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Dr. Mitsuru Nagasawa, the founding President of the Toyota Institute of Technology at Chicago (TTIC), will retire this year. With his leadership, TTIC has developed active research and education programs in computer science, has become accredited to grant PhD degrees, and is active in the recruitment of graduate students and outstanding faculty. The Board of Trustees has appointed a committee of the Board, the Presidential Search Committee, to accept and review nominations and applications for the position of president, and to make a recommendation to the Board for an appointment. Inquiries can be sent to Stuart Rice at sarice@ttic.edu.

The National Science Foundation has awarded a grant of $408,305 to the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago for support of the project entitled "Algorithm and Web Server for Low-homology Protein Threading", under the direction of Dr. Jinbo Xu.

This award is effective July 1 , 2010 and expires June 30, 2013.

This grant is awarded pursuant to the authority of the National Science Foundation Act of 1950, as amended (42 U.S.C. 1861-75).

David McAllester has won the 2010 AAAI Classic Paper award for the paper “Systematic Nonlinear Planning" with David Rosenblitt, which appeared in the AAAI conference in 1991.

The AAAI Classic Paper award honors the author(s) of paper(s) deemed most influential, chosen from a specific conference year. Each year, the time period considered will advance by one year. The 2010 award is being given to the most influential paper(s) from the Ninth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, held in 1991 in Anaheim, California, and will be presented to Dr. McAllister at the AAAI – 10 conference in Atlanta, Georgia on July 11 - 15.

The papers are judged on the basis of impact, for example:

- Started a new research (sub)area
- Led to important applications
- Answered a long-standing question/issue or clarified what had been murky
- Made a major advance that figures in the history of the subarea
- Has been picked up as important and used by other areas within (or outside of) AI
- Has been very heavily cited

This award will be posted on the AAAI website soon. There was no award given in 2009.

Jinbo Xu was awarded a grant from the National Institute of Health effective May 14, 2010, and the project title is New Computational Methods for Data-driven Protein Structure Prediction. The budget for the first year is $268,555 and the project period is from the start date noted above to April 30, 2015.

The project described was supported by Award Number R01GM089753 from the National Institute Of General Medical Sciences. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences or the National Institutes of Health.

Karen Livescu hosted a regional speech research meeting, the 2nd Illinois Speech Day, on May 10, 2010. About fifty people from Illinois and farther away participated. Among the institutions represented, in addition to TTIC, were the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, University of Washington, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Carnegie Mellon University. The program can be found here.

TTIC congratulates Jian Peng, a TTIC third-year Ph.D. student who was awarded the prestigious Microsoft Research Ph.D. Fellowship this month (February 2010). The Microsoft Research Ph.D. Fellowship is a two-year fellowship program for outstanding Ph.D. students, and supports men and women in their third and fourth years of Ph.D. graduate studies.

The fellowship award will cover 100 percent of recipient’s tuition and fees for two academic years (2010 and 2011), provide a stipend to cover living expenses while in school, a travel allowance for recipients to attend professional conferences or seminars, and offers recipients the opportunity to complete one salaried internship over the duration of the year following the award.

Jian works with TTIC’s professor Jinbo Xu on mathematical modellings in computational biology. His other research interests include machine learning and algorithms. For more information about Jian, check out his webpage.

Other TTIC News

Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago

The research of today will fundamentally reshape the way people live, work, and play tomorrow. At the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago, our mission is to bring together the world's leading computer scientists and the world's most promising students, and to give them the resources to explore and challenge the foundations of computer science.

The Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago is Accredited By The Higher Learning Commission

October 1, 2009, Chicago, IL, U.S.A. - The Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools announced that the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago is now recognized as an accredited institute of education in computer science.

Dr. Mitsuru Nagasawa, president of the Institute believes, “Accreditation is an intensely rigorous but highly rewarding process. It has been invigorating to watch the academic process unfold. The institute has talented and determined faculty, students and staff, and we all share in this success.” President Nagaswa is pictured above presenting TTIC's first doctoral diploma to Wonseok Chae.

The Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago (TTIC) is a philanthropically endowed academic computer science institute, dedicated to graduate education and research in computer science, and is located on the University of Chicago campus. Its mission is to achieve international impact through world-class research and education in fundamental computer science and information technology. The Institute is distinctive to the American educational scene in its unique combination of graduate education and endowed research, and in its relationship with the University of Chicago and the Toyota Technological Institute (its founding organization, located in Nagoya, Japan).

TTIC officially opened for operation in September 2003, and began the accreditation process at the same time. Over the last six years, the Institute has completed extensive documentation, planning, and work with the HLC to examine all aspects of operation, and is pleased to have been granted accreditation. The accreditation is emblematic of TTIC’s commitment to academia, computer science, and overall excellence.

The Higher Learning Commission (HLC) is an independent organization affiliated with the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (NCA), founded in 1895. It accredits degree-granting educational institutions, and thereby grants membership to them in the Commission and in the North Central Association. The HLC is the regional commission recognized by the US Department of Education for the North Central region of the United States. Its web address is http://www.ncahlc.org/ and its phone numbers are (800) 621-7440 / (312) 263-0456.

Contacts for TTIC
Gary J. Hamburg Chrissy Novak
(773) 834-2059 (773) 834-2216
ghamburg@ttic.edu cnovak@ttic.edu

TTIC has grown and expanded since it was founded in 2003, and, after six successful years at the University of Chicago Press Building, as of February 2, 2009, the Institute is in a new facility at 6045 S. Kenwood Avenue.

6045 S. Kenwood Av.TTIC now occupies the fourth and fifth floors of the 6045 S. Kenwood Building on the University of Chicago campus. With nearly 30,000-square-feet, two conference rooms, three meeting rooms, four student study rooms, a robotics laboratory, a cafe, and an idea lounge. TTIC is combining research, seminar and classroom activities under one roof in anticipation of further growth and expansion. The space boasts stunning views of the Chicago skyline, the Midway Plaissance, the gothic University of Chicago campus, and Lake Michigan. Students, faculty and staff enjoy open, comfortable and interactive common spaces that encourage conversation, the sharing of ideas, and collaboration. There is a dramatic atrium in the center of the space with floating walkways and a grand staircase.

President Mitsuru Nagasawa said, as he was setting up his office in this new space: "This space is a physical manifestation of the progress and growth of TTIC since its inception. The faculty, students, and staff have performed beyond my early expectations, and we are well on our way to achieving international impact through world-class research and education in fundamental computer science and information technology. These are exciting times, full of challenge and opportunity. We are fortunate to meet them with strong leadership, teamwork, vision and commitment, all within an environmentally responsible new home built for the needs we face today and anticipate for tomorrow."

TTIC's academic programs represent the emerging fields of 21st century computer science and technology; the new facility will likewise promote the most modern learning amenities like wireless Internet access and real-time global class-conferencing capabilities. The Institute looks forward to welcoming guests, new students and faculty to its new home.