Computer Science

Collaboration and Outreach

The Computer Science department continuously seeks opportunities for collaboration and outreach with external partners, in order to provide opprotunities for its students, strengthen the departmental expertise, as well as to serve the greater community. Please see below for select examples of current and past collaboration projects, as well as information on the department's new initiative for industry-academia collaborations.

Selected Current and Past Sponsored Projects

  • CSU Chancellor's Office (2023-present), led by Dr. Steichen and Dr. Yang. We teamed up with the CSU Chancellor’s office to work on the CSU Student Success Dashboard. CPP students are working on the development of new information visualization features, as well as improving the overall usability of the platform. 
  • Boeing (2021-2022), Hand-held Field Locator for Aircraft Coordinates, led by Dr. Tang, Dr. Raheja and Dr. Sun. We created a mobile app that can communicate with UWB tags in an indoor environment to help the user localize in the environment. A group of 6 undergraduates have successfully presented the prototype and experienmental results to the Boeing represenatives.
  • Microsoft (2017-18, 2018-19, 2021-22): led by Dr. Steichen, we teamed up with Microsoft to work on year-long industry-academia collaboration projects. 5 CPP undergraduate students worked on a range of different projects related to user privacy, content recommendation, and A/B testing.  All 5 students got Microsoft internships afterwards and some extended to full-time positions. 
  • Microsoft (2019): Data Privacy Protection in Convolutional Neural Network, led by Dr. Chen. In this project, we designed and implemented a privacy preserving prediction system based on an ensemble of multiple convolutional neural networks (CNNs). This project has resulted in one peer-viewed conference paper, "Privacy Preserving Inference with Convolutional Neural Network Ensemble," in 2020 IEEE 39th International Performance Computing and Communications Conference (IPCCC), Austin, TX, USA, 2020. The supported students on the team have also made poster presentations for our work in process of this project at both SoCal REU symposium, and CPP summer research seminar in summer 2019.

CS@CPP Industry-Academia Collaboration Project Initiative

The department is excited to announce its new Industry-Academia Collaboration Projects program.

What is it?

As part of this new program, Cal Poly Pomona Computer Science students, together with faculty and industry mentors, tackle challenging problems through semester- or year-long industry-academia collaboration projects. This exciting program is intended to provide mutual benefit to industry partners, students, and faculty, by solving current problems through innovative solutions.

How does it work?

  • Step 1: An industry partner interested in collaborating with CS@CPP contacts the Computer Science department with potential project ideas or general areas of interest.
  • Step 2: The Computer Science department works with the industry partner to narrow down a project scope, and to identify faculty member(s) to act as project mentor(s)
  • Step 3: The chosen faculty mentor(s) help(s) with the recruitment of suitable students for the project, as well as the enrolment of students for a dedicated project class.
  • Step 4: Any final agreements between all partners are signed (e.g. NDA, IP rights, dedication of resources, etc.).
  • Step 5: The project begins! Students, industry partner collaborator(s)/mentor(s), and faculty mentor(s) work together to set and meet schedules, timelines, and deliverables.

Benefits to Industry Partners

  • New and fresh ideas to solve problems: industry partners gain access to the most talented, skilled, and enthusiastic students from Cal Poly Pomona.
  • Prime recruitment opportunity: students working on projects can be evaluated first hand in a structured environment, with potential to continue partnership through internship and/or full-time employment offers.
  • Access to Computer Science faculty expertise: industry partners gain access to the knowledge and experience regarding the latest research advances and technologies in a diverse range of topics (see below).
  • Ability to shape CS education: industry partners get the opportunity to directly observe and influence current and future curricula.

Benefits to Cal Poly Pomona

  • Industry experience: students gain exposure to industry work processes, and receive mentorship from seasoned professionals in a structured environment.
  • Fast track to recruitment: successful project completions may lead to opportunities for internship and full-time employment for students.
  • Direct industry application: faculty get to apply and evaluate their latest techniques and technologies to novel problem areas.

Industry Partner Responsibilities and Obligations

  • Dedicated mentor(s)/contact point(s): the industry partner provides one or more staff members as permanent liaison point for the project. Such mentor(s) must be available to meet (either in person or remotely) with students and faculty mentors on a regular basis.
  • Additional resources [optional]: Industry partners may also provide additional resources, such as access to proprietary software or data sets, as well as other types of sponsorships (e.g. devices, monetary sponsorships, etc.).

Cal Poly Pomona Responsibilities and Obligations

  • Students: One or more students from Cal Poly Pomona will work on the project for the duration specified, and guarantee availability for regular meetings.
  • Dedicated faculty mentor(s): Cal Poly Pomona will provide one or more faculty members as permanent liaison point for the project. Such mentor(s) help supervise students, provide expertise, and regularly meet as part of the project schedule.