"In my field, working with graduate students is everything," says Or Sheffet, assistant professor with the Department of Computing Science. Photo credit: John Ulan
What attracted you the University of Alberta's Department of Computing Science?
The Department of Computing Science is terrific. The Centre for Machine Intelligence (Currently AMII, previously AICML) has an exceptionally talented group of investigators and attracts just as terrific graduate students. In my field, working with grad students is everything! Most of the research is done collaboratively, when discussing problems with either your students or your colleagues, and it is often the grad students who come up with brilliant new ideas about how to tackle problems in a new and unconventional way.
What are you looking forward to this fall and winter semesters?
I am currently teaching both of my courses: an introduction to algorithms for undergraduate students and graduate-level course in differential privacy, my area of research. In the undergrad course, I take the position that the ability to do algorithm design and analysis is the factor that separates programmers from computer scientists. Programming is an art, and a tough one; but being a computer scientist is so much more than knowing how to program. It is also about how to reason about code and about problem solving. These are principles I am trying to teach my students. In the grad course, privacy is, in my opinion the subject of the future, and I take the approach that privacy-preserving data analysis has to be taken seriously and be done rigorously. Otherwise, you might as well result into those unproven heuristics that have been known to fail. And so, the thing I am enjoying the most in this semester is my interaction with my students. It's demanding, tiring, complicated beyond what I've imagined, but highly highly rewarding.
How are you settling in to campus and the city?
Slowly but surely. I love the University of Alberta campus, but I do not feel I have yet managed to see enough of it. I love the promenade overlooking the river-and my dog loves it too. As far as settling in in the city, this has been a long period, especially since my partner remains in the east coast. However, I did manage to find a great house to rent, with a lovely back yard, where my dog gets to play with the neighbors' dog, so that's a major plus. Charlie is-objectively, of course-the world's cutest dog. He's a labradoodle, and just under a year old.