2022 Undergraduate Awards

2022 picture

Congratulations to all recipients of the 2022 undergraduate student awards.

Alex Vasilos Memorial Award 

Awarded to a graduating senior who completes an outstanding research project whose results should be published or of publishable quality with the intent to publish. In addition, this senior should have done excellent work in all computer science courses with a recognized joy of and appreciation for computer science as a discipline of study. Three students received this award.

  • Xinyu Tan
    For superior research contributions in quantum benchmarking and power spectral density of constrained codes, and for passion and leadership in co-founding an undergraduate society in quantum computing.
     
  • Jerry Weihong Liu
    For outstanding research contributions in facial super resolution and metaphor detection from short phrases.
     
  • Andy Zhang
    For first-rate research contributions in computing continuous distributions to represent protein flexibility, and developing software to make protein design accessible for novices.
     

Rebecca DeNardis Memorial Award 

Awarded to a graduating senior major who has contributed significantly to maintaining and building excellence in the undergraduate program. The winner should have gone beyond what is expected and excelled in both support of the program and in coursework. Five students received this award.

  • Daniel Hwang
    For outstanding contributions, stellar leadership and intense dedication to the undergraduate program as an undergraduate teaching assistant, including contributions to the auto-grader, teaching, and curricular development.
     
  • Jessie Ou
    For leadership and outstanding contributions as president and director of diversity and inclusion for an undergraduate machine learning society, including dedication in organizing a successful datathon event.
     
  • Abbey Grace List
    For excellence as an undergraduate teaching assistant, and outstanding research on employing neural language models and a bayesian hierarchical framework for classification and engagement analysis of misinformation on social media.
     
  • Brandon A. Lindsey
    For his leadership and outstanding contributions as an undergraduate teaching assistant, including managing the autograder, teaching, and lightning fast responses to student questions.
     
  • Bianca Emilia Saputra
    For her steller leadership and contributions as an undergraduate teaching assistant, and for her contributions toward computer science education research in analyzing formative assessments for introductory computer science students.
     

Undergraduate Senior Thesis Projects 

Graduation with Distinction is awarded to students who complete a substantial project that consists of at least one year’s work, including an independent study under the guidance of a faculty member. The project represents a significant intellectual endeavor and requires a presentation made to a committee of three faculty members.

Graduation with Highest Distinction

Xinyu (Norah) Tan, Advisor: Robert Calderbank – “Power Spectra of Constrained Codes With Level-Based Signaling”

Graduation with High Distinction

Anni Chen, Advisor: Bhuwan Dhingra – “Understanding the Role of Context in Propaganda Method Detection”

Hojung Kwon, Advisor: Maria Gorlatova – “AR-Based Labeling for DNN Fine-Tuning”

Abbey Grace List, Advisor: Sam Wiseman – “Employing Neural Language Models and A Bayesian Hierarchical Framework for Classification and Engagement Analysis of Misinformation on Social Media”

Graduation with Distinction

Bianca Emilia Saputra, Advisor: Kristin Stephens-Martinez – “What CS1 Formative Assessments Tell Us: Characterizing Performance on Multiple-choice, Code-tracing Questions”

Sadhana Suryadevara, Advisor: Kristin Stephens-Martinez – “Analyzing Office Hours Through the Lens of Gender and the Problem-Solving Process”

 

Awardees

Duke Computer Science students who graduated with undergraduate awards and distinction: