The 23rd Annual School of Science Student Research Conference was held on Friday, April 18th. This event showcased 32 research projects by teams of students and their faculty mentors from across the School of Science. The conference highlights the results of applied research, independent studies, and thesis projects being conducted by students in the departments of Biology, Chemistry and Physics, Computer Science and Software Engineering, and Mathematics. The conference serves as one of our many commitments to providing experiences that extend beyond the traditional classroom. KerryAnn Kelly (Software Engineering BS 2018 and MS 2019) delivered the keynote address to kick off the day.
This February, several Computer Science students, accompanied by CSSE Department Chair, Professor Ling Zheng, attended the WECode Conference in Cambridge Massachusetts. WECode (Women Engineers Code) is an annual event organized by undergraduate women at Harvard University. This conference, an initiative of Harvard Women in CS (harvardwics.com), is the largest student-run Women in Computer Science conference in the United States. WECode’s goal is to cultivate the next generation of technical leaders, foster a network and community among collegiate engineers, and promote more female representation in the technical industry.
Two Undergraduates: Mar Elbanna and Estania Blanc-Doblas and Graduate student, Gnanika Yalamanchili, from Monmouth’s Computer Science program were given the opportunity to apply and attend this 2-day event where students, speakers, and industry professionals gathered to support women thrive in the technology industries.
“I had the chance to meet knowledgeable mentors who were eager to guide and support those with a genuine interest in learning. I also connected with fellow students, Harvard attendees, and industry professionals, which reinforced how important networking is for growth and future opportunities.” Gnanika Yalamanchili, MU CS Graduate Student
Mar Elbanna, a senior CS student explained, “The speakers invited were down-to-earth and very willing to share their experience and struggles in the industry. I learned a lot about the interview process and the state of the current job market for computer science and software engineering fields. As attendees were able to interact with the speakers through questions, many fears regarding AI and similar topics were addressed.”
Gananika and Claire Williams, guest speaker and former Deputy Team Principal of Williams Formula One Racing teamYalamanchili, Elbanna and Blanc-Doblas at the WECode Conference
The Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering held their annual High School Hawk Hack on Friday, Feb. 7. Fifty students from ten New Jersey high schools participated. The event is run by the student-led club of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers/ Association for Computing Machinery, (IEEE/ACM) and Professor Rolf Kamp, who is the club advisor. Please see the following Outlook article (written by Gillian DeStefano) for a detailed account of the event.
The Department of Mathematics celebrated Pi Day early this year on Tuesday, March 13. It also happened to be International Women in Mathematics Day. It was very fitting that the two speakers represented the next generation of women in mathematics. Miriam Abecasis (Monmouth University) and Willow Denker (Binghamton University) shared the results of their ongoing research with Professor Gallagher. Following the talks, students and faculty had pies and participated in raffles in the Math Learning Center.
Monmouth MEBP major Diedrik Boonman and Faculty member Jason Adolf are part of a team that recently published an article highlighting the initial 2021 discovery and subsequent examination in 2023 of a non-native sea anemone species. This marks the first record of the sea anemone Antinia Equina found on the Mid-Atlantic Coast of the United States. These animals were found in multiple sites on man-made rocky structures of the beaches of Monmouth County, New Jersey, on the Mid-Atlantic Coast of the United States. Student Dietrik Boonman is the first author on the article. The image below shows the anemone with tentacles extended (a-e) and tentacles contracted (f-j). More details can be found in the article published in the Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom found here.
CSSE students Omar Ahmed and Andrew Catapano recently received the 2024 Upsilon Pi Epsilon (UPE) Scholarship Award. Omar is a senior Computer Science student actively involved on campus, serving as a Peer Mentor for the School of Science, a Mathematics Tutor, and a PAL for Chemistry and Biology courses. Andrew is a graduate computer science student who, as an undergraduate, won the Academic Excellence Award from the CSSE department last year and serves as the Vice President of the eSports Club and is a member of Monmouth’s IEEE/ACM Club, where he assisted in successfully organizing the high school programming competition in Spring 2024.
The Upsilon Pi Epsilon Association (UPE) is the only international honor society for the computing and information disciplines, with chapters in more than 300 colleges and universities in North America and overseas. The mission of the Kappa Chapter of Upsilon Pi Epsilon at Monmouth University is to recognize academic excellence in the computing and information disciplines at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Membership in UPE is primarily based on the academic records of students pursuing degrees in the computing and information disciplines.
We are thrilled to announce that Professor Weihao Qu was awarded an NSF CRII grant titled: Precise Formal Verification of General Relational Quantitative Properties with Mutable Arrays. The award is for nearly $180,000 for work over the next two years.
Project Summary: Modern software systems often juggle sensitive data, user privacy, and efficiency, all while navigating complex real-world scenarios. To ensure these qualities, researchers rely on relational reasoning, analyzing how a program behaves with different inputs or under varying conditions. While this approach is powerful, current tools often fall short when it comes to handling features like mutable arrays, a key data structure in many practical applications.
This groundbreaking project introduces a new formal verification framework designed to overcome these challenges, enabling precise and general analysis of programs that use mutable arrays. By employing fine-grained techniques, the framework captures the behavior of individual array elements instead of treating arrays as a whole. This approach leads to significantly more detailed and accurate verification results.
The research also pushes the boundaries of relational reasoning by generalizing existing methods to support a wider range of relational quantitative properties. These advancements will be integrated into a unified framework, blending theoretical breakthroughs with practical tools, and rigorously evaluated on real-world software. By addressing critical gaps in precision and applicability, this work has the potential to reshape how we understand and verify software, paving the way for systems that are more secure, private, and efficient. This project not only bridges theoretical and practical divides but also sets a new standard for software correctness and reliability in an increasingly data-driven world.
Monmouth University offers a minor focused on the interdisciplinary problems that impact and challenge future human and non-human prospects into the future. This area of study is rooted in both ancient traditions (like Indigenous perspectives) and new and developing science that shed light on urgent questions of our time. This minor provides a directed focus on these threats across multiple fields of study with multiple, critical perspectives. This minor has recently been updated and made more accessible to all students interested in these broad, global problems and their potential remedies. The minor provides both empirical and theoretical insight so as to allow a holistic and informed literacy in global sustainability.
The Global Sustainability minor provides a flexible and unique opportunity for students from any discipline and any major to participate and engage with complex systems, global ethical dilemmas, international politics, and changes to biological and geophysical planetary systems. This minor is one of several developments at Monmouth University that relates to environmental and sustainability studies that are increasingly relevant to our communities from the Jersey Shore to intercontinental earth processes that address the current pulse of extinctions, climate change, massive plastic pollution, and other major problems. You are invited to contact the Dean’s office in the School of Science care of Koorleen Minton (kminton@monmouth.edu), or Professor Peter Jacques (pjacques@monmouth.edu), who coordinates the minor, with any questions you may have.
Program Requirements
Requirements: (6 credits)
BY-221/PS-223 Introduction to Global Sustainability 3 credits PS-332 Climate Change Adaptation and Policy 3 credits
Electives (9 credits):
AN/GO-275 Global Environmental Problems BY-220 Environmental Biology and Policy HE-340 Environmental Health Issues PO/PS-330 Environmental Policy PR-459 The Science and Politics of Climate Change SC-130 Climate Science for 21st Century Citizens SW-205 Global Human Rights and Social Justice
Computer Science Senior, Therese “Ez” Racancoj, traveled with Prof. Jay Wang to Kuching, Malaysia to attend the 2024 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics from October 6th-9th. During the conference, Therese presented her research work on an IEEE funded project titled “Comprehensive Humanoid Robot Control Project Design and Development”.
The goal of her research is to design and develop a set of reasonably challenging experimental projects that would allow students to fully explore the functions of humanoid robots and practice embedded software design skills for real-time robot control. The deliverables of this project can be used by scholars of the SMC society in their robotics related classes; they can also be used by industrial practitioners to learn about robot programming techniques.
“The opportunity to attend the international IEEE conference in Malaysia, especially while still an undergraduate, was an amazing experience of which I am extremely grateful to Professor Wang for. It was great being able to talk to people currently working in the tech field, not only to gain insight into what I have to look forward to in a future job but also because I was able to get to know some of the people who are dedicated to improving the field and making it that much more enjoyable.”
The school is pleased to present three new full-time faculty this fall.
Dr. Gayle Hallett is a new Lecturer in the Department of Chemistry and Physics. Dr. Hallett earned her doctorate (2013) from the University of Bristol, UK under the supervision of Professor Varinder Aggarwal. Gayle is a former adjunct here at Monmouth and comes to us with a wide range of experience in teaching undergraduates. In addition, Dr. Hallett brings industry experience from her time as a staff chemist at Merck and Co. She will be teaching a variety of courses and labs, including general and organic chemistry.
Amreeta Choudhury is a new Instructor in the Department of Mathematics. She specializes in Statistics, and Data Science with a Masters from Rutgers University. She has been a Lecturer since 2013 at several universities including Columbia University, New York University, Rutgers and NJIT. She has also been an analyst at Full Beauty Brands in New York City and developed a Data Science Bootcamp program at Sollers Institute. Amreeta loves preparing her students for careers of all paths and encourages thinking outside the box. She has helped prepare students for internships and competitions at companies such as Google. She is excited to join the team!
Arup Das is a new Specialist Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering. Arup’s area of interests includes AI & Generative AI. Arup joins us with a wealth of industry expertise. He served as the Head of AI & Gen AI Industry Specialists at UiPath, where he led initiatives to drive AI-powered automation across multiple sectors, including financial services, healthcare, and public services. Arup’s work focuses on applying AI to improve operational efficiency, revenue growth, and strategic agility for large enterprises. Professor Das will focus on elevating the graduate data science program and play a major role in building out similar curriculum and experiences at the undergraduate level for majors across the university.
