Computer Science Student Society

Hi there, CPSC Students!

Happy New Year! Hope you all had a well rested break and are fully charged for Term 2.

Following the initial launch of the program last term, we would like to bring back the Tutoring Program—part of the UBC Computer Science Student Society's Volunteering Services. Whether you need some extra academic help as a tutee or want to strengthen your computer science knowledge as a tutor, this would be the perfect program to be a part of!

Students taking first year computer science courses (CPSC 111 and CPSC 121) will have the opportunity to be matched with more experienced computer science students who can help them with course material and other related questions for the term. If you are interested and would like to register, please complete the attached Tutee Registration form and email it to tutor@thecube.ca with the subject line: Tutee Registration - Your Name.

For those students who have completed CPSC 111 and CPSC 121, you are strongly encouraged to apply to be a tutor! Becoming a tutor will not only refresh your computer science knowledge and improve your leadership skills but will also provide you with a better foundation should you be interested in applying to become a TA in the future. Tutoring helps to develop both interpersonal and communication skills, which are solid sought-after assets in the work field today. Please apply by completing the attached Tutor Application form and emailing it to tutor@thecube.ca with the subject line: Tutor Application - Your Name.

For tutors, applications must be received promptly by midnight before January 18, 2010. We will then send you more information regarding your interview times and tutor-tutee matchups. We also encourage tutees to send us their application as early as possible, to help us match you with your tutor and maximize the amount of help you obtain.

The UBC CS Tutoring Program provides an excellent opportunity to meet other students in the CPSC Department and make new friends! We hope that everyone will seize this opportunity and look forward to hearing from you all!

Best regards,

Nan Jiang
Tutoring Coordinator, Volunteering Services
UBC CSSS

Mik Kersten is from Tasktop Technologies Inc, a local Vancouver company. This talk will interest anybody who uses the Eclipse IDE for software development.

Abstract: In under four years, Mylyn's task-focused interface moved from a UBC whiteboard to the hands of hundreds of thousands of developers. For many, the idea of a tool that hides more of a program than it shows sounded wrong. But the rapid adoption of Mylyn is making the next big step in the evolution of the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) clear. Tasks are more important than files, focus is more important than features, and explicit context has provided developers the biggest productivity boost since structure views and code completion. This talk will discuss the inspirations and research behind Mylyn, demonstrate the tool and the impact it has had, overview the open source ecosystem and startup that we formed around the technology, and conclude with a vision of how the task-focused interface is poised to transform other fields of knowledge work.

Refreshments will be served at 6pm and the lecture will start at 6:30pm. Come early to chat with old friends, or make new friends.

For more information about each of these lectures, please check the web site.

RSVP to Michele Ng if attending.

The Vancouver Student Entrepreneurship Association (VSEA) would like to invite you to the first VSEA speaker series event of the year: “How to build a Clean Tech company in 4,295 Easy Steps.” The featured speaker is *David Helliwell*, CEO of Pulse Energy, Inc. Trained as a GeoPhysicist at Harvard and received his MBA at the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris, Mr. Helliwell is presently dedicating his full effort in marrying innovative technologies and creative mathematical analysis to help companies and institutions, such as UBC, to reduce as much as 30% of their existing energy consumption. In the upcoming seminar, he will share his insights on using powerful economical and how financial incentives reduce 30% of world’s environmental problems.

Attendance is free and refreshments will be provided. There will be a networking session and reception after the talk.

Google, Electronic Arts, MDA, and Microsoft are some of the employers who'll be attending. Find out about new grad, summer and co-op opportunities available with a variety of companies.

For full details, see the UBC Technical Career Fair 2010 Website.

(NOTE: Designed for non-coop students).

Stop interview anxiety—and increase your job offers! Learn about interview questions and how to answer them—and effective interview preparation and follow up techniques. To register, e-mail Diane Johnson.

Panelists from TELUS, IBM, Google and Microsoft are already confirmed for this event.

Food and networking afterwards in Reboot area.

Come any time between 11 and 2 to get some tips on how to improve your résumé.

(NOTE: This is designed for non-coop students).

Learn how to write résumés that get you interviews! E-mail Diane Johnson to register.

The annual UBC Technical Career Fair is coming up soon! Get tips on how to introduce yourself to employers, ask effective questions, and make a good professional impression at the career fair. Register at https://secure.students.ubc.ca/workshops/careers.cfm (you'll have to scroll down the page a bit).

Advisors: Anne Condon, Professor, Computer Science Department, UBC
Chris Thachuk, Graduate Student, Computer Science Department, UBC

Location: BETA (Bioinformatics, and Experimental and Theoretical Algorithmics) Lab, 2366 Main Mall, Point Grey Campus, UBC

Motivation:

The Human Genome Project has enabled a revolutionary step forward in understanding our genes and their function. A significant next challenge is to understand genome variation across individuals and its correlation with disease, as well as genomic mutations and rearrangements in cancerous cells. With the availability of a reference human genome sequence, current studies focus on resequencing, that is, inference of the genome of interest by alignment of millions of short reads, produced by sequencing the genome, to an available reference genome. While much work has been done on producing software capable of aligning reads to a reference, there is a growing need for software that can address the specific challenges associated with sequence data derived from cancerous tissue and from transcriptomes.

Project outline:

The goal of this project is to produce a high quality software package for next generation sequencing data alignment with a focus on the challenges of handling transcriptome derived data, as well as data from cancerous tissue. The project will explore the use of state-of-the-art text indexing techniques and string comparison algorithms, with a focus on producing high performance software.

The project will be undertaken in collaboration with researchers at the BC Cancer Research Centre and is suitable for either graduate students interested in a potential thesis topic or advanced undergraduate students interested in bioinformatics, algorithmic design, and software development in general.

Experience programming in C and/or C++ is must. Previous experience in software development projects and background in bioinformatics are also desirable but not required.

The position may be part-time (at least 10 hours per week) or full-time.

If interested, please e-mail a résumé, transcript, and short summary of any related work experience to Anne Condon. Hourly pay range for a third or fourth year undergraduate student is $17–19/hour, and for a MSc student is $25–28/hour, depending on experience.