UBC Computer Science

Slides from my ICML tutorial "Is numerical optimization theory irrelevant to machine learning practice in 2026?": cs.ubc.ca/~schmidtm/Docu… (Updated to fix some typos, incorporate feedback, and add some things I did not have time for. Will link to the video here when posted.)

Congratulations Dr. Meghan Allen! The award, given by Canada’s computing research community, honours one person each year who has made remarkable contributions to computer science education and has demonstrated exceptional teaching ability. Read more: cs.ubc.ca/news/2026/07/m…

Congratulations to the recipients of our Incredible Instructor Awards: Susanne Bradley, Arpan Gujarati, Paulette Koronkevich, Seva Lynov, Rachel Pottinger, and Abner Turkieltaub Melo!

Check out this very creative work from Kunal, exploring the effects of post-training alignment through the lens of physical crystallization! There is a lot that AI research should take from the natural sciences, including more metaphors

Congratulations to UBC Computer Science Assistant Professor Peter Yichen Chen and CS Associate Member Chao Liu for their Outstanding Systems Paper Award at the Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS) conference!

Congratulations to the recipients of our Graduate Teaching Assistants Awards: Chester Gould, Gautam Luhana, Tommy Nguyen, Jeffrey Niu, Rudra Sanajee Saha, Joseph Wonsil, and Bicheng Xu!

🚀 Excited to kick off the Graphics × Science Workshop at #SIGGRAPH2026! Computer graphics is becoming a foundational tool for scientific discovery. From computational imaging and molecular modeling to physical simulation, robotics, manufacturing, and AI, graphics is helping us model, understand, and design the physical world. Looking forward to an exciting program featuring 3 keynote speakers and 58 highlighted papers. 🔗 graphics4science.github.io/2026/ #AI4Science #ComputerGraphics #ScientificComputing #Simulation #NVIDIA #NVIDIAOmniverse #NVIDIAAI

Next week, several UBC Computer Science researchers will be at SIGGRAPH 2026 to present new papers! From a new model for complex surface geometries to a new framework for multibody simulation, read more about the papers: cs.ubc.ca/news/2026/07/s…

Congratulations to Rubia Guerra and Vivian White on receiving the Maria Klawe Service Award for demonstrating outstanding community service!

Congratulations to our students who received the Community Building Awards for Undergraduates: Zelalem Araya, Iris Cheung, Karan Chick, Kaitlin Khu, Ryan Lowe, Belal Mohammed-Nur, Le Minh Anh Nguyen, Kimberly Tran, Chloe Van and Claire Zhang!

“This work is critically important for the health of Canadian democracy and any country’s democracy,” says Dr. Lakshmanan. Read more: cs.ubc.ca/news/2026/07/m…

This week, UBC researchers are presenting new papers on live virtual machine introspection and data center memory management policies at OSDI ‘26 in Seattle, Washington! Read more about the papers: cs.ubc.ca/news/2026/07/O…

Dr. Laura Cang is the new Director of the Bachelor of Computer Science (BCS) program. Starting in July 2026, she is leading the program, supporting the students and ensuring that they are well-equipped to face the job market. Read more: cs.ubc.ca/news/2026/07/n…

That's a wrap! It was a pleasure sharing our work and connecting with colleagues at #ACL2026NLP.

Proud to celebrate the outstanding @UBC researchers who have been awarded new funding through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (@NSERC_CRSNG ) Discovery Research Program. In total, 199 UBC-led projects and programs have been awarded more than $47 million, supporting groundbreaking work spanning disciplines from physics, chemistry, computer science, and mathematics to engineering, health and environmental sciences. Congratulations everyone! Discovery research is fundamental to innovation and human advancement, and the new knowledge and talent generated through research are essential to Canada’s prosperity and global competitiveness. My sincere congratulations to all #UBC recipients and thank you to Minister Mélanie Joly (@melaniejoly) and NSERC for your ongoing commitment to Canadian scientific excellence. Read more about the research being supported: bit.ly/4wDslix

Team instagram: instagram.com/canadamasters45

Alex Summers is not only a Professor at UBC, but also a star goalkeeper for the Canada Master’s (over 45) Field Hockey team! He will be playing at the World Master’s Hockey World Cup, in Rotterdam from Jul 22 – Aug 1. Good luck to the team! worldmastershockey.org/wmhevents/2026…

Grateful to all my mentors, mentees, and collaborators for being part of this journey! Excited to continue pushing the boundaries of simulation for Physical AI.

Congratulations to Dr. Peter Yichen Chen! The award recognizes researchers who have demonstrated noteworthy early-career achievements and show strong potential for continued impact in the field of computer animations. Read more: cs.ubc.ca/news/2026/07/d…

📢 Check out the accepted ACL and ICML 2026 papers from the UBC NLP group! We look forward to presenting them in San Diego and Seoul! #ACL2026 #ICML2026 #NLProc