Cobb ’12 Receives Honorable Mention in CRA Undergraduate Research Award
The CRA announced their list of Undergraduate Research Awards, which included an honorable mention for Camille Cobb ’12. Camille has worked on automatically testing web applications with Professor Sprenkle for two years and worked this past summer on visualizing medical processes with Professor Lori Clarke from the University of Massachusetts. Camille has presented her work in poster sessions at several conferences and has a conference paper under submission.
From the announcement:
This year’s nominees were a very impressive group. A number of them were commended for making significant contributions to more than one research project, several were authors or coauthors on multiple papers, others had made presentations at major conferences, and some had produced software artifacts that were in widespread use. Many of our nominees had been involved in successful summer research or internship programs, many had been teaching assistants, tutors, or mentors, and a number had significant involvement in community volunteer efforts. It is quite an honor to be selected for Honorable Mention from this group.
Students Present Research at Tapia Conference
Camille Cobb ’12, Anna Pobletts ’12, and Lucy Simko ’11 were awarded scholarships to attend the Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing in San Francisco in early April. At the conference, they presented posters of their research on automated web application testing. Their research projects were funded by the CRA-W/CDC Collaborative Research Experiences for Undergraduates, which had an informal gathering at the conference.
Professor Whaley Retires after 24 Years of Service
Dr. Tom Whaley is retiring after 24 years at W&L.
Professor Whaley joined the Computer Science Department as a full professor in 1987, after holding academic positions in mathematics and computer science and positions as head of ITS at several other institutions. Professor Whaley’s teaching, research, and service as department head were critical in the growth of the department into one of the national leaders among liberal arts colleges. His interest in database management, formal development of algorithms, parallel computing, and digital libraries produced several new curricular and research initiatives in the department. Professor Whaley helped to develop the department’s introductory survey course, which became a model for courses of this type in liberal arts colleges. He worked with dozens of student research assistants on problems in graph theory, parallel algorithms, and Web access to databases. Many of these research projects were interdisciplinary and resulted in published papers and journal articles, as well as honors theses for computer science majors.
The capstone of Professor Whaley’s research activity was as a co-principal investigator of the ALSOS project, a digital library for nuclear issues, which was sponsored by two major NSF grants and which supported interdisciplinary research experiences for numerous computer science students.
While at Washington and Lee, Professor Whaley also became an accomplished mandolin player, often performing with local old-time music groups.
We will miss him!
Sprenkle and Simko’s Research Paper Wins Award
Professor Sprenkle and Lucy Simko ’11‘s paper at the International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST) won the Best Research Paper Award. ICST is a prestigious conference in software testing (21% acceptance rate) with over 300 attendees. The paper entitled “A Study of Usage-Based Navigation Models and Generated Abstract Test Cases for Web Applications” was done in collaboration with Dr. Lori Pollock of the University of Delaware. The paper was selected out of 35 accepted papers.
Jan Cuny from the NSF discusses Broadening Participation in Computing
Jan Cuny of the National Science Foundation came to Washington and Lee on March 16 to discuss “Broadening Participation in Computing: Engagement, Education, Research, and Policy”. Jan talked about why broadening participation in computing is important (e.g., lots of jobs that need to be filled and not enough computer scientists; diversity of ideas), why it’s difficult (e.g., education challenges, incorrect stereotypes), and what we’re doing (many cool programs and initiatives!).
Jan met with students and faculty at an informal reception before her talk and answered many questions throughout the afternoon.
Some highlighted sites and programs:
Jan’s visit was sponsored by Women in Math and Science and Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant.
Students Present Research at SSA
Several computer science students participated in W&L’s student conference SSA: Science, Society, and the Arts.
At the second poster session of the day, David Margolies ’12 presented his work with Professor Levy in an independent study he did in the fall. The poster’s title was “Robot Vision and Object Tracking”.
David is in the top right of the picture, in a dark coat and blue tie.
Also in that session, Lucy Simko ’11 and Anna Pobletts ’12 presented their poster on their automated web application testing research with Professor Sprenkle called “An analysis of the relationship between parameter characteristics and data model factors to automatically create effective test suites for web applications”. Whew! What a title!
In the picture below, Anna (teal) and Lucy (to the right) explain their project to curious minds.
Will Richardson ’11 and Chen Zhong ’12 presented their summer research project that was advised by Professor Stough: “Visual Object Class Recognition”.
At the afternoon poster session, Camille Cobb ’12 presented her research poster on “Toward a User-Session-Dependency Model for Automatically Testing Web Applications” that she is working on with Professor Sprenkle. Camille will be presenting a similar poster at the Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing at the beginning of April.
Senior Simko to be Inducted into Phi Beta Kappa
Senior computer science and classics double major Lucy Simko will be inducted into Phi Beta Kappa on Thursday, March 10. Convocation is at 11:45 in Lee Chapel and induction happens later that day.
From the Phi Beta Kappa site: “Phi Beta Kappa celebrates and advocates excellence in the liberal arts and sciences. Its campus chapters invite for induction the most outstanding arts and sciences students at America’s leading colleges and universities. The Society sponsors activities to advance these studies — the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences — in higher education and in society at large.”
Update: A photo of convocation, courtesy of Professor Stough:
Lucy is on the far right.
Women in Computer Science at W&L
Sophomore journalism and computer science double major Shannon McGovern created a feature about women in computer science at W&L for a journalism course.
What Is IBM Jeopardy! Challenge?
W&L Computer Science students watched the first episode of the IBM Jeopardy! Challenge in the cozy Hillel House conference room, with large TV. The CS department provided snacks, while the students provided the conversation and analysis of the game. At the end of the episode, only the first round of Jeopardy! was played. Brad Rutter and Watson were tied at $5k, while Ken Jennings had $2K.
