Students, Faculty Finish the Year Strong with Awards Ceremonies

Georgia Tech’s School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) is concluding the Spring 2022 semester on a high note with many students, faculty, staff, and alumni receiving awards and accolades.

By earning awards at the College, Institute, and levels beyond, the School of CSE continues to distinguish itself as a top-tier school for research and learning.

“CSE is honored to be recognized by our peers in the College of Computing for the work that we do and for striving for excellence,” said Edmond Chow, School of CSE associate professor and associate chair. “The award winners and CSE have much to be proud of and to celebrate.”

The College of Computing recognized numerous School of CSE students, faculty and staff at its 31st Annual Awards Celebration on April 21. Awardees included:

• CSE Ph.D. student Gaurav Verma- Rising Star Doctoral Student Research Award
• CSE M.S. student Shoale Badr- Donald V. Jackson Fellowship Award
• CSE M.S. student Pengda Xie- Marshall D. Williamson Fellowship Award
• CSE Professor Richard Vuduc- Outstanding Senior Faculty Research Award
• CSE Associate Professor Polo Chau- Outstanding Mid-Career Faculty Research Award
• CSE Assistant Professor Srijan Kumar- Outstanding Junior Faculty Research Award
• CSE Regents’ Professor and Chair Haesun Park- Outstanding Faculty Leadership Award
• School Administrative Officer Arlene Washington-Capers- Outstanding Staff Mentoring Award
• Research Operations Program Manager Holly Rush- Outstanding Staff Leadership Award
• Academic Program Coordinator Nirvana Edwards- Acknowledgement 10 Years of Service

Among other accolades, Fred Hohman, M.S. CSE 2018, Ph.D. CSE 2020, received the 2022 Outstanding Dissertation Award from ACM SIGCHI for his work Interactive Scalable Interfaces for Machine Learning Interpretability. Hohman’s dissertation, which was supported by a NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship, also earned him a dissertation award at the College’s award celebration.

Georgia Tech’s Center of Teaching and Learning (CTL) recognized four School of CSE students at its Teaching Assistant and Future Faculty Awards Day on April 20.

CSE Ph.D. student Ruijia Wang received a Graduate Teaching Assistant of the Year Award while Kevin Li, an undergraduate student majoring in computer science, received an Undergraduate Teaching Assistant of the Year Award.

Also, CSE Postdoctoral Fellow Nimisha Roy received a Graduate Student Instructor Award and CSE Ph.D. student Patrick Lavin received a certificate for completing CTL’s Tech to Teaching program.

At the international level, CSE Ph.D. student Alexander Rodriguez was one of only 200 young researchers accepted to the 9th Heidelberg Laureate Forum. The forum brings together rising scholars in mathematics and computer science for a week of scientific exchange in September.

“I'm excited about this opportunity to be inspired by the life, experience, and wisdom of successful senior researchers and energized by my fellow young scholars,” Rodriguez said. “Thanks to the faculty for leading in excellence by being an example and thanks to my colleagues for their guidance and support when I have difficulties.”