It was standing room only when the Computer Science and Engineering department held its annual winter holiday party on Dec. 3. Well over 200 people showed up for the skits put on by graduate students, staff, and a few faculty members. Some visual highlights of the festivities:
(A) Lunch reception for CSE community in the Calit2 Theater in front of the Vroom display wall.
(B) CSE Prof. Geoffrey Voelker (in Santa cap) introduces the skits in the Atkinson Hall auditorium. "We have few opportunities to bring the entire department together, and I think that the holiday party is a great tradition for building and maintaining department community," said Voelker, who organized this year's party with CSE staff member Jennifer Folkestad. "It is an event that both helps make the department special, and an event that can only happen because people value community in the department."
(C) Old pros and recent arrivals in the ranks of CSE staff were there.
(D) Graduate student skits included Ph.D. student Arjun Roy (at left) and Ariana Mirian, and the face on the display was a blend of professors Sorin Lerner and Alex Snoeren.
(E) In another skit, a takeoff on the Pokemon GO phenomenon. They called it Profémon GO.
(F) Ph.D. student Quentin Gautier played the role of "Jean Olivier" in a reference to host John Oliver of the HBO satirical newscast, "Last Week Tonight."
(G) With professors Stefan Savage at the podium and Hovav Shacham as host, Russell Impagliazzo describes the new definition of logical 'truth' as a result of the change of administration in Washington, D.C. They dissected the topic "What Is Truth?" Impagliazzo noted that, where traditional logic recognizes a contradiction for what it is, the new "truthiness logic" determines that a statement can simultaneously be true, greatly true, "I never said that", a nasty variable, or "Mexico will pay for it."
(H) CSE community members turned out in force to listen and laugh during this year's holiday skits.