Ernie's 3D Pancakes

Toronto is hiring in computational geometry

Toronto's Computer Science Department is searching for new tenure-track faculty in computational geometry. Apply by November 15!

The Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto invites applications for up to three tenure-stream appointments in the Department of Computer Science in the areas of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Computer Systems, and Computational Geometry. The appointment(s) will be at the rank of Assistant Professor and will commence July 1, 2019.

Candidates in all areas of Computer Science that touch upon knowledge representation and reasoning, computer systems, and computational geometry in the broadest possible sense will be considered. We are especially interested in exceptional candidates who transcend traditional computing research topics and complement our existing strengths....

Application material for the position should be submitted online through AcademicJobsOnline at https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/11954. It should include the candidate’s curriculum vitae, a list of publications, a research statement, a teaching statement, and at least three letters of reference (on letterhead, signed and scanned) uploaded to AcademicJobsOnline directly by the writers. Review of applications will begin on November 15, 2018 and applicants should endeavor to have all materials submitted by then, however applications will be accepted until the position is filled.

Computational Advertising at UIUC

The Departments of Advertising and Computer Science at Illinois are running a search for a joint senior faculty position in computational advertising. The position is tenured on arrival and will be shared between the two departments. The application deadline is January 15, 2013. Please feel free to contact me for more information; I'm co-chairing the search subcommittee. Here's the official advertisement:

The Departments of Computer Science (CS) and Advertising (ADV) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign invite applications for a joint faculty position in Computational Advertising. This novel position is part of a new multi-year Strategic Excellence Hiring Program at Illinois that focuses on: (a) Information, Technology and Society, (b) Human Health and Wellness, (c) Energy and Sustainability, and (d) Culture, Communication, and Global Issues. We seek candidates with CS skills in areas such as “big data”, data-mining, or algorithmic game theory, and with advertising interests or experience in areas such as online /contextual advertising, digital privacy, behavioral targeting, and social media analytics. Applications are encouraged from candidates whose research programs are in traditional as well as in nontraditional areas that would support novel research and teaching across the emerging discipline of Computational Advertising. Each department is engaged in exciting new and expanding programs for research, education, and professional development, and each has strong ties to industry, across a wide landscape of technology and media partners.

Faculty in the CS department carry out research in a broad spectrum of areas and are supported by world-class facilities, starting with our department’s home in the Siebel Center for Computer Science, and including collaborations with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, the Coordinated Science Laboratory, the Information Trust Institute, and the Illinois Informatics Institute, as well as several industrial centers and programs that foster international collaborations. The CS department has one of the leading programs in the United States, granting approximately 200 B.S. degrees, 70 M.S. degrees, and 60 Ph.D. degrees annually. The Department of Advertising, the first such academic department in the country, was established in 1959 by Charles H. Sandage, considered to be the father of advertising education. Today, the top-ranked department celebrates Sandage's legacy with scholarship and teaching focused on understanding, evaluating and communicating the many facets of advertising. Approximately 150 B.S. degrees and 20 M.S. degrees are granted annually. Faculty can also teach in the Institute for Communications Research (ICR) doctoral program in the College of Media.

In order to ensure full consideration by the Search Committee, applications must be received by January 15, 2012. Salary will be commensurate with qualifications. Preferred starting date is August 16, 2013, but is negotiable. Applications can be submitted by going to http://jobs.illinois.edu (jobid: 26890) and uploading a cover letter, CV, research statement, and teaching statement, along with names of three references. For inquiry, please call 217-244-7949 or email [email protected].

Illinois is an Affirmative Action /Equal Opportunity Employer and welcomes individuals with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and ideas who embrace and value diversity and inclusivity (www.inclusiveillinois.illinois.edu).

The CS department also has three open-rank faculty positions, in the broad areas of software engineering, scientific computing, and "big data". Please (ask your students to) apply!

Why Johnny can't teach (?)

As part of a longer online discussion, Bill Deresiewicz (formerly Yale) and Mark Edmundson (Virginia) talk about how universities encourage bad teaching. (You might remember Bill as the Ivy League apparatchik who couldn't talk to his plumber.) Among the complaints about consumerist university culture and the blind acceptance of tenure and other administrative processes, they refer to Mark Oppenheimer's article on student evaluations in this week's new York Times Magazine.

Congratulations, Dr. Chambers!

I am happy to announce that Erin Wolf Chambers deposited her PhD dissertation Finding Interesting Topological Features yesterday. After way too many years at UIUC (starting as a freshman in 1998), the newly minted Dr. Chambers will be an assistant professor of mathematics and computer science Saint Louis University, starting in August. Everyone wish her luck!

Congratulations, octor Bunde!

My PhD student David Bunde just successfully defended his PhD thesis, entitled “Scheduling and Admission Control”. David's thesis isn't up on the web yet—D is for deposit!—but you can sneak a look at his defense slides [pdf]. You also can see some of David's research results on his web site. In a few weeks, David will join the Computer Science Department at Knox College—yes, that Knox College—as an assistant professor.

On the other hand, I cannot predict the future.

I'd suggest it might be better for communities to figure out how to care for all of their members, even the ones who seem inclined to complain. Ignoring the interests of some members of the community to further general harmony (people get to keep doing things the way they want to, advisors can decide how to treat their grad students and other pieces of lab equipment, etc.) is a risky move. Not only might the trouble-makers you're ignoring have valid concerns -- concerns which would do more to ensure long-term harmony should the community heed them -- but, their reaction at being shut out by the community might be ... bad.

Practice makes perfect. Ish.

From Eurekalert:

In an experiment in which students either took quizzes or were permitted to study material repeatedly, students in the study-only group professed an exaggerated confidence, sure that they knew the material well, even though important details already had begun slip-sliding away. The group that took tests on the material, rather than repeatedly reading it, actually did better on a delayed test of their knowledge.

From Rate Your Students:

My classes are large, so I mostly use multiple-choice tests. One day, being one question short of a nice round number, I used this question: "The answer to this question is D. Be sure to mark D on your answer sheet." The offered choices were: (A) This is the wrong answer. (B) This is the wrong answer. (C) This is the wrong answer. (D) This is the correct answer. Be sure to mark it on your answer sheet. (E) This is the wrong answer.

About 20% of the students got it wrong.

Teaching styles

One of the professors in my department was recently asked by a student if she was using a European teaching style. The prof had no idea what the student meant, so she asked for clarification. The student apparently found it strange that he was expected to read a book.

Very mature.

Rate Your Students appears to have been hacked to death.

Call me crazsy, but I'm thinking it wasn't by a tenure committee.

Slow natives

• Elephants (A Play in One Scene) by Dean Dad

• Pink Elephants by Sun Ra and His Arkestra