CSL launches four new research groups

To create more focused communities of researchers across CSL, four new research groups have been formed. Combining veteran faculty with up-and-coming researchers, the idea behind creating these new areas is to bring faculty with a similar focus together to improve opportunities for interdisciplinary work.

“As the world’s computing needs have changed, needs for hybrid computing systems and architectures, distributed sensing, computing and networking foundations, and trustworthy applications have sprung up,” said Klara Nahrstedt, CSL director and the Grainger Distinguished Chair in Engineering. “We have launched four new research groups to better address these next-generation computing challenges and pursue new solutions and insights.”

Below is a review of the new research groups: Computer Systems and Architecture; Intelligent Sensing, Networking, and Cyber-Physical Systems; Security and Privacy; and Technology and Societal Impacts.

Computer Systems and Architecture
There are various research areas, centers, and laboratories across campus that work in the computer systems and architecture space. The goal of this group is to bring all those researchers together to reshape the future of computing systems and architecture through innovations across the entire hardware and software stack. This work will span from underlying hardware architecture to upper-level application algorithms, with the ultimate goal of significantly improving system performance, energy-efficiency, scalability, reliability, and security.

Read more about the group and the researchers involved here.

Intelligent sensing, networking, and cyberphysical systems
The InSinc (Intelligent Sensing, Networking, and Cyberphysical Systems) group focuses on theoretical and experimental research around a wide range of topics of the same name. The researchers aim to develop foundational algorithms in these areas, and translate them to practical systems for societal applications, guided by data-science and artificial intelligence.

Applications include new internet technologies, 5G networks, IoT, robotics, autonomous cars, healthcare, social networks, and manufacturing among others.

Find out about the researchers involved with this group here.

Security & privacy
Internet infrastructure is a major technological backbone of different application sectors to deliver secure, trustworthy, and private information among machines. The Security and privacy research group will work to address security threats and privacy concerns of current computing systems. Current systems are large, distributed, and complex, consisting of applications, software, hardware, and networks, used by diverse user groups. This group will work to embed security and privacy into the design, implementation, and deployment of computer systems.

This group’s work will have major implication for components of the health-care eco-system, smart grids, and cloud software among other things.

More information about the group and its researchers can be found here.

Technology and societal impacts
The main belief of this research group is that engineering leaders should promote cultures of ethics in their organizations. The technologies developed by engineers affect how people live and work, bringing both benefits and harms. Since different people can experience different benefits and harms, technologies raise questions of ethics and social justice. As a consequence, the developing engineers need to understand the ethics of technological development and research. When engineers build artificial intelligence for decision-making into self-driving cars and patient-monitoring medical devices, the quality and reliability of those decisions makes the difference between saving lives and injuring people.

Using mathematical, computational, and social science research methods, the faculty in the Technology and Societal Impacts Group conduct research on the social impacts of artificial intelligence, technology and inclusion, and access to health through technology among other topics.

Read the full review of the group and its researchers here.