i-fest a Success!

i-fest.pitt.edu was a huge success!  Held November 8-11, this annual celebration showcased the degree programs, research activities, and career opportunities available here at SIS.  There were more than 10 events held as part of the i-fest festivities – from demonstrations of IS technology to a keynote address to the Mother Goose Poetry Slam – each designed to promote our school and its activities!  Thanks to our corporate event sponsor, Alcoa North America, for its generous support of the 2006 i-fest.pitt.edu. 

SIS would like to acknowledge our other corporate sponsors: FedEx Ground (sponsor of the Fantastic, Amazing, Great Race) and Pittsburgh CyberConXion (sponsor of the Gaming Tournament). 

The School would also like to thank Raul Valdes-Perez, Chief Executive Officer of Vivísimo, who delivered the keynote address at the i-fest luncheon.  Dr. Valdes-Perez discussed how Vivisimo grew from a university spin-off (of Carnegie Mellon University) to a nationally-recognized corporation specializing in “Search Done Right.”  More than 80 people attended the luncheon and Dr. Valdes-Perez’s presentation. 

One of the key events was a poster competition for both undergraduate and graduate students in SIS.  This competition provided an excellent forum for SIS students to present their work in an informal and interactive setting.  Completed work as well as ongoing research in all areas — Information Science, Library & Information Science, and Telecommunications — were accepted. Congratulations to the winners:

PhD Poster Track
Pratibha Menon – First Prize
“Overflow Networks for Optical Capacity Management”

Maria Harrington – Second Prize (tie)
“Simulated Ecological Environments for Education”

Chih-Kuang Lin -- Second Prize (tie)
“Efficient Access Control for Data Intensive Sensor Networks”
With Vladimir Zadorozhny and Prashant Krishnamurthy

Demetrios Ioannides – Honorable Mention
“The Morsoplexis Framework”

Jae-wook Ahn and Sue Yeon Syn – Honorable Mention
“YourNews:  a personalized news filtering system”
With Peter Brusilovsky

Worasit Choochaiwattana – Honorable Mention
“A Heuristic Rule-Based Approach to Automatic Web Image Analysis for the Semantic Web”
With Michael B. Spring

Non-PhD Track
Heather Yager and Daniel Saniski – First Prize
“Cultivating the Database:  Natural Language Processing of Fruit Production Guides by Human Hands”

David Kauffman – Second Prize
“Using Metadata to Design and Structure State Education Reporting”

Jeff Pferdehirt – Honorable Mention
“The Use of Virtual Avatars to Facilitate Knowledge Transfer”

For more information about the i-fest activities, please visit www.i-fest.pitt.edu/events.htm