News

The project is developing an online course in computational thinking (CT) for high school math and science teachers, delivering it to teachers throughout the country, and conducting research to assess the efficacy of the professional development delivered.

DIMACS remains open for business, but we are working remotely as New Jersey shelters in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

DIMACS Mixers have been around since the beginning of DIMACS. They started as a way to help people at the four initial DIMACS institutions—Rutgers, Princeton, Bell Labs, and Bellcore—meet each other and learn about the research being conducted at those institutions.

With the start of the new year and the new decade, DIMACS welcomes David Pennock as its new director. Pennock shared some of his thoughts about the history of DIMACS, becoming its new director, and future directions for DIMACS in a message that appeared in the program booklet for the Three Decades of DIMACS Conference held in November 2019.

The Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science, (DIMACS), celebrated its 30th anniversary with a two-day conference this past Thursday and Friday that drew scholars from across the nation and an appearance by Governor Phil Murphy.

DIMACS is pleased to announce the upcoming Special Focus on Mechanisms and Algorithms to Augment Human Decision Making. The special focus aims to improve decision-support systems by leveraging both human and machine intelligence through study of tools to augment decision making in individuals and organizations.

DIMACS is delighted to announce that Dr. David Pennock will become the next Director of DIMACS, starting in January of 2020.

Pennock is currently a Principal Researcher at Microsoft. During his distinguished career, he was a founding member of three corporate basic research labs.

uly in New Brunswick will be a little “complex” as Rutgers and DIMACS are hosting three different complexity-themed events that will be held July 15-20, 2019. These events culminate with the annual Computational Complexity Conference (CCC2019) and mark the official launch of the DIMACS Special Focus on Lower Bounds in Computational Complexity.

Congratulations to Rebecca Wright on receiving the 2019 ACM-SIGACT Distinguished Service Award! The award recognizes Wright’s extraordinary service to the theoretical computer science (TCS) community through her 11-year leadership of DIMACS, which began with her role as Deputy Director in 2007 and continued with her tenure as Director from 2011–2018. The SIGACT award citation also recognized her for “continuing and expanding the research and educational missions of DIMACS, for promoting diversity in computer science, and for using her expertise in privacy and security to help shape public policy on a national level.”

The 2019 STEM for All Video Showcase includes a video about the Douglass-SAS-DIMACS Computer Science Living-Learning Community (CS LLC). The three-minute video features several CS LLC students describing what being part of the CS LLC means to them. The CS LLC is an immersive educational and community-building program for first-year women intending to major in computer science.

DIMACS is pleased to welcome the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) as a new DIMACS institutional affiliate partner. DIMACS and NJIT invite the DIMACS community to join in celebrating this new partnership on March 13 at NJIT.

DIMACS announces the start of its Special Focus on Lower Bounds in Computational Complexity, which will run through the fall of 2021. The special focus is organized by Eric Allender (Rutgers), Mark Braverman (Princeton), Gillat Kol (Princeton), Swastik Kopparty (Rutgers), Periklis Papakonstantinou (Rutgers), Toniann Pitassi (University of Toronto and visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study), and Ran Raz (Princeton).

The program on Mathematics of Planet Earth (MPE) coordinated activities exploring applications of the mathematical sciences to problems affecting the planet at research centers around the world for the entire year of 2013. When the year ended, it was clear that there was still much left to explore, so the MPE 2013+ project, led by DIMACS and involving individuals and institutions from across the US, was launched to extend the activities and focus on the role of mathematical sciences to serve the planet.

DIMACS is working with the AEGIS project in its efforts to promote interactions on privacy and cybersecurity between stakeholders in Europe and the United States. AEGIS is a European Commission Horizon 2020 project focused on strengthening international dialogues on cybersecurity and privacy in order to facilitate the exchange of viewpoints, policies, and best practices toward the goal of accelerating EU-US cooperation in research and innovation in cybersecurity and privacy. DIMACS’s involvement in AEGIS activities is spearheaded by DIMACS Director Rebecca Wright, who leads Rutgers’ participation as a US partner in AEGIS.

The DIMACS Center based at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ is seeking a Director. This is a five-year renewable appointment as Director as well as a tenured full professor position in an appropriate Rutgers department.

DIMACS is pleased to announce an award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for a far-reaching project on professional development for high school teachers. The project is a partnership between DIMACS and the University of Connecticut Neag School of Education, led by DIMACS Associate Director for Education Midge Cozzens, and involving educators from around the country in design and delivery of online professional development (PD) materials.

A video about our PS-Future project will be featured in the 2018 STEM for All Video Showcase funded by the National Science Foundation. The event will be held online May 14th -21st. (The videos will remain for viewing after the conclusion of the event.)

Welcome to the new DIMACS website. We hope you like the new look and that it makes learning about DIMACS activities easier and more convenient.

The energy (and entropy) level at DIMACS increases along with the summer temperatures as we welcome students participating in our Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program. The DIMACS REU program combines an NSF REU site with several other programs to bring a large and energetic cohort of undergraduates to Rutgers each year.

With generous support from Microsoft Research and Nokia Bell Labs, a group of 13 Rutgers women participated in the 2017 Grace Hopper Celebration, October 4-6, 2017 in Orlando, FL. Organized by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology and the Association for Computing Machinery, The Grace Hopper Celebration is the world’s largest gathering of women technologists.