2023: A Transformative Year for the Computing Community

2023 was a transformative year for the College of Computing community. The following is an excerpt from the College's recently published annual report.

The biggest story of the past year was the May 1 announcement that Dean Charles Isbell had accepted the provost position at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Reaction to the news was swift.

“Not going to lie. This one hurts. Outside of being an outstanding person and leader, Dean Isbell has been an absolutely incredible advocate for our admission and enrollment efforts…,” said Rick Clark, assistant vice provost and executive director of Undergraduate Admission.

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“Georgia Tech without Charles Isbell is like the Justice League without Superman or the Avengers without Captain America,” said Online Education & OMSCS executive director David Joyner. Isbell became the Dean of the College in 2019. His last day at Georgia Tech was July 31, 2023.

“Tech is my alma mater, which in Latin means ‘mother of my soul.’ I grew into adulthood—or something close to it— as an undergraduate at Tech and learned how to be a professor here. I have had the joy of helping to work with all of you to build the community in positions of leadership. This community has nurtured my soul, and I will always give back to it any way I can,” said Isbell.

Longtime computer science professor Alex Orso began serving as interim Dean of the College of Computing on Aug. 1, 2023.

New School

The number of schools within the College grew this year with the Fall 2022 launch of the new School of Computing Instruction (SCI). SCI, which evolved from the College’s longstanding Division of Computing Instruction, is the College’s fifth school. It focuses on undergraduate computing education and is the first of its kind. Research from the School emphasizes pedagogy and explores new scalable learning approaches for teaching computing to all levels. SCI is led by Inaugural Chair Olufisayo Omojokun.

New Chair

The College announced the next chair of the School of Interactive Computing (IC) in February. Shaowen Bardzell took over on July 1, 2022, replacing Ayanna Howard, who left to become the Dean of the College of Engineering at Ohio State University in 2021.

[EXPLORE: Complete 2023 College of Computing  Annual Report]

Bardzell is known for infusing her computing research with ideas from design, social science, and ethics. She comes to Georgia Tech from Penn State University, where she served as the professor in charge of human-computer interaction in the College of Information Sciences and Technology beginning in 2020. Bardzell was a professor at Indiana University-Bloomington from 2008 to 2020.

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“Shaowen’s position as our new chair reflects our ongoing commitment to responsible computing. She has a history of bringing a critical lens to computing. As the chair of IC, she will have a platform to share that critical lens and lead us in novel directions for computing research and development,” said Associate Professor Betsy DiSalvo, who served as IC interim chair.

Major Research Award

Research and development in cybersecurity was the crux of one of the year’s major research stories. In May, the National Science Foundation announced a $20 million award to create the AI Institute for Artificial Cyber Threat Intelligence and Operation. Wenke Lee, John P. Imlay Jr. chair and professor at the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy, is co-principal investigator for the project, which aims to improve how essential business technologies are protected from evolving cyber threats.

“This NSF AI Institute is a really exciting opportunity because it enables us to explore new ideas and develop novel technical approaches and educational content at the intersection of AI and Cybersecurity,” said Lee.