruman,Rhodes,NSFGraduateFellowship,and

GoldwaterScholarsprograms.

A dedicated advisor in the South Carolina

Honors College will help you planyour

academicdirectionbasedonyourindividual

interestsandultimategoals.Eachsemester

youandyouradvisorwilldiscussoptionsthat

willallowyoutomakethemostoftheHonors

College’swidevarietyofcourseofferings

andsmallerclasssizesaswellascooperative

educationandinternshipopportunities.

Heather WakeHeather Wake, Class of 2004, won a prestigious National Science Foundation

Graduate Fellowship (and three other fellowships as well), was named

Outstanding Female Undergraduate runner-up by the Computing Research

Association, making her the number two woman graduate in computing

in North America in 2004, and is now in the doctoral program at Duke

University. Her undergraduate Honors College thesis led to a conference

presentation in California and a book chapter. How far will you go?

Stacey IvolFormer South Carolina Honors College student Stacey Ivol

graduated with a degree in computer engineering in 2006.

Never one to shy away from opportunities, while at Carolina,

Stacey received an NSF graduate fellowship and was a

member of Phi Beta Kappa. What opportunities will you take?

While at Carolina, I attended the Research Experience for

Undergraduates program in Orlando, Florida. Now in my

second year of a Ph.D. program at Carnegie Mellon University with an

NSF graduate fellowship, I’m currently working with a MURI group on

verification and validation of controls on a UAV. Soon, I’ll be switching to

a V&V project with Toyota. – Stacey

The Honors College offers grants of up

to $1,500 to help offset material costs

for senior thesis projects. Foradditional

researchprojects,undergraduatestudents

canalsosubmitfundingproposalsto

theMagellanScholarprogram.The

MagellanVoyagerProgramoffersgrants

tocoverstudy-relatedtravelexpenses.

In the Computer Vision Lab, Professor Song Wang and his graduate students are

conducting research on medical image computing. Themajorgoalistodevelop

effectivealgorithmsandsoftwaretoolstoquicklyandcorrectlyidentifyimportant

informationfrom3Dmedicalimagesormedicalimagesequences.Currentresearch

projectsinclude:(1)asoftwaresystemforextractingandanalyzinghumanliverimages

fromhigh-resolutiontorsoCTimages,requiringthedevelopmentofbothautomatic

image-analysisalgorithmsandsemi-automaticinteractivetools;(2)segmenting

thehippocampusfromMRbrainimagesand

performingshapeanalysisofthehippocampus;

(3)constructingstatisticalshapemodels

fromapopulationofanatomicstructures,

requiringnon-rigidlyco-registeringdifferent

shapeinstancesbyidentifyingcorresponding

landmarks;(4)visualizationof3Danatomic

structuresbyconstructingaconsistentand

compactsurfacemesh.

“

”

Iwent to Tokyo last spring for the 2007 ACM International Collegiate

Programming Competition world finals. I was a member of the team

3SAT Oracle, which took first place in the North Central North American

region, along with Thomas Watson and Brian Byrne. (We didn’t place

all that well at the world finals, but we “went.”) My math paper, “Path

Bundles on n-Cubes,” has been accepted for publication in Discrete

Mathematics. I’ve since explored executable code slicing. I’m currently

wrapping up a brief technical report on the NP-hardness of type inference

for heap snapshots, and am pursuing some as-yet-assorted research in

programming languages and operating systems. – Matt

The University of South Carolina offers you

all the advantages of a large, comprehensive

university.Inadditiontooutstandingfacilities

andacademicresources,theUniversityprovides

plentyofactivitiesoncampus.Fromthe

excitementofSECsportstotheatreandmusical

performances,there’salwayssomethingfuntodo.

Living on campus offers Honors College students

a variety of choices.Currently,freshmenlivein

MaxcyandCapstonewhileupperclassmenlivein

HorseshoeapartmentsorinWestQuad,Carolina’s

environmentallyfriendly“greendorm.”Construction

soonwillbeunderwayonanewhonorsresidence

hallforfreshmenandsophomores.Itwillincludefour

classroomsandacafeteria,andwillbeevengreener

thanthe“greendorm.”

“

”

Matt ElderA 2006 graduate, Matt is currently studying algorithms and theory

at the University of Wisconsin. While at USC, Matt took part in an NSF

Research Experience for Undergraduates, became a member of Phi

Beta Kappa, and won both an NSF Graduate Fellowship and a National

Defense Science and Engineering Grant. What can you achieve?

South Carolina Honors College

University of South Carolina

803-777-8102

http://schc.sc.edu

Computer Science and Engineering

University of South Carolina

803-777-7979

http://www.cse.sc.edu

To apply for admission to the University

of South Carolina, visitusonlineathttp://

www.sc.edu/apply.Makeplansnowtovisit

theUniversity.Toursareconductedthrough

theVisitorCenterandcanbearranged

onlineathttp://visitorcenter.sc.edu.For

moreinformationabouttheSouthCarolina

HonorsCollegeorComputerScienceand

Engineering,giveusacallorvisitusonline.

TheUniversityofSouthCarolinaisanequalopportunityinstitution.