UBC Reports | Vol. 50 | No. 11 | Dec. 2, 2004

Timepiece 1970

Transformation of a Lifetime

By Brian Lin

When computer science professor Richard Rosenberg arrived at UBC from the University of Michigan in 1968, long hair, massive beards and wild ties were high fashion while mainframes -- not personal computers -- were the standard.

The soon-to-be-retired Rosenberg, currently acting director of the dept. of computer science, has witnessed an incredible transformation. The department that started small, in a space converted from a parking structure, is now a hotbed of research noted for its graphics, visualization, computational intelligence and robotics groups. There are now approximately 55 faculty members.

In fact, the only things faster than the department’s computers these days may be the human brains working and studying there.

Just last month, two of three teams of student programmers took first and third place in the Pacific Northwest Division at the annual Association for Computing Machinery Programming Competition.

The first place team beat out powerhouse teams from Stanford and Berkeley and will compete in the World Finals in Shanghai in April.