Check out our very own Drew Kimberly ’14, taking it to the hole. This is the 11th –seeded W&L’s 77-70 win over 3rd-seeded Guilford College, in the semifinals of the ODAC men’s basketball tournament, at the Salem Civic Center. 
Valerie Barr of Union College to Speak Dec 11
Valerie Barr, Professor of Computer Science at Union College, will be speaking at the Winter 2013 Fall Academy (Wed, Dec 11 at 12:30 p.m. in the IQ Center) about her experience encouraging faculty across discipines to pursue computing topics in their courses. Her talk is entitled “Blake, Biofuel, and Bribery: Interdisciplinary Applications of Computing”.
W&L’s Sprenkle Selected to Commemorate 60th Anniversary of Graduate Research Fellowship Program
Washington and Lee’s Sara Sprenkle, associate professor of computer science, is one of 60 people profiled to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP).
W&L Alumnus Quoted in the News
Computer Science alumnus Sam Reed ’10 interviewed in the NBC News article “Open-source advocates to government: Let us help you fix healthcare.gov.” Also, see the story on W&L’s news blog.
Programming Teams Win at Longwood Competition
Six members of the W&L Programming Club excelled at the annual Longwood Programming Competition, held October 19. The two teams of three placed second and third out of 10 teams competing.
Team ArrayList, which placed second, included senior Richard Marmorstein ’14 and two first-years, Lauren Revere ’17 and Jamie White ’17. Team UnlimitedCodeWorks placed third and included senior Garrett Koller ’14 and third-years Onye Ekenta ’15 and Samantha O’Dell ’15.
Lauren Revere ’17, Jamie White ’17.
In such competitions, teams try to solve as many of the programming problems as possible in the least amount of time, fuelled by doughnuts and caffeine. A solution consists of code that correctly executes for all possible correctly formatted inputs. Both teams solved five of the seven possible problems. Longwood seniors Nick Pastore, Richie Noble, and first-year Andrew Brogan placed first in the contest.
The Programming Club at Washington and Lee is led by Alex Baca ’14. The Club is now preparing for the imminent ACM Regionals competition, which will be held nationally at many sites on November 2. Go Generals!
W&L Students, Faculty, and Alumna Attend Grace Hopper 2013
Three W&L students, one faculty member, and one alumna attended the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The conference was the largest in GHC’s history with over 4800 attendees!
Sam O’Dell ’15 and Cory Walker ’15 were awarded scholarships to attend the conference. Ginny Huang ’14 was waitlisted for a scholarship, but W&L provided some funding to help defray the cost for her attending. All three students had interviews with a variety of companies at the conference and were inspired and learned a lot from the various sessions.
Alumna Camille Cobb ’12–now a graduate student at the University of Washington–attended the conference through a scholarship that she earned as a Google intern this past summer.
The first time attending the conference is always an amazing experience–just ask Huang, who said, “I think the two best things about the conference are that 1) You get access to a lot of Computer Science opportunities! I always know that there is a great need for programmers in the market, but I never got a lot of actual access to companies that are looking for them and 2) I love all those gifts! My advice for people who attend in the future is only bring one shirt in your luggage to attend the first day of the conference. Grab the rest in the conference! It’s a good way to reduce the weight you’re carrying.”
The second time attending isn’t too shabby either, according to O’Dell, “Going to Grace Hopper again this year was absolutely incredible. I loved going to the sessions and learning about the industry I hope to work in when I graduate. In addition, I had the chance to interview with a few companies at the conference and was fortunate enough to come away with an internship for next summer. The conference is definitely a great experience and full of opportunities for women hoping to go into computer science after they graduate.”
Photo Courtesy: Anita Borg Institute
Professor Sara Sprenkle served as the co-chair of the poster session with Kaoutar El Maghraoui from IBM. Their work included organizing the Student Research Competition, which involved 28 student participants–6 of whom became semi-finalists and presented their work in another session–and over 30 judges. Sara and Kaoutar were quite pleased with the quality of the posters and presentations and the feedback the judges gave the students.
Walker summarized the experience: “The GHC offers the unique experience of having thousands of experienced women in technology gathered in one place, all willing to share their experiences and advice with one another. The opportunity to learn from technical women of all different backgrounds was to me the most worthwhile part of the Celebration.”
Student-Designed Web App Helps W&L Students Plan Course Schedules
Thanks to (from left to right) Richard Marmorstein ’14, Alex Baca ’14, Alicia Bargar ’13 and Phil Lisovicz ’13, Washington and Lee University students have a new web application designed to make their schedule planning easier. Corsola: Scheduling Your Life allows students to choose their preferred courses and view potential schedule conflicts. Click here to read more… http://news.blogs.wlu.edu/2013/09/12/new-corsola-web-application-helps-wl-students-plan-course-schedules/
W&L Faculty to Present Collaborative Project at LAWDI Institute
Rebecca Benefiel, associate professor of classics at Washington and Lee University, and Sara Sprenkle, assistant professor of computer science at W&L, will present their prototype of a new web application involving the ancient graffiti of Pompeii at the Linked Ancient World Data Institute (LAWDI) later this month
http://news.blogs.wlu.edu/2013/05/20/wl-faculty-to-present-collaborative-project-at-lawdi-institute/
Graduates, Scholarships, Awards, and Prizes 2013
Congratulations to all our computer science majors and minors for their outstanding work and efforts this academic year.
Graduates:
Majors
Alicia M. Bargar
Lee A. Davis
Paul Nguyen
Shannon L. McGovern
Phillip A. Lisovicz
Minors
Amy E. Clayton
Orrin H. Ingram
Ian L. Lenora
Scholarships, Awards, and Prizes
Computer Science major, Alicia M. Bargar ’13, was awarded the 2013 Computer Science Departmental Award. This prize is given annually to a Computer Science major who demonstrates academic excellence. Alicia also graduated cum laude.
Computer Science major, Oliver Mahame ’14, was awarded The James McDowell Scholarship. The James McDowell Scholarship endowed by Mrs. Mary B. Ross in memory of her father, James McDowell, former Governor of Virginia, is conferred upon an undergraduate. The award is based on the student’s record during the previous two years here at W&L.
Richard J. Marmorstein ’14, Economics, and Computer Science major was awarded The Edwin Claybrook Griffith Scholarship in Economics. This scholarship is given annually to an economics major who demonstrates academic excellence and leadership in student activities.
Wenda Tu ’14, Computer Science minor won The Williams Prize in Mathematics. The Williams Prize in Mathematics, in honor of Dr. Charles W. Williams (emeritus Professor of Mathematics), is conferred upon the junior mathematics major who has the highest grade-point average in mathematics and who plans to attend graduate school in mathematics.
W&L Robots Rock the Spring Term Fair
Twenty-three students from CSCI 250 presented six different projects at the annual W&L Spring Term Fair in Leyburn Library — so many projects that they were given their own floor of the library for the demos! W&L innovations included using Python to fly an AR.Drone via Kinect hand gestures and to navigate a Neato XV-11 LIDAR robot around an obstacle, as well as the cool projects depicted below (Steve Goryl photo credits).
Deirdre and Haley used a Raspberry Pi to add sonar capability to their Brookstone Rover ‘bot.
Sam, Drew, Jok, and Darren built and programmed a robotic arm.
Michael, Stephen, and Hank built an R/C plane with remote pan-tilt camera and laptop controller.
Lee, James, and Colin programmed an AR.Drone to follow a moving ground vehicle.