Inside a “feat of modern computing” on Mars

ISSUE 03 • APRIL 2025

Welcome Back to WisComputes

WisComputes is a research newsletter from UW–Madison Computer Sciences (CS). To share it, forward this email or direct people to the new subscriber form.

Department News

UW–Madison’s Computer Sciences graduate program is ranked #7 among public universities and #13 overall (three-way tie), according to the latest U.S. News & World Report.
Ubicept, a computational imaging company advised by Professor Mohit Gupta, was a winner at the Titletown Tech Startup Draft hosted by Microsoft and the Green Bay Packers.
Alumnus Andy Konwinski ’07 (Databricks, Perplexity, Laude Ventures) and UC Berkeley's Dave Patterson (pioneer of reduced instruction set computer design) hosted a lecture on how leaders at the forefront of AI are thinking about its next chapter.
School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences (CDIS) Director and Professor Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau discussed AI tools as “powerful multipliers” in the classroom with ChatGPT for Education.

Research News & Awards

IEEE CS awarded Professor Guri Sohi the 2025 Computer Pioneer Award.
Professor Sharon Li received a 2025 Sloan Fellowship—one of two UW–Madison researchers to be distinguished.
Professor Emeritus Mark D. Hill was elected to a three-year term on the Computing Research Association’s Board of Directors.
Professor Patrick McDaniel and colleagues received approval for a new journal, ACM Transactions on AI Security and Privacy (TAISAP), for which they will jointly serve as editors-in-chief.
Professor Bilge Mutlu and co-authors received the Best Paper Award at HRI’25 for "ImageInThat: Manipulating Images to Convey User Instructions to Robots."
Alumna Jing Liu PhD’24, graduate student Yifan Dai PhDx’25, and Professors Andrea and Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau won the Best Paper Award at USENIX 2025 for “Fast, Transparent Filesystem Microkernel Recovery with Ananke.”

Morgridge Hall Update

Inside Morgridge Hall

Discover how CDIS' state-of-the-art facility is rapidly transforming into a vibrant hub of innovation, collaboration, and discovery. Opening later this year, it's designed designed to stand the test of time—Morgridge Hall will be LEED platinum certified and the most sustainable building on UW–Madison's campus to date.

The Center for High

Throughput Computing

The Center for High Throughput Computing (CHTC) is an internationally recognized research center and home to HTCondor, a task scheduling software system that creates a high-throughput computing environment and powers research across the world—and beyond.

Using CHTC’s HTCondor, U.S. Geological Survey scientists released over 4,800 digital terrain models and 155,000 ultra-high-res images of Mars’ surface. The “feat of modern computing,” which will support AI and ML efforts in planetary science, took under four hours to process roughly 114 TB.

IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a cubic-kilometer particle detector in the South Pole, captures 233 million cosmic rays—almost a terabyte of data—every day. This feeds continuously into CHTC systems, yielding thousands of daily computational tasks. In the past year, IceCube utilized over 50 million core hours and ran over 36 million jobs using HTCondor.

The N+1 Institute

In 2024, GE HealthCare became the founding member of Computer Sciences’ N+1 Institute, a new interdisciplinary hub fueling “research, education, and innovation in next generation computing systems.”

Diana Kotsonis x’25 supported the development of algorithms to improve GE HealthCare's clinical charting in hospitals’ labor and delivery departments. In return, she gained skills that make her competitive in the job market.

Student Research

People & Robots Lab's Hailey Johnson PhDx’26 improves the fit, function, and accessibility of technology for Wisconsin adults with Down syndrome.
Sean Xufeng Du PhDx'25 received the 2025 Ivanisevic Award to support dissertation research in reliable machine learning.
Wisconsin AI Safety Initiative members traveled to Washington, DC to present the risks associated with mass adoption of AI agents to Congressional staffers and reporters.
CS students earned top prizes at the MadData25 hackathon by using data science methods to solve real-world problems.

Follow @WisconsinCS

Department of Computer Sciences

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN–MADISON
1210 W. Dayton Street | Madison, WI 53706