Margaret M. Fleck

Teaching Professor
Director of Undergraduate Programs
Department of Computer Science
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 		3214 or 1222 Siebel Center
201 N. Goodwin, Urbana IL 61801
217-265-6838 (mostly good for voicemail)
mfleck@illinois.edu
CV

Current/Recent Teaching

Artificial Intelligence (CS 440): Fall 2022 and Fall 2021 and Fall 2020 .

Discrete Structures (CS 173) Spring 2021 and Spring 2020 .

Course Development and Materials

I focus on building materials that are easy for students to learn from. Specifically

As our class size as grown, and particularly since the pandemic lockdown, I have become increasingly interested in techniques for making instruction scale well while preserving the most valuable aspects of in-person time and human feedback

Discrete Structures (CS 173):

Some specific challenges in teaching discrete mathematics:

I've also been working on techniques for authoring and maintaining large sets of exam questions.

Artificial Intelligence (CS 440)

Fleck and Har-Peled lecture notes for Intro to Theory of Computation (CS 273) which I taught from Spring 2006 to Spring 2008.

Back in the 90's, I developed a laboratory-based computer vision course.

Research

My recent research centers around understanding conversational speech, particularly unsupervised algorithms that learn word boundaries from transcribed speech. I am also interested in use of prosodic features (e.g. stress, duration) in language modelling and language acquisition.

I worked in image understanding for many years and retain an interest in that area. I also have a long-term interest in building better programming language support for AI and have implemented a hybrid LISP/C package for computer vision applications and a hybrid Scheme/C package for linguistic research. At HP labs and U. Illinois, I have worked on systems that provide guidebooks and collect annotated records of personal experiences.

Publications:

Some useful resources:

Here are the full versions of two software releases. The world has changed too much for the code to run, but they are still useful documentation of the designs.

Former students in faculty positions

Student Research Projectx

PhD theses

MS theses

MS-level projects, University of Iowa

Undergraduate projects

Schedule (Spring 2023)

This is the regularly occurring prta of my schedule. Obviously, I also have one-of meetings and details may change, especially early in each term. Colored items happen frequently (often every week). Uncolored items happen less frequently.

I now have two offices, one buried in the back of the CS academic office. So dropping by won't work as well as it normally does. Please drop me email if you'd like to meet.

Office hours will be in 3214. The days/times may change as my schedule evolves.

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
9-9:30   ugstudy #1      
9:30-10     engineering meetings
most weeks		  
10-10:30        
10:30-11        
11-11:30     ugrad advisors    
11:30-12        
12-12:30 CS faculty
meetings
and lunches		        
12:30-1        
1-1:30     X+DS advisors Supervisors meeiing
1:30-2      
2-2:30   Management      
2:30-3        
3-3:30   ugstudy #2
(also LEAP)		 scheduling (monthly)    
3:30-4      
4-4:30          
4:30-5          
5-5:30          
5:30-6          

Academic links

Suggestions to instructors about academic integrity charges

Fun links

Some interesting ancestors: Mary Dyer and Susannah Martin.

Semi-academic links:

For steaming dumplings in quantity, Amazon sells a lovely German-made stainless Uzbek Mantovarka (brand Wetlif).

On-line stores that sell really good tea, all with their own distinctive strengths.

Palm frond unfolding

Portable sailboats

Music links