Congratulations to recipients of the 2017 undergraduate student awards which were presented at commencement ceremonies on May 14.
Alex Vasilos Memorial Award
Friends and colleagues of the late Alex Vasilos donated the Alex Vasilos Memorial Award to the Department of Computer Science to recognize deserving students. This year's recipients:
Arun Ganesh For outstanding research in algorithms for online service, for graduating with highest distinction, for excellence in the classroom, and for strong support as an undergraduate teaching assistant for multiple courses.
Aditya Mukund For first-rate research in algorithms for computational protein design, for graduating with highest distinction, for intellectual curiosity in the classroom, and for outstanding work as an undergraduate teaching assistant for multiple courses.
Zheqing (Bill) Zhu For stellar research in reinforcement learning, for graduating with highest distinction, for highest quality in the classroom, and for being a sincere undergraduate teaching assistant.
DeNardis Memorial Award
Family, friends and colleagues of the late Rebecca DeNardis donated the Rebecca DeNardis Memorial Award to the Department of Computer Science to recognize deserving students for creating and instilling a sense of purpose and excellence. This year's recipient:
Elizabeth Dowd For her excellence as an undergraduate teaching assistant for multiple courses, including leadership in the support of large courses, her clear explanations and her devotion to students, and for her distinction in the classroom.
Undergraduate Senior Thesis Projects
Graduation with Distinction is awarded to students who complete a substantial project that consists of at least one year's work, including an independent study under the guidance of a faculty member. The project represents a significant intellectual endeavor and requires a presentation made to a committee of three faculty members.
Graduation with Highest Distinction
Arun Ganesh Advisor: Debmalya Panigrahi Online Service with Delay
Aditya Mukund Advisor: Bruce R. Donald Partition Function Estimation in Computational Protein Design with Markov Random Fields
Zheqing Zhu Advisor: Ronald Parr Jump Diffusion Markov Design Model and Its Financial Applications
Graduation with High Distinction
Rachel Freedman Advisor: Vincent Conitzer Adapting a Kidney Exchange Algorithm to Incorporate Human Values
David Zhou Advisor: Bruce R. Donald Computational Design of RNA
Graduation with Distinction
Sidharth Gopinath Advisor: Robert Calderbank Exploration and Application of Dimensionality Reduc-tion and Clustering Techniques to Diabetes Patient Health Records
Ellen Yuan Advisor: Susan Rodger Assessing Computational Thinking Using ALICE