Jacobson, Nahrstedt, and Xie Among Eight 2019 AAAS Fellows From Illinois

Computer science professors Sheldon H. Jacobson, Klara Nahrstedt, and Tao Xie are among eight faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign elected 2019 Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Plant biology professor and researcher Elizabeth “Lisa” Ainsworth; mechanical science and engineering professor Andrew Alleyne; materials science and engineering professor David Cahill; chemistry professor Paul Hergenrother; and evolution, ecology and behavior professor Andrew Suarez are also among the 443 people to be awarded the distinction of AAAS Fellow this year.

Jacobson, a Founder Professor in Computer Science, applies his expertise in operations research and data science to topics that inform public policy. His research has produced data-driven analysis of elections, political redistricting, pediatric vaccines, cellphone use while driving, mass killing trends, and links between obesity and transportation. His seminal work on risk-based security provided the technical foundations that informed the design of TSA PreCheck. He also is known nationally for his work on bracketology – the analysis of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament – and created the BracketOdds website. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003.

Nahrstedt, the Ralph and Catherine Fisher Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Coordinated Science Laboratory, is an expert in multimedia systems and networks. Her expertise in dynamic soft-real-time CPU scheduling and energy-efficient operating systems for mobile multimedia devices is widely recognized in academia and industry. She is a member of the Academy of Sciences in Germany and belongs to the Excellence Commission appointed by the Joint Science Conference of the German Federal Government. Nahrstedt’s recent awards include the 2018 Robert Piloty Prize from Technische Universität Darmstadt and the 2019 Tau Beta Pi Daniel C. Drucker Eminent Faculty Award from The Grainger College of Engineering.

Xie is a Willett Faculty Scholar. His work in software engineering focuses on software testing, analytics and security; the intersection between software engineering and artificial intelligence; and educational software engineering. His expertise in these areas has earned him many honors, including being elected an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Fellow in 2018, named Microsoft Research Outstanding Collaborator in 2016, and elevation to Association for Computing Machinery Distinguished Scientist in 2015.

This year’s class of AAAS Fellows also includes Illinois CS alumnus Daniel E. Atkins (MS EE ’69, PhD CS ‘70), the Emeritus W.K. Kellog Professor of Information and Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan, and former Illinois CS Department Head Rob A. Rutenbar, now Senior Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of Pittsburgh.