Category: Awards and Prizes

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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:

  • 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
  • Caleb Minjae Choe- Bachelor of Science
  • Madison E. Clubb- Bachelor of Arts
  • Peter McNulty Clyne- Bachelor of Science
  • Carson Brent Cooley- Bachelor of Science,  magna cum laude
  • Jared Alexander Cordova- Bachelor of Science
  • Harry Dodd Crutcher, Jr.- Bachelor of Science,  cum laude
  • Carl Lucas Erdmann- Bachelor of Arts
  • 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
  • Sarah Louise Martin- 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
  • Robert Warren Seeds- Bachelor of Science
  • Jorge Baunner Soto-Ventura- Bachelor of Arts
  • Nicholas Ransom Steinert- Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude
  • Robert Taylor Tucker- Bachelor of Science, cum laude
  • Virginia Slater Weston- Bachelor of Science
  • 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
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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!

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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/

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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
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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!

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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.

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2021 Computer Science Degrees, Scholarships, Prizes and Awards

Congratulations to the Class of 2021 Computer Science Majors and Minors for their outstanding achievements! They are listed here, as they appear in the Commencement Bulletin.

2021 Graduates:

TEMITOPE ELIZABETH ADEYANJU – Bachelor of Science, cum laude
KUSH ATTAL – Bachelor of Science, Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude
JEFFREY MICHAEL BRADLEY – Bachelor of Science
MICHAEL WILLIAM BROWN – Bachelor of Science, Honors in Geology (Thesis “Estimating Soil Carbon Content of Grazing Lands in Rockbridge County, Virginia, using Statistical and Machine Learning Techniques”)
TRISTAN HENRY CADE – Bachelor of Science
ALEXANDER ALFREDO CAINES – Bachelor of Science
JAY JAEYEON CHOI – Bachelor of Arts
KATIE SUE CONES – Bachelor of Arts, Honors in Mathematics (Thesis: “Bounding Box Sizes and Closure Properties of Spirolateral Graphs generated by Permutations”)
JACOB AIDAN FLOOD – Bachelor of Arts
COLETTA R. FULLER – Bachelor of Arts,  Honors in Computer Science (Thesis: “Evolving Neural Controllers for Micro Aerial Vehicles in Simulation”),  Computer Science Department Award, cum laude.
CALLAN JANE GARST – Bachelor of Science, Honors in Mathematics (Thesis: “It’s a Point, It’s a Line, It’s the Projective Plane:  An Exploration of the Algebraic and Geometric Connections of the Projective Plane”), magna cum laude
ANNJOY MUTHONI GICHANE – Bachelor of Arts
FADY E. GOUDA – Bachelor of Science
ABHI ANANDA JHA – Bachelor of Arts
(TINA) DONGTING JIN – Bachelor of Science, Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude
CORINNE GRACE JOIREMAN – Bachelor of Science, magna cum laude
HANNAH LAURIE JONES – Bachelor of Science
DANIEL AUSTIN KUNTZ – Bachelor of Science
JAMES EDGAR LAWSON – Bachelor of Arts
WILLIAM WYATT MEDICK – Bachelor of Science
ALLIE SMITH MILLER – Bachelor of Science, Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude
SAMUEL WILSON NODEN- Bachelor of Arts
GRIFFIN WILLIAM NOE – Bachelor of Arts
WILLIAM HARRISON PINKERTON – Bachelor of Arts
MARGARET GRACE ROQUEMORE – Bachelor of Science
JOHN NICHOLAS ST. PIERRE – Bachelor of Science, cum laude
UTKRIST PRATAP THAPA – Bachelor of Science
ANDREW TOSTEN THOMPSON – Bachelor of Science, cum laude
ALEXANDRA ROTH WAGNER – Bachelor of Arts

Fellowships Received

ANA ESTRADA HAMM, ’22 – Boren Scholarship (scholarship for language study abroad)

Scholarships, Awards and Prizes

(ALYSSA) TRANG THUY VU ,’22 – The James D. Davidson Memorial Fund Scholarship, The James McDowell Scholarship
KUSH ATTAL ,’21 – The Mapleson Award
MICHAEL WILLIAM BROWN, ’21 – The Henry Ruffner Scholarship, The Lena T.  Stevens Scholarship in Geology
KATIE SUE CONES, ’21 – The Classical Association of the Middle West and South (CAMWS) Award
LAURIE A. LEE, ’22 – The Catherine Houston Campbell Scholarship in English Literature
SAMUEL THOMAS BLUESTONE, ’22 – The Jewish Learning Fellowship
ELYSSA M. MCMASTER, ’22 – The Jewish Learning Fellowship
DANIEL AUSTIN KUNTZ, ’21 – The Williams Prize in Mathematics
COLETTA R. FULLER ’21 – The Washington and Lee University Orchestra Award, The Computer Science Department Award
PRAISE D. APATA, ’23 – The Douglas C. Halstead Memorial Scholarship

 

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2021 PBK initiates from the Computer Science Department

Following are the Computer Science student inductees from the Class of 2021 and 2022 for Phi Beta Kappa/Society of the Cincinnati:

  • Allison Miller ’21
  • Merrina Lan ’22
  • Alyssa Vu ’22

CONGRATULATIONS!

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Professor Matthews wins Best Paper Award

Liz Matthews, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at W&L, was selected for the  Outstanding Paper Award  at the 13th International Conference on Game and Entertainment Technologies.  The paper, which was co-authored by Juan Gilbert (University of Florida) is entitled “ATLAS CHRONICLE: DEVELOPMENT AND VERIFICATION OF A SYSTEM FOR PROCEDURAL GENERATION OF STORY-DRIVEN GAMES”.
The Conference Committee, taking into account the blind review process, considers this paper of the highest standard.

Please click on the link to learn more…

https://www.gaming-conf.org/oldconferences/2020/

Additionally, because Professor Matthews won best paper, she got to extend the paper and publish in this journal:

http://www.iadisportal.org/ijcsis/

Congratulations, Professor Matthews!

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2020 Computer Science Degrees, Scholarships, Prizes and Awards

Congratulations to the Class of 2020 Computer Science Majors and Minors for their outstanding achievements!

2020 Graduates:

KELLY ANNE AMAR (’20) – Bachelor of Arts
GEORGE BERNARD BARKER (’20) – Bachelor of Science, Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude
LOGAN McCRAY BRAND (’20) – Bachelor of Science
ROBERT COOPER BREITHAUPT (’20) –
JOSEPH LEO CALIHAN III (’20) – Bachelor of Science
MADUBUKO DEBERECHI CHIEDOZIE (’20) – Bachelor of Arts
WILL HARRIS CLARK(’20) – Bachelor of Arts , cum laude
RYAN NICOLAS COMPOLI (’20) – Bachelor of Science
PHILIP BENJAMIN DAVIS (’20) – Bachelor of Arts
ANGELA VERGARA DELOS REYES (’20) – Bachelor of Arts
MATTHEW MICHAEL DODSON (’20) – Bachelor of Science, cum laude
ZACHARY COLE FRANCIS (’20) – Bachelor of Arts
COLLIN REID GLATZ (’20) – Bachelor of Arts, Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude
EMILY FRANCES HAGEBOECK (’20) – Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude
KATHERINE POTTER HAMILL (’20) – Bachelor of Science, cum laude
JULIO CESAR HIDALGO LOPEZ (’20) – Bachelor of Science
MARSHALL McCALL HOWERTON (’20) – Bachelor of Arts
NGUYEN KHOI KIEU (’20) – Bachelor of Science, cum laude
ALLIE RENEE LEFKOWITZ (’20) – Bachelor of Arts, cum laude
BRIAN M. LEGARTH (’20) – Bachelor of Science
RYAN CAMPBELL LESHER (’20) – Bachelor of Science, Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude
RUINAN LIU (’20) – Bachelor of Science, cum laude
MAXWELL JAMES MASAITIS (’20) – Bachelor of Science, Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude
WILLIAM ALLEN McCANN, JR. (’20) – Bachelor of Science
ABIGAIL KATHLEEN NASON (’20) – Bachelor of Science, Honors in Computer Science, (Thesis: “Generating Enjoyable Playlists Using Music Similarity and the A* Algorithm”), Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude
JUSTIN KAROL PUSZTAY (’20) – Bachelor of Science, cum laude
BETHANY ROSE REITSMA (’20) – Bachelor of Arts, cum laude
EMILY CHRISTINE ROCHE (’20) – Bachelor of Science
MICHAEL GRIFFIN SCOTT (’20) – Bachelor of Science
SHEPHERD MILLS SIMS (’20) – Bachelor of Science
TREVOR WAYNE STALNAKER (’20) – Bachelor of Science, Honors in Computer Science, (Thesis: “Procedural Generation of Metroidvania-Style Levels”), Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude
CHRISTOPHER BOYD SURRAN II (’20) – Bachelor of Science, magna cum laude
ANDREW JAMES DEVITT TAYLOR (’20) – Bachelor of Science
MITCHELL COOPER THOMAS (’20) – Bachelor of Arts, cum laude
JAMES DAVID WILSON (’20) – Bachelor of Science

Scholarships, Awards and Prizes

EMILY FRANCES HAGEBOECK (’20) – William D. McHenry Female Scholar-Athlete Award, Outstanding Women’s Swimming Award

JULIO CESAR HIDALGO LOPEZ (’20) – The James Jinkins Livesay, M.D. Premedical Award

ABIGAIL KATHLEEN NASON (’20) – The Computer Science Department Award

BETHANY ROSE REITSMA (’20) – The Washington and Lee University Orchestra Award, The John and Mimi Elrod Fellowship

ANGELA VERGARA DELOS REYES (’20) – The Studio Thesis Award

EMILY CHRISTINE ROCHE (’20) – Most Valuable Player Award (Women’s Soccer)

TREVOR WAYNE STALNAKER (’20) – The Franklin Society Scholarship, The Computer Science Department Award