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Awards, Jobs, Graduations!

Here are some of the CHCI Faculty and Students with recent awards, honors, graduations and new jobs -- congratulations to all!

Undergraduate Students

Paul Blackburn graduated May 15 with a degree in Computer Science. He conducted research in Kurt Luther’s Crowd Intelligence Lab. He will be starting a new job as an Associate Software Developer at Card Isle. 

Xavier Pleimling graduated May 15 with degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics. He conducted research with CHCI faculty members Ed Gitre and Kurt Luther. He will be starting his Ph.D. in Computer Science at Virginia Tech in the fall.

Design Awards to Undergraduate Students in the School of Visual Arts (SOVA):

American Advertising Federation, Regional ADDY Awards:

- Best of Show for Able, by Charlotte Cannon
- Gold ADDY for Able, by Charlotte Cannon
- Gold ADDY for Prime Cuts Record Co., by Adam Caporuscio
- Silver ADDY for Nike Airmax 720 ISPA Campaign, by Adam Caporuscio and Teresa Bliss

Indigo International Design Awards:

- Gold in Illustration for Type Hike /Skyline Drive by Adam Caporuscio
- Gold in Mixed Media/Moving Image/A Burning “Designer” by Amy Borg

Graduate Students

The Graduate School recently recognized masters and doctoral degree students from across VT programs and campuses for their work, honoring them with awards of excellence; among these are two CHCI affiliated students (CHCI faculty advisors in bold):

Nayara De Oliveira Faria, honored not only as the Outstanding master’s degree student for the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, but also the 2020 Outstanding Master’s Student for the College of Engineering (Advisor, Joe Gabbard). She has also been awarded the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering Gilbreth Memorial Fellowship for the 2020-21 academic year.

Johnson Olayiwola was honored as the 2020 Outstanding doctoral degree student for the College of Architecture and Urban Studies (Advisor, Abiola Akanmu). 

Aditya Bharadwaj (Computer Science, PhD) will be graduating in July in Computer Science and will join B12.io as a Research Scientist in August (Advisors: TM Murali and Kurt Luther).

Brennon Bortz recently started designing curricula and lecturing for the software engineering program at Fresno Pacific University and works full-time for Leidos as an architect/engineer.

Tianyi Li (PhD, Computer Science) is graduating this June and will start as Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Loyola University Chicago in August (Advisors: Chris North and Kurt Luther).

Michelle Dowling graduated in May (Computer Science, PhD) and will be starting as Assistant Professor at Grand Valley State University (Michigan) in August (Advisors: Chris North and Mike Horning).

Liuqing Li graduated in May (Computer Science, PhD) and started working (virtually for now) as a Research Scientist for Verizon Media in California (Advisor, Ed Fox).

Updates from CHCI Postdocs

Jacob Thebault-Spieker (@JacobTheSpi) Postdoctoral Associate in Kurt Luther’s Crowd Intelligence Lab, will be joining the University of Wisconsin iSchool as an assistant professor this fall.

Updates from CHCI faculty

Meaghan Dee, School of Visual Arts (SOVA), recent awards:

Kurt Luther, Computer Science, was named a Senior Member of ACM, the professional society for computer science. ACM Senior Member status recognizes the top 25% of ACM Professional Members for their demonstrated excellence in the computing field. https://awards.acm.org/award_winners/luther_C107728

CHCI affiliated faculty and students (in bold) were among 5 project recipients of the Board Choice awards at ICAT Creativity + Innovation Day (organized and hosted by CHCI faculty Ben Knapp, ICAT Director, and Ico Bukvic, C+I Director) on May 4, 2020, featuring a (virtual) panoply of collaborative creations:

  • Time Garden by Zach Duer, Scotty Hardwig, and Charles Nichols
  • Live Action VR by Wallace Lages and Justin Perkinson, and
  • Benthos 360 by Tanner Upthegrove, Matthew Hull, and Justin Perkinson
  • The Virtual Sensory Interfaces Project by Thomas Tucker
  • Behavior of Colors in Watercolor by student Aline de Souza

 ICAT C+I Day was also featured on WDBJ7: https://www.wdbj7.com/content/news/Innovation--570188671.html

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