Dear colleagues, students, and friends of Northwestern CS:
 

The new academic year is always an exciting time, with new students bringing a lot of energy. This fall, our department welcomed 31 PhD students, 101 MS CS students, 44 Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence (MSAI) students, and 43 students in the joint MBAi program with the Kellogg School of Management.
 

In our undergraduate program, we now have 948 CS majors and 160 CS minors across Northwestern Engineering and the Weinberg School of Arts and Sciences, as well as a new cohort of 79 students in the Data Science and Engineering Minor offered jointly with the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences.
 

The department supported the research of many undergraduates this summer. With the launch of our new Research Track, we aim to provide rising third-year students with a foundational introduction to the research process and have planned a slew of exciting events this fall focusing on undergraduate research projects.
 

In August, we welcomed a new dean, Christopher Schuh, to the McCormick School of Engineering. He returns to Northwestern after earning a PhD in materials science and engineering in 2001.
 

Our team is also growing. We welcomed new teaching-track faculty members David Demeter, who joined as an assistant professor of instruction, and Anastasia Kurdia, who joined as a professor of instruction and assistant chair. In addition, we hired three new assistant professors of computer science, including Kate Smith (joining January 2024), Manling Li (joining August 2024 after completing a postdoctoral position at Stanford), and Karan Ahuja (joining August 2024 following a year with Google’s Blended Interaction Research and Devices team). The department’s staff team is also expanding, with the addition of a third undergraduate adviser and a second graduate adviser.
 

We celebrated several faculty promotions and named professorships, including Simone Campanoni, Matthew Kay, Han Liu, Mike Rubenstein, and Marcelo Worsley. In addition, associate professor emeritus of computer science Jack Tumblin retired from the University this summer and we honored his 22-year career at Northwestern. We were also delighted to learn that Zach Wood-Doughty received a 2023 Cole-Higgins Award for Excellence in Teaching, joining prior CS winners Sara Owsley Sood and Branden Ghena. Our faculty continue earning external recognition as well — both Christos Dimoulas and Xiao Wang won NSF CAREER awards this year, and Sam Kriegman was named a Schmidt Futures AI2050 Early Career Fellow.
 

Multiple faculty members have published books recently. Alok Choudhary is a co-editor of Artificial Intelligence for Science: A Deep Learning Revolution. Ken Forbus authored a chapter on knowledge bases in Artificial Intelligence in Science. V.S. Subrahmanian co-authored The Android Malware Handbook.
 

Over the summer, I did something different: I took a Northwestern sailing class. This class created a healthy new respect for my students and falsified several assumptions I make when I teach. These lessons, listed below, also apply to faculty in the classroom and education overall. Being a student once again was quite an interesting experience.
 

1. Faculty assume everyone remembers what they were taught in the last class.
2. A quick demonstration of an instructor tying a knot is not enough to know how to do it.
3. Sailing theory and sailing practice are slightly different. Getting an “A” in the classroom does not translate to a well-executed plan on the water! I am really good while the boat is on land!
4. YouTube has amazing videos, and one can really learn well from them. I think my doing homework would have helped the learning quite a bit.

Have a great fall, just don’t capsize!