Students

International Women’s Day Spotlight on UC Davis Women in Computer Science

In honor of International Women’s Day on March 8, the University of California, Davis, College of Engineering recognizes women in engineering, their journey to and in the field, and how they promote a diverse, equitable and inclusive world.

Meet some remarkable women in the Department of Computer Science, and learn how they inspire inclusion in engineering.

‘The Backdrop’ Podcast Features Scholar on How Social Media Algorithms Can Foster Political Radicalization

A new study from UC Davis suggests that artificial intelligence recommendation algorithms on sites like YouTube and TikTok can play a role in political radicalization. The research team trained “sock puppets” — artificial entities that act like users. Each sock puppet was given a series of right- or left-leaning videos to watch every day, and then the team would compare the recommendations on the sock puppet’s homepage to see if its recommended videos gradually became more biased.

Inside the Underground Market for Fake Amazon Reviews

Ph.D. student Rajvardhan Oak stumbled upon an underground market for fake Amazon reviews by accident while scrolling through Facebook. Seedy scam networks are using social media to organize campaigns that influence product ratings. They’re a headache for shoppers—and tough to crack down on.

Do YouTube Recommendations Foster Political Radicalization?

A new study from UC Davis suggests that AI recommendation algorithms on sites like YouTube and Tik Tok can play a role in political radicalization. If the algorithm sees that a user is watching a lot of biased political videos, the researchers found that it can trap them in a “loop effect,” recommending similarly biased and potentially more extreme content on their homepage and sidebar.

EcoCAR EV Challenge Marks a New Era for UC Davis Engineering

Over the next four years, UC Davis students will be designing the car of the future as part of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s EcoCAR Electric Vehicle (EV) Challenge. The competition challenges students to convert a Cadillac LYRIQ EV into an autonomous, next-generation battery-electric vehicle with vehicle-to-everything connectivity so it can interact with devices and the environment.

Using Jewelry to Communicate

The face already plays an important role in communication, but a group of UC Davis computer scientists led by Ph.D. student Shuyi Sun is taking this to the next level. The team is designing facial jewelry that can use signals from a person’s facial muscles to send wireless commands to at-home devices like Alexa and Google Home. By reading a user’s conscious and unconscious gestures, the technology has the potential to help silently operate lights or other devices or discreetly send messages to get out of potentially dangerous situations.

UC Davis Student Builds COVID-19 Vaccine Appointment Notification System to Increase Vaccinations in India

As the pandemic surged in spring 2021, third-year computer science major Shrey Sheladia used the programming skills he learned at UC Davis to help increase India’s vaccination rate. For four months, Sheladia ran an online notification program that helped more than 40,000 people in India receive COVID-19 vaccines by alerting them when a vaccine appointment was available.

A Guide for Learning from YouTube

Whether it’s coding, cooking or calculus, more people are using YouTube and other video sharing websites to learn new things. Computer science Ph.D. student Jingxian Liao, part of associate professor Hao-Chuan Wang’s group, is trying to make this experience better and easier by creating a structured learning experience from a list of video search results.

Simbarashe Nyatsanga Receives IBM Ph.D. Fellowship for Research in Gesture Generation

Computer science Ph.D. student Simbarashe Nyatsanga aims to make an impact in animation and computer vision through his groundbreaking research in speech-driven gesture generation. He is one of only 16 recipients worldwide this year of the prestigious IBM Ph.D. Fellowship Award, which recognizes outstanding Ph.D. students with demonstrated academic excellence and expertise in pioneering research in computer science.

“In animation, there’s a lot of room for improvement, so it’s wonderful to see that IBM recognizes the importance of my research,” he said.

Computer Science Undergraduates Teach Upper-division Android App Development Class

This past winter, computer science (CS) majors Akshey Nama and Omar Burney developed, planned and taught their own upper-division CS class at UC Davis. Their project-based app development course covered the principles of programming for Android, brought in experts from the Android developer community and built a network of students interested in the platform.