Combatting ‘Fairness Gerrymandering’ with Socially Conscious Algorithms

Decision-making algorithms help determine who gets into college, is approved for a mortgage, and anticipate who is most likely to commit another crime after being released from jail. These algorithms are made by programs that ingest massive databases and are instructed to find the factors that best predict the desired outcome.

Yifeng Zhu: Voices of Penn Engineering Master’s Alumni

This is the first of a series of articles, written by Penn Engineering alums in their own words, of their Penn experiences and how the University shaped their lives. Our first article is written by Yifeng (Daisy) Zhu, who graduated with a Master of Science in Engineering (M.S.E.) in Computer and Information Science in 2015. […]

Rakesh Vohra: Can we make our financial systems more resilient?

One of the major research areas in the Warren Center for Network and Data Science is resilience. Whether it’s a trader working the stock market, a doctor combating infections in a hospital, or a quadrotor flying in a swarm, the more connections there are between agents in a system, the more likely it is that […]

IEEE Spectrum: ‘Microdrones That Cooperate to Transport Objects Could Be Future of Warehouse Automation’

Following up on an earlier story about the GRASP lab’s new swarming technology that uses only onboard cameras and sensors, IEEE Spectrum’s Evan Ackerman checks back in with GRASP research scientist Giuseppe Loianno to talk about another advance.

IEEE Spectrum: ‘This Autonomous Quadrotor Swarm Doesn’t Need GPS’

The GRASP Lab’s flying robots do some amazing things under the invisible glow of PERCH’s motion-tracking camera system, but to have an impact in the real world, they will need to figure out where they’re going without that kind of eye-in-the-sky. Enter VIO-Swarm, the latest set of collaborative quadrotors from the lab, which fly together […]

Penn Engineering students are featured in Philly.com’s “Disney college contest yields careers as ‘imagineers'”

Play Hard, Work Harder: Taking it to the Edge on the Court and in the Classroom

From mid-August to late November, even as they face down the inevitable intellectual challenges of a new academic year, the women of Penn Volleyball practice their sport three hours a day, four days a week. Add to this their all-important Division I competitions, with many players spending additional hours on the road traveling to games […]

Insup Lee Named ACM Fellow

Insup Lee, Cecilia Fitler Moore Professor in the Departments of Computer and Information Science and Electrical Systems and Engineering, has been appointed fellow status by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for, “theoretical and practical contributions to compositional real-time scheduling and runtime verification.” The ACM brings together computing educators, researchers, and professionals to inspire dialogue, […]

‘Differential Privacy,’ or How Apple Finds the Most Popular Emojis Without Reading Your Texts

The ability to amass, store, manipulate and analyze information from millions of people at once has opened a vast frontier of new research methods. But, whether these methods are used in the service of new business models or new scientific findings, they also raise questions for the individuals whose information comprises these “big data” sets. […]

Mobility21 is Making Self-Driving Cars Safer with Grand Theft Auto

Mobility21 is a new research partnership, funded by a five-year, $14 million grant from the Department of Transportation, that tackles all manners of transportation problems through the use of new information and sensing technologies.