Jenna is a computer science major and a philosophy minor and is highly interested in all things coding!
Coding, the process of assigning a code to something for classification or identification, is also known as computer programming. It’s how we communicate with computers and tell them what to do.
Since declaring as a computer science major and discovering a real passion for technology, Jenna has actively pursued every opportunity to engage with tech on campus.
The Computer Science Department has played a key role in her academic journey. Jenna is deeply appreciative of the support and guidance she’s received from her CS professors. W&L has provided Jenna with a wide range of experiences that has allowed her to learn and develop skills she might not otherwise have gained.
Click on the link to read Jenna’s Columns article.
The Summer Research Scholars (SRS) program supports students participating in collaborative research supervised by W&L faculty. The program aims to encourage the development of research techniques within a particular discipline, to promote the active acquisition of knowledge, and to stimulate student interest in inquiry.
Here are the 2024 Computer Science SRS students, their faculty supervisors and descriptions of their projects:
Professor Taha Khan:
Professor Khan had 2 SRS students this summer — Allison Badeaux ’28 and Nabil Youssef, ’26. The topic for their research was “Internet Censorship: A Self-Destructing Prophecy”.
The internet is a crucial medium for communication, information sharing, and freedom of expression. However, internet censorship poses significant challenges to these aspects. The study explores the multifaceted impacts of censorship on users’ behaviors, attitudes, and strategies to bypass restrictions.
Allison and Nabil’s research examined the effectiveness of censorship and its potential counterproductive effects. While censorship aims to control information flow and maintain social order, it often leads to unintended consequences like increased efforts to circumvent restrictions and the spread of alternative information channels. By analyzing user reactions, the study seeks to determine whether censorship achieves its goals or inadvertently promotes greater resistance and innovation in information dissemination.
Allison Badeaux ’28
Nabil Youssef, ’26
Professor Simon Levy:
Tiffany Guo ’26 and James Xia ’26 worked with Prof. Simon Levy on a project entitled “Neuromorphic Control for Micro Aerial Vehicles”. Tiffany and James’s primary responsibility was developing a quadcopter simulator in Python, to aid in testing of new control algorithms. The eventual goal is to integrate this simulator (and an actual quadcopter) with the neuromorphic control algorithms that Prof. Levy is developing as a visiting professor this summer in the TeNNLab at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Tiffany Guo ’26.
James Xia ’26
Professor Liz Matthews:
Professor Matthews had 2 SRS students this summer — Han Huynh ’25 and Hamza Zia, 26. Both Han and Hamza collected data on video game enjoyment in games containing procedural generation. This involves recruiting participants to play an infinite running game and record their responses to an enjoyment questionnaire, then using statistical analysis to determine any impact the procedural generation may or may not have on enjoyment of the video game.
Han Huynh, ’25Hamza Zia ’26
Professor William Tolley:
Professor Tolley had two projects with a total of four students this summer. The objectives, goals and direction for each project, along with the student research students are listed here.
Project One: “Cryptographic Signal Integrity via Information-Theoretic Constructs” – Janeet Bajracharya (2026), Mark Holden (2025)
Janeet Bajracharya ’26Mark Holden ’25
Objective:
This research endeavors to establish a framework for the secure dissemination of radio signals, ensuring integrity verification by external entities without disclosing the underlying raw data. The approach integrates advanced cryptographic constructs with robust signal feature extraction methodologies, employing fuzzy hashing and locality-sensitive hashing (LSH) within an error-tolerant paradigm.
Research Goal:
The principal challenge addressed is the circumvention of legal constraints on signal sharing through the application of zero-knowledge proof analogs to continuous analog signals. By leveraging wavelet transform techniques, we aim to optimally decompose and isolate salient features of the signal, minimizing the impact of stochastic noise. These features are then encoded into a cryptographic hash, facilitating secure, non-invasive verification across different instances.
Future Directions:
Ongoing research will focus on refining transformation techniques to enable the derivation of a unique signal fingerprint from its hash, advancing towards a framework where the hash itself encapsulates sufficient information-theoretic properties to characterize the original signal with high fidelity. This includes the potential to identify specific types of traffic, such as VPN traffic, thereby broadening the applicability of the methodology in network security and traffic analysis.
Project two: “Machine Learning for Censorship and Surveillance Detection in Android Applications” – Ciel Morrill (2026), Medaly Cardenas Retamozo (2025)
Ciel Morrill ’26
Medaly Cardenas Retamozo ’25
Objective:
This project aims to adapt and apply advanced machine learning techniques, originally developed by Google for identifying vulnerable code and malicious executables in Android applications, to the detection of censorship and surveillance mechanisms. Given the impracticality of reverse engineering a vast number of apps, this approach leverages machine learning to automate the identification process.
Research Goal:
The initial phase involves identifying and analyzing a set of Android apps known to contain censorship features. These apps will serve as a baseline for training machine learning models. The goal is to extrapolate from this initial dataset, enabling the model to scan and categorize thousands of other apps to detect similar censorship or surveillance-related behaviors. By refining these techniques, the project seeks to uncover hidden information control mechanisms within a broad spectrum of apps, facilitating more efficient and large-scale analysis of potentially censored content or surveillance activity.
Future Directions:
The ongoing research will focus on refining the machine learning models to enhance their accuracy and scalability. This includes integrating more sophisticated techniques, such as deep learning and natural language processing, to detect increasingly subtle and complex censorship and surveillance mechanisms. Additionally, the scope of the project may expand to include other platforms and types of digital content beyond Android apps, broadening the impact of the research on uncovering information controls across diverse digital environments.
Jackson Jacobs, a recent graduate of W&L, double majored in Computer Science and Politics. He is employed as a Software Engineer at RVO Health– a joint venture between Red Ventures and Optum, part of UnitedHealth Group.
Jackson is featured in this Columns article, which focuses on how his educational background shaped his current professional journey.
Congratulations to the Class of 2024 Computer Science Majors and Minors for their outstanding achievements! Their accomplishments, along with the accomplishments of certain CS undergraduates are listed here, as they appear in the Commencement Bulletin.
2024 Graduates:
Majors:
Timileyin John Adekola –Bachelor of Science
Giorgio Louis Antonacci- Bachelor of Arts
Mohammed Danish Bokhari- Bachelor of Science, Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude
Joseph Anthony Bosco- Bachelor of Arts, cum laude
Andrew Joseph Condie Jr.- Bachelor of Science
Malachi Chad Eberly- Bachelor of Science
Bennett John Ehret- Bachelor of Science
Petra Ilic- Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude
Jackson Kemper Jacobs- Bachelor of Science, cum laude
Ngoc Bao Le- Bachelor of Arts
Jose Armando Mendez- Bachelor of Arts
Julia Susan Raskin- Bachelor of Science, Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude
Renan Viera Silva- Bachelor of Science
Matthais Stock **- Bachelor of Arts
William Ryan Tobin – Bachelor of Science
Nicholas McClelland Tussing- Bachelor of Arts
William Xue- Bachelor of Science, Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude
Kathryn Marie Yurechko- Bachelor of Science, Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude
Minors:
Jack Wilford d’Entremont- Bachelor of Science
Jacob Nicholas Jackson- Bachelor of Science, Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude
Andrew Harris Larsen- Bachelor of Science
John Dabbs Schleider, Jr.- Bachelor of Arts, Honors in Economics (Thesis: “Systematic Risk and Measures of Monopoly Power”), cum laude
Jonathan Taft Symonds III- Bachelor of Science
Special Honors:
Kathryn Marie Yurechko – Valedictorian, The Algernon Sydney Sullivan Medallion
Fellowships Received:
Julia Susan Raskin –Fulbright U.S. Student Program, Germany
Austin Hunter Molitar ’25 –Goldwater Scholarship
Kathryn Marie Yurechko – Marshall Scholarship
Brandon W. Bishop ’26 – U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship, Arabic
Scholarships Awards and Prizes:
Kathryn Marie Yurechko – The James McDowell Scholarship
Departmental Awards:
Kathryn Marie Yurechko –The Computer Science Department Award
Gabriel Thomas Hogan ’26 –The Lenfest Center for the Arts Award
Gabriel Thomas Hogan ’26 –The Excellence in Artistic Management Award
Kathryn Marie Yurechko –The Young Scholarship in Philosophy
Kathryn Marie Yurechko –The John and Mimi Elrod Fellowship
Gabriel Thomas Hogan ’26 –The Michael K. and Linda Gorman Award
Jack Wilford d’Entremont- The Coaches and Captains Basketball Award
Matt Fritz ’25- William J. Sterns Improved Swimmer
Yurechko, who double majors in computer science and philosophy and minors in poverty and human capability studies, has been named the 2024 Omicron Delta Kappa (ODK) Leader of the Year in academics and research.
The Omicron Delta Kappa (ODK) Leader of the Year in academics and research recognizes individuals who have demonstrated exceptional leadership qualities and achievements in the area of academia and research within their academic community or institution.
A 2023 initiate of the University’s Alpha Circle of ODK, Katie will graduate in May 2024 with a 4.0 GPA. She was also named W&L’s first Marshall Scholar in December 2023.
The first ever W&L SOLVE Hackathon was held in the IQ Center, May 12-13, 2024.
A hackathon is an event where individuals or teams come together to collaboratively work on solving problems or creating innovative projects within a limited time frame. The SOLVE 2024 event was an interdisciplinary student-focused gathering for any undergraduate student from W&L.
A grand prize of $1,000 was awarded to three separate teams judged to have created the best products or for embodying the spirit of the competition. Danish Bokhari ’24, Lakpa Sherpa ’25 and Mohamed Soliman ’27, who created EcoEats, a food app designed to revolutionize the way we eat and live sustainably, were one of the three winning teams.
This paper talks about how people who make videos on TikTok are starting to use special language called “algospeak” more and more. They do this to get around rules that they think are unfair about what they can and can’t post. These video creators frequently come up with new words or change existing ones, or they might use emojis or hand gestures instead of words. They do this to stop TikTok’s algorithm from removing their videos.
Yurechko, who double majors in computer science and philosophy with a minor in poverty and human capability, is dedicated to backing marginalized groups and advocating for diversity within the field of computing.
Phi Beta Kappa (PBK) was founded in 1776 at the College of William and Mary. Its motto is “Love of learning is the guide of life.” The Gamma of Virginia Chapter was chartered at W&L in 1911.
Washington and Lee University’s PBK chapter welcomed 54 members of the junior and senior classes at the Convocation on Friday, April 5. The honorees were inducted into Phi Beta Kappa based on their exceptional academic achievements in the arts and sciences. Following are the computer science initiates from the Class of 2024 and 2025:
2024
Danish Bokhari
Julia Raskin
Will Xue
2025 Sarah Lathrop
Linh Nguyen
Ignas Volcokas
Lydia Yang
