Catherine D. Schuman
Education
Katie is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Tennessee. In 2012, Katie received the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. She was also selected as a finalist for the Department of Energy Office of Science Graduate Fellowship.
- Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Mathematics from University of Tennessee
- Graduation: May 2010
- Summa Cum Laude
- Outstanding Graduate in Computer Science
- Top Graduate in the Natural Sciences
- Chancellor's Honors Program
- Math Honors Program
Research
Katie's research interests include artificial intelligence, biologically-inspired computing, and data mining. Her advisor is Dr. J. Doug Birdwell. In the fall of 2010, Katie worked in the Laboratory for Information Technologies.
In the spring of 2011, Katie worked with Dr. Michael Langston, exploring novel applications of fast heuristics for graph coloring.
During the summers of 2008, 2009 and 2010, Katie worked as an undergraduate research assistant with Dr. Jim Plank, focusing on erasure codes for storage applications. Her senior thesis was "An Exploration of Optimization Algorithms and Heuristics for the Creation of Encoding and Decoding Schedules in Erasure Coding." The thesis appeared in Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at the University of Tennessee.
Her other research work includes:
- J. S. Plank, C. D. Schuman and B. D. Robison, ``Heuristics for Optimizing Matrix-Based Erasure Codes for Fault-Tolerant Storage Systems,'' DSN 2012: International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks, Boston, MA, June, 2012.
- James S. Plank, Jianqiang Luo, Catherine D. Schuman, Lihao Xu and Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn, "A Performance Evaluation and Examination of Open-Source Erasure Coding Libraries For Storage," FAST-2009: 7th Usenix Conference on File and Storage Technologies, San Francisco, CA, February, 2009.
- J. S. Plank, S. Simmerman and C. D. Schuman, "Jerasure: A Library in C/C++ Facilitating Erasure Coding for Storage Applications,'' Technical Report CS-08-627, University of Tennessee Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, August, 2008.
- C. D. Schuman and J. S. Plank, A Performance Comparison of Open-Source Erasure Coding Libraries for Storage Applications,'' Technical Report CS-08-625, University of Tennessee Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, August, 2008.
TA Experience
Katie has served as a teaching assistant for the following classes at the University of Tennessee:
In December 2011, Katie was named Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant by the Department of EECS.
Past Work Experience
- University of Tennessee Math Tutorial Center
- August 2007-May 2008, August 2008-May 2009
- Math tutor for Calculus I, II, and III, linear algebra, differential equations
- E.W. Scripps
- Scripps Networks
- May-August 2005, May-August 2006
- Intern
Student Organizations
Katie is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). She previously served as secretary of the UT chapter of ACM. Katie is also a member of STARS. She serves as an undergraduate mentor in the STARS program, hoping to promote interest in the field of computing, especially among women and minorities.
Personal Life
Katie is from Harriman, Tennessee. She enjoys spending time with her family (especially her nieces and nephews), reading and pop culture in all forms.
