GAANN Award
April 2006
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Profs. Neil Heffernan, Emmanuel Agu, Matt Ward, and George Heineman have won a Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) award from the US Department of Education for $211,000 per year, renewable for 3 years. This award will contribute to strengthening our PhD program by providing 5 graduate fellowships per year for the duration of the award.
WPI's Provost Carol Simpson comments that "These GAANN awards are notoriously difficult to obtain and your success reflects very well on the caliber of the department and on WPI as a whole."
Please join us in congratulating them on this remarkable accomplishment!
The details of the proposed fellowships are as follows:
- Establish an administrative structure adequate to: (a) execute the plan described in this proposal; and (b) evaluate the plan performance in a timely way to permit mid-course modifications and improvements of the plan;
- Ensure that department recruitment and retention policies provide an adequate supply of exceptional graduate students;
- Prepare GAANN Fellows to make important contributions to the Computer Science research community, thereby positioning the WPI CS department to increase its international recognition and improve external funding;
- Recruit and retain students eligible for GAANN fellowships from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds;
- Provide GAANN fellowships to eligible graduate students with financial need;
- Provide GAANN Fellows with excellent coursework, research facilities, and advising;
- Monitor GAANN Fellows for their satisfactory progress toward the Ph.D. degree, including performance in coursework, supervised teaching, departmental Ph.D. examinations, and research;
- Ensure that the department supports GAANN Fellows as they strive to complete their Ph.D. degrees;
- Use the academic efforts of GAANN Fellows to improve and enhance undergraduate and graduate teaching at WPI.
Fellowships in Computer Science to Support
the Learning Sciences and Security
Abstract
The WPI Computer Science (CS) Department has an internationally recognized faculty whose research supports an innovative and exciting graduate program. The objective of this proposal is to enhance the capacity for research and teaching in areas of national need, specifically learning science, visual analytics, and security. During the past thirty years, the use of computers and information technology has permeated all sectors of society. The U.S. government routinely spends billions of dollars investing in Information Technology (IT); global spending in IT has already surpassed two trillion dollars. Yet, according to a study by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, there has been a 60% nationwide decline from 2000 to 2004 in first year college students who expressed an interest in majoring in Computer Science. Some high profile companies, such as Intel and Microsoft, have begun major initiatives to increase the number of computer science undergraduates in the U.S. To maintain a competitive advantage in the global economy, the U.S. must continue to invest in CS and IT, and graduate more students capable of making advances in research and technology in these areas.
With support from the Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need Program (GAANN), we intend to provide five fellowships to students of superior ability with demonstrated financial need. These students will increase the CS department's current prominence in training and research in Computer Science, an area recognized by GAANN as critical to the national need. Current research in the WPI CS Department is also extremely relevant to many areas of national interest and need, such as homeland security, health care, and education.
The specific objectives for the proposed program are to:
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