2024 Computer Science Degrees, Scholarships, Prizes and Awards

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

Danish Bokari ’24, Lakpa Sherpa ’25 and Mohamed Soliman ’27 are winners at the SOLVE 2024 Hackathon!

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.

Congratulations Danish, Lakpa and Mohamed!

Click here to read the full Columns article:

https://columns.wlu.edu/wl-holds-inaugural-solve-2024-hackathon-event-on-campus/

2024 PBK Inductions

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

Congratulations!

CS Prof. Liz Matthews’ Advisor awarded National Award from President Biden!

Juan Gilbert, a University of Florida professor and graduate school advisor to Professor Matthews, received the prestigious National Medal of Technology and Innovation from President Biden.

His pioneering designs in election technology aim to make voting more secure and accessible and, ultimately, protect our democracy.

Click on the link to see the details.

https://youtu.be/jWRJHD7nR4g?t=1630

2023 Computer Science Degrees, Scholarships, Prizes and Awards

Congratulations to the Class of 2023 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.

2023 Graduates:

Majors:

  • Abdelraham Hesham AboEitta – Bachelor of Science, Honors in Computer Science ( Thesis: “Hyperdimensional Computing for Gesture Recognitiion Using a Dynamic Vision Sensor”), Phi Beta Kappa; summa cum laude
  • Praise D. Apata – Bachelor of Science
  • Sujana Basnet- Bachelor of Science,  magna cum laude
  • Madison E. Clubb- Bachelor of Arts
  • Carson Brent Cooley- Bachelor of Science,  magna cum laude
  • Jared Alexander Cordova- Bachelor of Science
  • Ana Sophia Estrada Hamm- Bachelor of Arts,  Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude
  • Dario Fumarola- Bachelor of Arts
  • Selihom Gobeze- Bachelor of Science
  • Daniel Kenji Kung- Bachelor of Science
  • Leslie Taylor Le- Bachelor of Science
  • Grace Murphy MacDonald- Bachelor of Science,  Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude
  • Nobel Sintayehu Manye- Bachelor of Science
  • Ryan Davis Messick- Bachelor of Arts
  • Cong Danh Nguyen- Bachelor of Science, Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude
  • Nicholas Q. Nguyen- Bachelor of Science
  • Mesoma Ifechukwu Okolocha- Bachelor of Science
  • Jorge Baunner Soto-Ventura- Bachelor of Arts
  • Robert Taylor Tucker- Bachelor of Science, cum laude
  • Virginia Slater Weston- Bachelor of Science

Minors:

  • Peter McNulty Clyne- Bachelor of Science
  • Caleb Minjae Choe- Bachelor of Science
  • Harry Dodd Crutcher, Jr.- Bachelor of Science,  cum laude
  • Carl Lucas Erdmann- Bachelor of Arts
  • Sarah Louise Martin- Bachelor of Science
  • Robert Warren Seeds- Bachelor of Science
  • Nicholas Ransom Steinert- Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude
  • Colin James Whiting- Bachelor of Science, cum laude
  • Yoseph W. Wolde- Bachelor of Arts

Fellowships Received:

  • Ana Sophia Estrada Hamm ’22 – Fulbright U.S. Student Program, Israel

Departmental Awards:

  • Carson Brent Cooley- The Luther Seevers Birely Scholarship
  • Kathryn Marie Yurechko ’24- The James McDowell Scholarship
  • Grace Murphy MacDonald – The Computer Science Department Award
  • Nobel Sintayehu Manaye- The H. Thomas Williams, Jr. Undergraduate Research Award
  • Mesoma Ifechukwu Okolocha- Senior Bonner Scholars
  • Jackson Jacobs ’24- Richard Miller Cross Country Award

2023 CS Phi Beta Kappa Initiates

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.

The PBK chapter at Washington and Lee University welcomed 49 members of the junior and senior classes at the Phi Beta Kappa/Society of the Cincinnati Convocation on March 31.  Of those initiates, the following computer science majors are from the Class of 2023 and 2024:

2023
Grace MacDonald
Dan Nguyen

2024
Katie Yurechko

Congratulations!

2023 ODK Computer Science Inductee – Katie Yurechko

W&L’s Alpha Circle of Omicron Delta Kappa (ODK), the national leadership honor society, held its spring induction ceremony on March 16.  Computer Science major, Katie Yurechko ’24, was among the 50 new members.

Congratulations, Katie!

To learn more about the ODK ceremony, click the link:
https://columns.wlu.edu/odk-holds-spring-initiation-for-wl-honorees-3/

2022 Computer Science Degrees, Scholarships, Prizes and Awards

Congratulations to the Class of 2022 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.

2022 Graduates:

  • Luke Patrick Alli – Bachelor of Science
  • Theodore C. Bentley – Bachelor of Science
  • Samuel Thomas Bluestone – Bachelor of Science, Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude
  • Dominique Nicole Broomfield – Bachelor of Science
  • August Spencer Donovan – Bachelor of Arts
  • Ana Sophia Estrada Hamm
    Jackson Mark Gazin – Bachelor of Arts, Honors in Mathematics (Thesis: “Linear Algebraic Methods in Data Science and Neural Networks”)
  • Bryan Lawrence Hadley – Bachelor of Science
  • Jae-Ung Jung – Bachelor of Science
  • Tara Krishnadas Kakkaramadam – Bachelor of Science
  • Laurie A. Lee – Bachelor of Arts, cum laude
  • Elyssa M. McMaster – Bachelor of Arts, Honors in Art History (Thesis:  “Florence + The Machine:  A Computational Approach to Florentine Liturgical Manuscript Illuminations from the Late Trecento”)
  • Walter Ellis Millwood – Bachelor of Science
  • Garrett Montgomery Mize – Bachelor of Science, cum laude
  • Evan Lewis Phaup – Bachelor of Science
  • Joseph Paul Salerno – Bachelor of Science
  • Yoseph Mandefro Tamene – Bachelor of Science, magna cum laude
  • Finn Ellis Thorne – Bachelor of Science
  • Haochen Tu – Bachelor of Science, Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude
  • (Alyssa) Trang Thuy Vu – Bachelor of Science, Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude, Valedictorian
  • Scott Kenneth Walters – Bachelor of Arts
  • Taylor Ryan Witherell – Bachelor of Science

Fellowships Received:

  • Elyssa M. McMaster – Fulbright U.S. Student Program, Italy
  • Ana Sophia Estrada Hamm – U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship, Arabic

Scholarships, Awards, and Prizes:

  • (Alyssa) Trang Thuy Vu – The Robinson Award in Mathematics and Science

Departmental Awards:

  • Samuel Thomas Bluestone – The Computer Science Department Award
  • Ana Sophia Estrada Hamm – The Computer Science Department Award
  • Yoseph Mandefro Tamene –  The Computer Science Department Award
  • (Alyssa) Trang Thuy Vu – The Computer Science Department Award
  • Dominique Nicole Broomfield – The Linda Cooper and Bobby Henderson Prize
  • Haochen Tu – International Education, Certificate of International Immersion
  • Samuel Thomas Bluestone – Office of Jewish Life, The Jewish Learning Fellowship
  • Nicholas Ranson Steinert ’23 – The Economic Academic Excellence Award
  • Sujana Basnet ’23 – The Griffith Scholarship
  • Jackson J. Jacobs, ’24 – Richard Miller Cross Country Award

2022 PBK initiates from the Computer Science Department

Here are the CS Dept. student inductees from the Class of 2022 and 2023 for the Phi Beta Kappa (PBK) Society of Cincinnati:

2022
Sam Bluestone
Ana Estrada Hamm
Haochen Tu

2023
Abdel AboEitta

Congratulations!

Honors Thesis: Evolutionary Control of Micro Aerial Vehicles in Simulation– Coletta R. Fuller ’21

Coletta, a Johnson Scholar, double majored  in computer science and music, and minored in creative writing.  She presented her Honors Thesis on Evolutionary Control of Micro Aerial Vehicles in Simulation via Zoom on Wednesday April 14th.

This thesis examined the challenge of safely landing quadcopters in simulation, using OpenAI gym environments to evaluate various machine learning algorithms. The two main categories explored were Deep Reinforcement Learning and Evolutionary algorithms. While the success of the DRL approach motivated this work, the evolutionary angle is of more interest due to its roots in more realistic biological inspiration. One specific evolutionary approach, NEAT, had success in the three-dimensional version of the problem, while none of the DRL attempts were successful. The dominance of NEAT on this challenge, while impressive in contrast with DRL, also had reasonably comparable success to a heuristic, human engineered approach.