Timeline

A committee of five TTIJ professors proposed the fields to be developed at the new school, and a visiting team researched and visited about five universities based on recommendations to survey developmental possibilities. Their final report in 2000 recommended the University of Chicago as the best candidate.

TTIC first began operations on the bottom floor of the Ryerson Physical Laboratory building on the University of Chicago campus, and signed a “Memorandum of Understanding” with the University of Chicago outlining the working relationship of the two institutions.

The Board of Trustees was established with three members (Tatsuro Toyoda, Chairman; Mitsuru Nagsawa, President; and Fuminori Inagaki, Secretary and Treasurer) in October of 2001.

Tatsuro Toyoda was appointed Board Chair.

TTIC was incorporated by the State of Illinois under provisions of “The General Not for Profit Corporation Act of 1987.”

TTIC officially opened for operations and moved facilities to the Press Building.

TTIC began seeking accreditation through the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) and submitted a Letter of Intent.

The TTIC - University of Chicago Teaching Agreement was signed on March 17, 2003. It allows TTIC students to take university courses, and offers a reciprocal arrangement for university students.

On August 3, 2003, the IBHE granted TTIC the ability to confer the Master of Science and PhD degrees in Computer Science from the State of Illinois.

TTIC’s Internship Program started the summer of 2003.

In September 2003, TTIC and TTIJ formalized an Agreement on Student Acceptance that outlined how the two institutes would oversee the student exchanges planned for each academic year.

The first TTIJ exchange students, Kiwamu Ono (a master’s degree candidate at TTI) and Son Thai Tran (a PhD candidate at TTI) begin study at TTIC in September 2003.

In September 2024, three students matriculate into the PhD program: Jacob Abernethy, Won Seok Chae, and Hoang Trinh.

In May 2004, TTIC and TTIJ signed an agreement that outlined areas of academic exchange between the two institutions, including student, researcher and student exchange, joint research, lectures, seminar and symposia, and other potential projects.

The External Advisory Committee (EAC) was initially suggested in September 2002. Member recruitment followed with the EAC members and proposed responsibilities being introduced to the full Board at its meeting in September 2004, where the Committee and its functions were approved.

TTIC’s first On-Site review was performed by the HLC.

Professor Stuart A. Rice began serving as Dean of TTIC, and then was appointed by the Board of Trustees to serve as the Dean of TTIC.

TTIC began holding a Distinguished Lecture series, where each year a series of three or four leaders in the field of computer science are invited to the Institute to discuss their research.

TTIC awards its first Master’s within the PhD program degrees.

Professor Nati Srebro and Professor Shai Shalev-Shwartz received 2008 Best Paper Award at the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML).

Professor Karen Livescu, Invited Speaker to the Japan-America Frontiers of Engineering Symposium.

Office space was expanded and moved from the Press Building to the Illinois Bell Building at 6045 South Kenwood Ave, Chicago, Illinois, on the University of Chicago campus.

TTIC confers its first PhD program doctoral diploma awardee, Wonseok Chae, in September of 2009.

On October 1, 2009, TTIC was accredited by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), recognizing the Institute’s degrees as valid credentials by universities around the world, and sound, quality academic, financial, and governance practices.

Professor Julia Chuzhoy received a NSF Career Award.

TMC pledged $12 million to TTIC as part of a permanently restricted gift of $102 million.

The Board forms a Finance Committee and a Presidential Search Committee in the autumn Board meeting.

Professor Devi Parikh was awarded the Marr Prize.

Interim President Stuart Rice received the 2011 Wolf Prize in Chemistry.

Professor Julia Chuzhoy was awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship.

Professor Julia Chuzhoy received the FOCS 2012 Best Paper award.

Professor Karen Livescu was awarded the Interspeech 2012 Best Student Paper.

Professor Yury Makarychev received a NSF Career award.

Professor Jinbo Xu was awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship and NSF Career award. His group also received the Warren DeLano Award for Structural Bioinformatics and Computational Biophysics.

Dr. Sadaoki Furui was awarded the Okawa Prize.

In April 2013, the Board appointed Dr. Sadaoki Furui as President, succeeding the founding President, Dr. Mitsuru Nagasawa.

TTIC celebrated its 10-year anniversary. A celebration was held at the Langham Hotel.

Professor Raquel Urtasun received the CVPR 2013 Best Paper Runner-Up Award.

Professor Ben Moseley received the SPAA’13 Best Paper Award.

Professor Madhur Tulsiani received a NSF Career Award.

Professor Greg Shakhnarovich received the IBM Faculty Award.

Professor Alexander Razborov was awarded the David P. Robbins Prize.

Professor Karen Livescu was awarded the ASRU 2013 Best Student Paper runner-up.

Professor Kevin Gimpel received the WMT 5-Year Retrospective Best Paper Award.

Professor Li-Yang Tan received the Best Paper Award for FOCS 2015.

Professor Karen Livescu received a Google Faculty Research Award.

TMC pledged $85 million as part of a permanently restricted gift of $102 million.

Visiting Student Pranava Swaroop Madhyastha, Professors Mohit Bansal, Kevin Gimpel, and Karen Livescu received the Best Paper Award at the 1st Workshop on Representation Learning for NLP.

Student Hao Tang received the Best Student Paper Award at ICASSP 2016.

Former President Sadaoki Furui was named a Person of Cultural Merit.

Professor Avrim Blum was hired and appointed as Chief Academic Officer, succeeding the founding Chief Academic Officer, David McAllester.

Professor Nati Srebro received the Test of Time Honorable Mention, ICML 2017.

Student Blake Woodworth was awarded a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

Former President Sadaoki Furui was named Honorary Professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Professor Li-Yang received the Best Paper Award, 2017 Computational Complexity Conference.

Professors Kevin Gimpel, Karen Livescu, and student Lifu Tu received the Best Paper Award at the 2nd Workshop on Representation Learning for NLP.

Student Hai Wang, Student Takeshi Onishi, Professors Kevin Gimpel and David McAllester received Best Paper Award at the 2nd Workshop on Representation Learning for NLP.

Professor Avrim Blum received the Classic Paper Award, 2017 AI Journal.

TTIC initiated the Niyogi Memorial Fellowship. Prof. Partha Niyogi (July 1967-October 2010) was the Louis Block Professor in Computer Science and Statistics at the University of Chicago. He served as a member of TTIC’s Local Academic Advisory Committee, contributing to the formation and development of the TTIC program and curriculum, and to strong connections between the Institute and the University of Chicago. The fellowship offers additional support to a new student at TTIC in their first year.

The Board of Trustees approved the adoption of a new logo, with the original logo approved to be used as the formal Presidential Seal.

Professor David McAllester was awarded the Longuet-Higgins Prize (the CVPR 10-year Test-of-Time Award).

Secured Lowe’s Community Grant for a science lab upgrade for McDade Classical School in Chicago, Illinois, and hosted a TTIC Robotics Lab visit.

Visiting Student Yujuan Gao, TTIC postdoc Sheng Wang, Yujuan’s advisor Minghua Deng, and Professor Jinbo Xu received Best Paper Award, APBC 2018.

Professor Jinbo Xu was awarded the PLOS Computational Biology Research Prize 2018 in the category of Breakthrough Advance/Innovation.

Dr. Matthew Turk was hired and appointed as President of TTIC, succeeding Sadaoki Furui.

Dr. Sadaoki Furui was appointed Board Chair in July.

Student Omar Montasser, Professors Steve Hanneke, and Nati Srebro received Best Student Paper Award, COLT 2019.

Student Blake Woodworth and Professor Nati Srebro received Best Student Paper Award, COLT 2019.

Professor Arturs Backurs received a Distinguished Dissertation Award from EATCS 2019.

Professor Jinbo Xu received the Test of Time Award, RECOMB 2019.

Professor Thatchaphol Saranurak received the Best Paper Award, PODC 2019.

Outreach: Ms. Rose Bradford, Manager of Research Administration, initiated and supported new programs of Girls Who Code, which was an after-school coding program for K-12 students, and partnerships with Chicago Public Schools (CPS). Became community partners with Kenwood Academy in Chicago, Illinois to sponsor a local Girls Who Code club, including a field trip to Accenture, sponsoring lab visits, and preparing curriculum. Became community partners with Carnegie Elementary to sponsor a Girls Who Code club. Hosted Career and Technical Education (CTE) Internship program and job shadow day visit for Lindblom Math & Science Academy.

Starting in March 2020, TTIC and University of Chicago essentially move all academic and administrative operations to remote/distance learning and operations to accommodate public health and safety measures. TTIC initiates the COVID-19 Committee to manage the evolving situation affecting faculty, students and staff.

In autumn 2020, TTIC held its first and only completely online diploma and awards ceremony. Professor and TTIC Trustee Charles Isbell was the commencement speaker, as well as Alumnus Behnam Neyshabur. Orientation week was moved online as well.

Professor Julia Chuzhoy was awarded the National Academy of Sciences Held Prize.

Professor Steve Hanneke received the Best Paper Award, COLT 2020.

Student Mingda Chen was awarded a Google PhD Fellowship.

Student David Yunis was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

Student Blake Woodworth was awarded a Google PhD Fellowship.

Professor Kevin Gimpel received an Amazon Research Award.

Professor Karen Livescu received the Amazon AWS Machine Learning Research Award.

TTIC initiates the Latrice Richards Outstanding Administrator Award, to be presented annually at the Diploma and Award Ceremony.

Staff Rose Bradford was awarded the 2020 Latrice Richards Outstanding Administrator Award.

Professor Avrim Blum received the ACM Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award.

Professor Karen Livescu was announced as an Elected Fellow of the International Speech Communication Association.

President Matthew Turk was named an ACM Fellow.

Student Blake Woodworth won the Best Paper Award, COLT 2021.

Student Haoyue (Freda) Shi was awarded a Google PhD Fellowship.

Professor Karen Livescu, IEEE Signal Processing Society Distinguished Lecturer.

Staff Adam Bohlander was awarded the 2021 Latrice Richards Outstanding Administrator Award.

Outreach: Developed partnership with the Chicago Pre-College Science & Engineering Program (ChiS&E) for robotics curriculum. Sponsored Girls Who Code clubs at Kenwood Academy and Hyde Park High School. Sponsored 3rd-5th grade and 6th-8th grade Girls Who Code clubs at McClellan Elementary School in Chicago.

Dr Jinbo Xu received the Marshall and Arlene Bennett Family Research Program Funding Award.

President Matthew Turk was appointed as a new member of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council.

Professor David McAllester received an Open Philanthropy Funding Award.

Professors Avrim Blum, Julia Chuzhoy, Yury Makarychev, and Nati Srebro received a NSF TRIPODS Phase II Award.

Staff Marry Marre was awarded the 2022 Latrice Richards Outstanding Administrator Award.

Student Shubham Toshniwal, Professor Kevin Gimpel, and Professor Karen Livescu received the Best Paper Award, CRAC 2021.

Outreach: Became community partners with Bessie Coleman Library to sponsor a 3rd-8th grade Coding Club for boys and girls including a showcase at the University of Chicago Weston Game Lab. Continued community partnerships with Kenwood Academy, Carnegie Elementary, and Girls Who Code.

TTIC celebrated its 20th anniversary. A celebration was held at the Langham Hotel, and the 20th Anniversary Academic Symposium was hosted at TTIC from Nov. 9-10.

Professor Karen Livescu received the Test of Time Award Runner Up, ICML 2023.

Professor Jinbo Xu was announced an ISCB Fellow Class of 2023.

Professor Siddharth Bhandari received the ACM India 2022 Doctoral Dissertation Award.

Students Kshitij Patel and Nirmit Joshi, and Professors Lingxiao Wang and Nati Srebro received the Best Student Paper Honorable Mention at the ICML 2023 Workshop on Federated Learning and Analytics in Practice.

Student Xiaodan Du was awarded the TTIC Outstanding TA Award.

Staff Deree Kobets was awarded the Latrice Richards Outstanding Administrator.

Student Chung-Ming Chien was awarded the 2023 Government Scholarship to Study Abroad from Taiwan Ministry of Education.

TTIC students Chung-Ming Chien and Ju-Chieh Chou, University of Chicago student Mingjiamei Zhang, and TTIC Professor Karen Livescu won the Best Student Paper Award at the 2023 IEEE Automatic Speech Recognition and Understanding Workshop (ASRU 2023).