UBC Reports | Vol.
50 | No. 11 |
Dec. 2, 2004
Transformation of a Lifetime
By Brian Lin
When computer science professor Richard Rosenberg arrived
at UBC from the University of Michigan in 1968, long hair,
massive beards and wild ties were high fashion while mainframes
— not personal computers — were the standard.
The soon-to-be-retired Rosenberg, currently acting director
of the dept. of computer science, has witnessed an incredible
transformation. The department that started small, in a space
converted from a parking structure, is now a hotbed of research
noted for its graphics, visualization, computational intelligence
and robotics groups. There are now approximately 55 faculty
members.
In fact, the only things faster than the department’s
computers these days may be the human brains working and studying
there.
Just last month, two of three teams of student programmers
took first and third place in the Pacific Northwest Division
at the annual Association for Computing Machinery Programming
Competition.
The first place team beat out powerhouse teams from Stanford
and Berkeley and will compete in the World Finals in Shanghai
in April.
