Computer Science | Grinnell College

On Thursday, October 15, Steven Muschler 2011 will describe his summer experience in an outdoor leadership program:

The National Outdoor Leadership School runs various wilderness education trips throughout the world. I went on a thirty-day heavy backpacking trip in the Absaroka range in Northwestern Wyoming this past June. Such a trip brought a much needed change of pace for a Grinnell College computer scientist, as it was unusual not to have access to a computer for an extended period of time. Instead my experiences dealt with cooking from scratch, not being eaten by bears, and not getting lost. I will also talk about the basics of how a GPS system works, as it was the only thing with a circuit in it that I touched for thirty days.

Refreshments will be served at 4:15 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Noyce 3817). The talk, NOLS: The National Outdoor Leadership School, will follow at 4:30 p.m. in Noyce 3821.

The first meeting of Grinnell's "CS Table" will be this Friday, August 28, at noon in JRC224A. The topic of the first CS Table will be What I did this summer. Yeah, it's old hat, but we'd like the opportunity to catch up with everyone.

For this first meeting, the department will cover the cost for students not on board. Sign in at the ID station.

We look forward to seeing you there! (We also look forward to your suggestions for topics for CS table.)

Students and faculty work together on many Mentored Advanced Projects (MAPs) and other scholarly endeavors, both during the academic year and in the summers. For example, about a dozen students work as research/development teams with faculty in a typical summer. Some on-going projects include:

• Software performance and effective cache use
• Program reasoning in the computer science curriculum and semi-automated programming
• Fostering inclusivity in early computer science activities for youth
• Evolution simulations for research and education
• Extracting meaning from images, such as character recognition in historical maps

Christine Wang '08 presents two posters at ITiCSE 2007 in Dundee Scotland, based on work with students Monica Ugwi, Eric Omwega, and Jonathan Tsu and with faculty member Henry Walker.