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Tag: Selim Akl

Afternoon of Appreciation for Selim Akl

Faculty, staff, students, and friends gathered at the University Club on Thursday afternoon to celebrate Selim Akl, his achievements, and his service to the School.

“I would like to thank everyone who attended last Thursday’s event,” Akl said. “It was wonderful to see all your smiling faces on this happy occasion. Your presence meant a great deal to me. Thank you also to those who sent regrets for the kind thoughts they expressed.”

Speakers at the event included Tom Bradshaw, Alex Wojaczek, Roel Vertegaal, and current Director Hossam Hassanein, who presented Akl with a gift from the School. We wish Selim all the best in his future endeavors.

 

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Photos by Doug Martin

Computing Takes Centre Stage in Queen’s Alumni Review

The most recent issue of the Queen’s Alumni Review features a number of stories by and about people in the School and the work they do. The issue includes articles about our very own Wendy Powley and undergraduates in the Sudo community initiative (Annabel Kramer, Karina Kim, Jessica Dassanayake, Melissa Mangos, Daisy Barrette, Cara Falcon, Callum Tomkins-Flanagan, Emily Crawford, Omar Toutounji, and Shubhi Sharma); an article by Director Selim Akl about natural computing; and, of course, a cover story about the Human Media Lab.

Check out the whole issue on the Alumni Review website.

Ninth Annual School of Computing Awards

On May 14, 2017, School Director Selim Akl hosted the Ninth Annual Queen’s School of Computing Awards ceremony. The awards were created to recognize excellence in various forms of endeavour, an opportunity to celebrate the contributions of those in the school who distinguished themselves through their exceptional work, and as an opportunity to say thank you to those who made a difference in School life.

This year’s awards also recognized the lifetime service of retiring Undergraduate Program Assistant, Irene Lafleche, and 10-year outgoing Director of the School, Selim Akl. This year’s other recipients were:

  • Howard Staveley Teaching Award in Recognition of Teaching Excellence: Wendy Powley (with honourable mention to Robin Dawes)
  • Excellence in Teaching Assistance Award: Matthew Rodgers
  • Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award: Chris Keeler
  • Ph.D. Research Achievement Award: Matthew Holden and Peter Chen
  • Graduate Student Distinguished Service Award: Eric Rapos
  • Ian Macleod Graduate Student Award: Eric Rapos
  • Distinguished Graduate Supervision Award: James Cordy
  • Research Award: Cor-Paul Bezemer
  • Award for Outstanding Contribution to School Life: Zach Baum and Vinyas Harish
  • Distinguished Lifetime Service Award: Irene LaFleche and Selim Akl

 

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Photos by Doug Martin

A Festschrift for Selim G. Akl….A Message from David Rappaport

“From time to time one comes across a volume containing scholarly submissions honouring a “famous” researcher for his or her contributions to the community. The German word

Festschrift is commonly used to describe such a volume. Wikipedia translates Festschrift as a “celebration publication” or literally “party-writing”.

Some time ago colleagues of Selim Akl were invited to the “party”.  Today an impressive volume sits on my desk next to me as I write this message. It is:

A Festschrift for Selim G. Akl

Emergent Computation (Springer, Switzerland, 2017) is a book dedicated to Professor Selim G. Akl of the Queen’s School of Computing to honour his major research achievements in the field of computer science over four decades. Sixty five researchers from around the world contributed to the volume. Their articles cover a wide variety of research topics, including (among many others) algorithms for good musical rhythms, algorithms that make physical measurements, universality in computation, distributed message systems, descriptional complexity, parallel grammar systems, generalized hypercube machines, parallel sorting, cellular automata, constrained resource networks, vehicular clouds, epigenetic drug discovery, physical maze solvers, computer chess, quantum cryptography, and the structure of social networks.

selim    selim-1

The book is edited by Professor Andrew Adamatzky (Unconventional Computing Centre, University of the West of England, Bristol, U.K.) and Kai Salomaa and I wrote the foreword.”

http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319463759

Congratulations Selim!

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