Computer Science Graduate Students Association (CSGSA)

CSGSA_group_photo
CSGSA group volunteer for Guatemala

Who we are?
  • The Computer Science Graduate Students Association (CSGSA) is the official student governance organization for graduate students in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and a registered Campus Life Program.
  • Every student in the department is automatically a member of CSGSA.
  • Officers are elected annually, and are in charge of fulfilling CSGSA’s goals in the most fun way possible!
  • Find information about current officers @ people.
  • If you're interested in becoming an officer go to get-involved page.
  • For complete details, check out the CSGSA constitution.
Our goals
  • Facilitate meaningful social connections between CS graduate students.
  • Advocate for the interests of CS graduate students, especially at the departmental level.
  • World domination :).
  • Provide opportunities for CS graduate students to get involved outside of academics and the department.
What we do
  • Organize weekly coffee hours, game nights, and other social events throughout the year (before COVID-19).
  • Hold bi-weekly seminar on student work (GRaDS).
  • Coordinate service opportunities.
  • Seize the means of production.
  • Manage the UMN CS Grad Students Slack workspace and run fun Slacktivities.
GRaDS

What is it?

  • The Graduate Research and Discussion Seminars (GRaDS) are student-organized lunch talks open to CS graduate students in any area.
  • Students speak at GRaDS to practice for conference or job talks, inform their fellow students on their research, or simply build their presentation skills.
  • As a more informal venue than most, GRaDS is a great resource for students to practice important talks and get feedback from their peers.
  • It also allows the graduate student body to remain informed about the research going on in other labs at UMN.
  • GRaDS is held biweekly on Fridays, announced on the cscigrads@umn.edu email list.
  • Students gather in KH 2-225 for a catered lunch and an hour of presentation during Spring 2022.

Want to participate?

  • Fill out this form to indicate what you wish to present and if there is space we will schedule you.

List of GRaDS talks

Get Involved

Roles

Currently there are 5 types of roles in CSGSA. The overview of these roles can be found here.

The detailed role descriptions can be found by clicking on them.

There is a service honorarium for CSGSA officers, details of which can be found here.

Feedback
  • We want to help make sure you have a great experience during graduate school here.
  • If something's not going so well, or if you have any concerns or questions, the best way to get started on a solution is to speak up!
  • You can either send your concerns to CSGSA leadership or to the Department directly using the forms below.
  • If you have questions, feedback or suggestions for CSGSA, we'd love to hear from you!
  • You can reach out anonymously at any time using this form.
  • If you want to receive a response, however, you can include your email in the form.
  • If you have feedback for the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, please use this form.
FAQ

Nothing yet

Current officers

Frank Bender

Frank Bender

President

bende263@umn.edu

Frank is a third year PhD student working under the mentorship of Paul Schrater. His research interests are diverse and include, but not limited to: ML/AI, Federated Learning, Database Internals, and Financial Econometrics. Frank's goal within the department and board is to create an engaging community with high participation rates, especially during periods of frigid weather. His hobbies involve travelling, website design, and cooking. Recently he climbed Mt. Fuji, and hopes to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro within the next year.

Ebasa Temesgen

Ebasa Temesgen

Treasurer

temes021@umn.edu

Ebasa Temesgen, a second-year Ph.D. student under Professor Maria Gini, is exploring federated learning, multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL), and graph neural networks to push the boundaries of intelligent systems and robotics. His endeavors in robotics and computer vision aim to refine autonomous decision-making. Ebasa's interest in world football, rock climbing, and cooking might not directly correlate with his treasury duties, but they indeed add a flavor to his role. Always up for an adventure and fostering a community spirit, he jokes, "If we can't solve problems with federated learning, at least we can tackle them on the football field or cook up a solution! He is driven to create an inclusive and welcoming atmosphere for all.

Yuankun Jiao

Yuankun Jiao

GRaDS Coordinator

jiao0052@umn.edu

Yuankun is a second-year PhD student advised by Prof. Yao-Yi Chiang in the field of GeoAI. Her research includes geographic information science, recommender systems, urban availability, and spatial humanity. She is also actively involved in services and volunteering work to contribute to the GIS community. Some of her passions outside research are playing music, reading books, playing sports, and playing with small animals.

Pooja Sahu

Pooja Sahu

GRaDS Coordinator

sahu0037@umn.edu

Pooja is a Second year PhD student advised by Sanjai Rayadurgam and Mats Heimdahl. Her research includes verification/validation in software engineering, software defined network  and safety critical system development. Pooja is actively involved in mentoring undergraduate and graduate students in research and industry opportunities in Computer Science and Software Engineering. In her free time she bakes cupcakes, reads books and explores cycling & hiking trails in Minnesota. 

Anna Yue

Anna Yue

Events coordinator

yue00082@umn.edu

Anna is a first year PhD student advised by Pen-Chung Yew. Her research interests include computer architecture, performance analysis, and power management. Lately, Anna has been rediscovering her passion for board games and hopes to join the community together with fun and engaging events. Her other interests include baking, video games, volleyball, and exploring nearby lakes and parks.

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Faaiq Bilal

Events Coordinator

Leo Dong

Leo Dong

Events Coordinator

dong0261@umn.edu

Leo Dong is an incomming Integrated Program student starting in Fall 2024. Currently He does not have a research advisor  but his research interests include computer vision, AI swarms, and federated learning. Some of his passions outside academics are playing sports (soccer and basketball in particular), playing board games, practicing different recipes, and exploring new coffee shops. He is fond of being active and involved in any type of community.

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Jiyoon Pyo

Events Coordinator

pyo00005@umn.edu

Jiyoon is a first-year Ph.D. student advised by Dr. Yao-Yi Chiang. Her research interest is in combining spatial-temporal data with natural language processing. Outside of academics, she enjoys building keyboards, reviewing local cafes, and collecting items related to The Peanuts. She is excited to join the community and meet others.