Outstanding Student Awards

Outstanding Student Awards 2023:

Student	Award	Department
Kelsey Garcia	Outstanding BI Student in Computer Science	Bachelor of Innovation
Joshua Ellison	Outstanding BI Student in Game Design and Development	Bachelor of Innovation
Javier Chacon	Outstanding BI Student in Computer Science Security	Bachelor of Innovation
Patrick Olender	Outstanding Computer Science, BA Student	Computer Science
Deborah Butler	Outstanding Computer Science, BS Student	Computer Science
Wes Robbins	Outstanding Computer Science, MS Student	Computer Science
Jacob Howell	Outstanding Computer Science Games and Media Integration, MS Student	Computer Science
Kathryn Hines	Outstanding Cybersecurity, ME Student	Computer Science
David Schendt	Outstanding Software Engineering, ME Student	Computer Science
Ahmed Bensaoud	Outstanding Computer Science, PhD Student	Computer Science
Steve Cruz	Outstanding Security, PhD Student	Computer Science
Kaylie Maddux	Outstanding Electrical Engineering, BS Student	Electrical and Computer Engineering
Ryan Beckman	Outstanding Electrical Engineering, BS Student	Electrical and Computer Engineering
Nathan Borrego	Outstanding Computer Engineering, BS Student	Electrical and Computer Engineering
Jeremy Graf	Outstanding Electrical Engineering, MS Student	Electrical and Computer Engineering
Dongliang Lu	Outstanding PhD Student	Electrical and Computer Engineering
Brian Roberts	Outstanding Undergraduate Student	Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Austin Craig	Outstanding Undergraduate Student	Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Rebekah Shepherd	Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher	Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Edward Lundberg	Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher	Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Sean Coughenour	Outstanding MS Student	Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Doug Wilcox	Outstanding MS Researcher	Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Emma Schmidt	Outstanding PhD Student	Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Brian Roberts (MAE)	Silver Medal- Engineering	Colorado Engineering Council (CEC) Award
Rebekah Shepherd (MAE)	Certificate of Merit	Colorado Engineering Council (CEC) Award
Kaylee Maddux (ECE)	Certificate of Merit	Colorado Engineering Council (CEC) Award

Outstanding Student Awards 2022:

Student	Award	Faculty Nomination
Keegan Palmore	Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Mathew Matamales	Outstanding UG Researcher
Andy Gibson	Outstanding Masters	Nominating Faculty: Dr. Xin (Cindy) Yee "I am nominating Andrew Gibson for Outstanding Master's student because he is an extremely talented researcher. He is one of the best students I have encountered in my career. He is an independent thinker. He has the ability to propose his own research problems and solutions. He is doing PhD quality work as a Master's student. We are in the process of publishing a couple publications in high impact journals with him for his thesis research."
Daniel Benishek		Nominating Faculty: Dr. Steven Tragesser "Daniel Benishek excels as a student both in the classroom and in independent research endeavors. In the classroom, he is engaged, picks up new concepts easily and completes assignments carefully and accurately.These things are expected of a top student, but it is in his independent projects that Daniel truly stands out as an exceptional student among exceptional students. In the development of an efficient orbital mechanics propagator, Daniel's initiative and ability to research complex theory that was beyond my knowledge base was remarkable. In a relatively short amount of time he was able to synthesize several different theories and corresponding algorithms to develop a accurate efficient tool that is being used by a national aerospace company."
Jared Strutton	Outstanding PhD
Basemah Alshemali	PhD CS	Nominating Faculty: Dr. Jugal Kalita "Basemah Alshemali, from Saudi Arabia, began her study at UCCS in 2015 to pursue a master’s and Ph.D. degrees. She joined Ph.D. in Computer Science degree program in Fall 2017. Her Ph.D. dissertation is entitled " Adversarial Attacks and Defenses in Text Classification". She investigated the robustness of neural network models with discrete input through the lens of adversarial examples. Her dissertation provides sinsights to better understand the dynamics of how NLP models make mistakes on unusual inputs, in order to improve accuracy, increase robustness, and maintain security. She has been a full-time student and taking care of her family, throughout her Ph.D. journey. She had her daughter while she was preparing to defend her dissertation. "
Adam Duby	PhD Security	Nominating Faculty: Dr. Yanyan Zhuang "Adam Duby is an Army Major who is currently teaching at the United States Military Academy (also known as West Point), and recently defended his dissertation in April. He is the first author of three conference papers about his dissertation topic (malware analysis), all of which are considered significant publications by the Computer Science department standard. Adam has been striking a delicate balance between our research efforts, being a full-time employee at West Point, and a dad for his five children. Adam is a student who can work independently. His dedication makes him an excellent collaborator. I would consider him a ‘complete candidate’ in that he can write effectively about his research, speak publicly about findings with technical acuity, and bring others with him on his journey. "
Brent Meyer	ME Cyber	Nominating Faculty: Dr. Gedare Bloom “Brent Meyer is a dedicated, hard-working, and organized student. He is willing to put in the long hours that are often necessary to grasp a complex subject in great depth. Mr. Meyer showed strength especially in team leadership where he excelled in explaining what should be done and how to accomplish the objectives of team-based exercises.”
Matthew Moore	MESE	Nominating Faculty - Dr. Kristen Walcott "I am extremely proud of Matthew Moore for his work in the MESE program. He moved beyond typical software engineering work and explored new areas with which he wasn't very familiar. His project was about creating an artificial neural network to automatically generate hand/mouse movements, like what we do every day when using our computers. He built this framework with the big goal of defeating CAPTCHAS, and he made good progress in that area by defeating a classifier. His perseverance in researching, developing, and completing this work was very admirable, as was his writing. Congratulations, Matt!"
Ronald Jackson	MSCS GMI
Emmanuel Wamuo	MSCS	Nominating Faculty: Dr. Yanyan Zhuang “In the past 2 years, Emmanuel has demonstrated his outstanding problem solving talent for our research project, which requires system level troubleshooting, analysis, and reverse engineering skills. Our project is to understand and investigate the security vulnerabilities of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, like Alexa and Google Home. In less than a year, Emmanuel has found several critical vulnerabilities. Emmanuel had these discoveries independently with minimal advising. His work will provide insights into how these devices should be secured, and inform future research on the protection of our homes. Emmanuel's dedication to teamwork and producing work ahead of deadlines makes him an excellent collaborator. He's also passionate about making security solutions accessible to consumers in low-income homes and his community in Africa.”
Abigail Swenor	BS CS	Nominating Faculty: Dr. Jugal Kalita “Abigail enjoys doing research in natural language processing and will be attending the University of Notre Dame in the fall to pursue a PhD in Computer Science & Engineering. She is passionate about learning and loves to collaborate with other students and help others whenever she can.”
Clayton Barr	BS CS
Nicolas Waggoner	BI CS	Nominating Faculty – Dr. Terrance Boult "Nicholas Waggoner has established a reputation for helping students who are struggling - he volunteers his time and reaches out to those in need. Nic loves UCCS, his family, computer science, and pineapples!"
Harrison Gerber	BI Security	Nominating Faculty - Dr. Gedare Bloom "Harrison Gerber is a keen, meticulous, and diligent student. He is courteous to his peers and always willing to help them to better understand complicated subjects. Mr. Gerber demonstrates strong technical skills and know-how combined with the soft skills that show potential for excellence in future endeavors."
True Levy	BI GDD	Nominating Faculty - Dr. Tim Chamillard "True Levy has done an outstanding job throughout all his course work in the Game Design and Development program. In addition, Dr. Chamillard hired him as a Teaching Assistant for numerous courses, and he did a great job helping the students in those courses understand the course material better. His mastery of game design and development concepts and practical application of those concepts is exceptional."
Dakota Daniger	Outstanding BSEE	Nominating Faculty – Dr. TS Kalkur "Mr. Dakota Daniger has a GPA of 3.987 in BSEE. He has been unanimously voted him as for outstanding student award. He is very diligent in his studies. He is employed at EM Micro design as an engineer. His area of interest is analog circuit design and control systems. He is one of the and sharpest students in his class. He can understand complex concepts in various areas of Electrical Engineering. He is very professional and prompt. He can find solution for any problem we propose. I was fortunate to have in my classes."
Alan Young	Outstanding BSCpE	Nominating Faculty – Dr. Byeong Lee "Alan is one of the excellent students I have met. He is smart, self-organized, professional, and very good at managing multiple tasks. His lab reports are always creative, comprehensive, and analytical. Computer engineering requires to have hardware knowledge and software skills as well. Alan has both capabilities including strong problem-solving techniques. He is a very hard-working student with enthusiasm and passion, and he is eager to learn as many things as possible. I am sure that he will be an excellent engineer/researcher in any software and hardware field after graduation. His GPA is 3.942."
Charlie Penvari	Outstanding DASE	Nominating Faculty – Mr. Bill Michaels "Charlie is an outstanding DASE student who has excelled in both the Data Analytics and Systems Engineering fields within the degree. Further, Charlie has embraced the connection between these two areas as the state-of-the-art moves toward Digital Engineering. Charlie has had the opportunity to demonstrate his expertise in several internships that have garnered him praise for his knowledge and work ethic."
Xiaohong Zhang	Outstanding MSEE	Nominating Faculty: Dr. TS Kalkur "Dr. Zhang already has Ph.D. degree in Material Science and she works as packaging engineer at Keysight technologies. She has outstanding performance in her MSEE program and ECE faculty has appreciated her dedicated learning approach and flawless performance. She has passed MSEE degree with 4.0GPA. She has clear understanding of difficult ECE concepts. She worked on the design and fabrication of filters with thick film technology for her MS project. This work is great to reduce the cost of RF filters in the future. She is great student to be in our MSEE program. She is very methodical in learning ECE topics with strong theoretical concepts. She has a CGPA of 4.0."
Dongliang Lu	Outstanding PhD	Nominating Faculty: Dr. Greg Plett and Dr. Scott Trimboli "Dongliang quickly established himself as a star in our battery research graduate program. He mastered every course he took academically and then launched himself onto one of the most amazing research trajectories we have ever witnessed. Lithium-ion battery modeling is not for timid, yet Dongliang jumped in headfirst and swam for the gold. In our (long) academic careers, we have rarely witnessed someone go so wide and so deep into a topic as did Dongliang. He worked feverishly and almost always over-performed with his monthly research update presentations and beautiful reports. The culmination of his work was a positively epic 444-page dissertation, a record that may stand for the ages. He has set the bar so high, our other graduate students are beginning to sweat."

Outstanding Student Awards 2021:

Student	Award	Faculty Nomination	Department
Aidi "Eddie" Pi	PhD Computer Science	"Aidi "Eddie" Pi joined PhD Computer Science program in Fall 2016. Sponsored by NSF grants, his PhD thesis in title of "Profiling and Improving Performance of Data-Intensive Applications n Cloud Systems" tackles several fundamental problems in troubleshooting and resource scheduling in distributed cloud systems. He designed a tool in collecting both logs and resource metrics of data-intensive applications to facilitate troubleshooting process, and further designed a log analysis tool that can extract semantic meaning from logs and automatically report potential anomalies. Upon those tools, he designed and developed middleware approaches that leverage hardware event counters to identify Hyper-threading interference and dynamically adjust CPU & memory allocations for efficient multi-tenant cloud computing. His research has resulted seven publications in flagship ACM conferences as well as IEEE Transactions. He will join Facebook in June 2021." - Dr. Zhou	Computer Science
Henry Collier	PhD Security	"Henry Collier is working on Social Engineering studies based on Human Behaviors, which is a very unique area and may have a lot of impact. He is managing the Cyber Security program at Norwich." - Edward Chow	Computer Science
Brandon Archuleta	MSCS	"He was in my 1450 class and a great student who was always smiling! He has such a great outlook even when things are tough - he just keeps smiling! He also taught the 1150 class in the Fall 2020 - he was open to input and suggestions. Overall, great student, great human being!" - Mickey Gonzalez "Brandon not only possesses a deep interest in research and learning, but he is also able to apply his research interests to practical problems. In the couple of years I have known Brandon, I have been impressed by his dedication and desire to identify and solve pressing quantitative problems. Brandon’s passions are every changing and include machine learning, application development, and data science. I have come to know Brandon to be a hardworking and creative individual with a focus on applying science and mathematics to entrepreneurial pursuits." - Yanyan Zhuang	Computer Science
Javier Benedicto Serrano	MSCS - GMI	"Javier Benedicto Serrano is a fantastic student and has provided some outstanding work on wearable computing with deep learning. He has been a pleasure to have in class." - Semwal	Computer Science
Cassandra Putman	ME Cybersecurity	"Cassandra did a great job on her work in the class she took with me. She was engaged, and did a phenomenal job of trying to help younger students, not just helping herself, which I felt was very commendable." "Cassandra Putman is a great student and did a great job on her own work, but spent time providing younger students with assistance and feedback, which is very commendable." - Edward Chow	Computer Science
Joseph Mazzocco	BSCS	"Joseph Mazzocco excelled as a student, always making complex material look easy. He regularly sought extra time with his professors to discuss the deeper nuances of course topics, and always treated those around him with professionalism and respect. Joseph completed a research independent study with the Decision Science and Control lab exploring a new paradox in transportation engineering. Since graduation, he has been working as a software engineer with Northrop Grumman in Colorado Springs." - Philip Brown	Computer Science
Galen Atkinson	BI GDD	"Galen Atkinson – He did a great job in his course work within the GDD program. Galen has also worked with Dr. Wortman and Dr. Calvisi, in an Educational game that is used to understand how Micro Bubbles can destroy cancer. He always goes above and beyond whether that is assisting classmates, working on research, or taking on additional tasks." - Tim Chamillard	Computer Science
Jonathan Schwan	BI Computer Science	"Jonathan Schwan is a phenomenal student, he is applying to our PhD program, and is participating in a NASA internship this summer. He continues to contribute to the world of Computer Science by writing research papers. Jono is an Olympic contender as well, and is able to balance work, school, and extracurricular activities." - Terry Boult	Computer Science
Brian Yee	BI Security	"Even as a freshman Brian Yee was an engaged student working with faculty to improve skills and has maintained a great GPA at UCCS while working outside campus. " - Terry Boult	Computer Science
Vanessa Roybal	Outstanding Undergraduate	"I nominated Vanessa because she is innately curious, a hard worker, and is not afraid to push past her understanding of a subject. She completed an independent study with me to investigate the use of dynamic mechanical analysis on macromolecular laminate stress relaxation and every time I met with her, she had more insightful questions. Vanessa is self-motivated and incredibly intelligent!" - Jena McCollum	Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Joseph Day	Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher	"Joseph has shown that he is a highly capable researcher performing detailed experimental studies both at UCCS and the Aeronautics Lab at the USAFA. Specifically, he has performed experiments to measure the nonlinear acoustic damping due to a single baffle blade in a simulated rocket engine and measure the liquid spray atomization for a mono-propellent, pintle injector. In addition, Joseph has demonstrated that he is also able to perform detailed calculations and run simulation to further the graduate-level research." - Dr. Quinlan	Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Pau Saldana Baque	Outstanding M.S. Student	"I nominated Pau because, despite a global pandemic, he managed to gather incredibly meaningful results and dove into the phenomenological challenges associates with a typically chemistry-driven field. Every time we spoke, he came prepared with pinpointed questions that showed how far he had combed through the literature beyond what I had requested. His thesis was exquisitely written and English is his second language! He is currently preparing his work for publication in the American Chemical Society Applied Materials and Interfaces (a very high impact journal). On top of that, he managed to finish his M.S. classes with a 4.0 GPA. Pau exemplifies the high quality student that I hope continues to pour through our program." - Jena McCollum	Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Jordan Pattee	BSEE Outstanding Undergraduate Student		Electrical and Computer Engineering
Ethan David Blagg	BSCpE Outstanding Student	"Ethan Blagg pursued his BSCPE degree at UCCS with a GPA of 3.991. He was a great student in the BSCpE program. All the faculty were appreciative of his intelligence, dedication to pursue knowledge in the area of Computer Engineering. He is presently employed at Keysight Technologies, Colorado Springs. He keeps good relationship with his former friends at UCCS. These relationships have helped to keep him motivated to complete his degree on time. He is grateful to awesome professors he had at UCCS." - Dr. Kalkur	Electrical and Computer Engineering
Ayana Rodgers	BSDASE Outstanding Student		Electrical and Computer Engineering
Marina Villaba	Outstanding MSEE Student		Electrical and Computer Engineering
Anne Madsen	Outstanding Ph.D. Student	"I am so proud to nominate and present this “Outstanding PhD Student Award” to my best and my first female PhD student Dr. Anne Madsen. As soon as I joined UCCS in August 2014, I met Anne in my first class. She was taking my Embedded Systems Design course in Fall 2014. Next semester, she joined my research group as one of my first PhD students. I was so happy to have Anne in my research group, because of her exemplary performance in my courses, her unwavering dedication to research, her integrity, and her humble and courteous attitude. These words are not enough to describe all the outstanding qualities of Anne. Apart from her exemplary character, Anne’s academic performance has been outstanding in many ways. She graduated with 4 publications (3 journals and 1 conference papers). This is indeed outstanding not only from our ECE Department perspective but also from EAS collage perspective. She also helped me immensely with my embedded systems design course, by helping to design new labs and working as a TA for several years. Anne never hesitated to help my other graduate students with their research and experiments, as well as undergraduate students with their lab and design issues. Anne helped me tremendously to explore new research directions, especially research on “embedded architectures for model predictive control for battery management systems in electric vehicles”. We worked with Dr. Trimboli for this research. Currently, we are discussing with Ford, who is interested in funding this research. I have very high expectations from my graduate students, especially from my PhD students. I am proud to say that Anne has exceeded my expectations. She has been working full time and taking care of her family, throughout her PhD journey. Anne is currently working for the Space Command at the Air Force Research Lab in Colorado Springs. Finally, I would like to thank Anne for joining my research group, and being part of our research journey at UCCS. I wish her all the best in her future endeavors." - Dr. Darshika Perera	Electrical and Computer Engineering

Outstanding Student Awards 2020:

Student	Award	Faculty Nomination	Department
Madison Zainhofsky	Bachelor of Science in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering	"When calls went out to the MAE faculty to identify who we wanted to honor as our Outstanding Undergraduate Student from this year’s graduating class, the first name that came in was Maddie Z, and that was quickly echoed over and over again as other faculty weighed in. Comments focused on her excellent performance in courses and her work ethic, but also on the fact that she accomplished all that she did “with a smile”. She has also demonstrated great leadership in her Senior Design project team and has proven to be a gifted mentor and tutor in the MAE Excel Affiliate Center. Maddie is a treat to have in the program and an easy choice for Outstanding Undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering. Congratulations, Maddie!" - Peter Gorder	Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Tankred Steinbach	Undergraduate Researcher in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering	"Tankred Steinbach has been working on USAFA projects since summer of 2019. One project is CFD simulation on a helicopter landing on a warship, the other is regarding the interaction between wing and propellers. He really is a fast learner, within a few months, he has learned HPC Linux system, meshing tools, DOD CFD solver, and post-processing tools. He is now very proficient in simulating practical and complex aerodynamic problems. He is also a top soccer player at UCCS, won several athlete awards in the past three years. He will start his career at Lockheed this summer." - Hui Wan	Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Lluis Umbert	Master of Science in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering	"Lluis is the last (and maybe best, but don't let that get out) in a line of amazing students coming to UCCS from the aerospace program in Barcelona's polytechnical school through the Balsells Graduate Fellowship program. For years, I've had a perfect homework solution to distribute just by scanning in their work. Amazing technical abilities and amazing people with a passion for engineering and life. Lluis' thesis is publishable quality and his writing style and organization is superior to most of our English-speaking students. It has been a pleasure working with him. He'd be my top choice for a graduate student clone army." - Dr. Steve Tragesser	Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Fathia Arifi	PhD in Engineering – Mechanical Engineering	"Fathia has made steady and considerable progress and growth over the last several years as a PhD student and as a graduate research assistant. She has shown remarkable persistence in overcoming numerous challenges that include being an international student and coping with language and cultural differences, raising a young family, and having to care for family in her home country of Libya, which has been beset by political instability and civil war. To conduct her PhD research, she has demonstrated the ability to learn new topics that are beyond the scope of her formal coursework, such as optimal control theory, dynamical systems, and nonlinear solid mechanics. She has also proven to be one of the best and most requested TAs in the department. She is planning to defend her dissertation in Fall 2020." - Michael Calvisi	Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Emily Moore	Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering	"Great engineers are not just great students, although that’s important. Emily Moore is a great student—one of our best. She uses her gifts wisely—working hard to learn new material, asking questions when she needs to understand details better, helping her peers learn the material, and helping her teachers teach the students following in her steps. Emily’s curious, helpful and hard-working ethic coupled with her deep academic background will enable a great career in engineering." - John Lindsey	Electrical and Computer Engineering
Joshua Willis	Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering	"It is my pleasure to present this “Outstanding Computer Engineering Student Award” to Josh Willis. Josh took two of my courses: “Advanced Digital Design Methodology” and “Embedded Systems Design”, in Fall 2019. He was one of the best students in both my classes. He managed to complete the required course work and the labs with minimum guidance. Josh is very inquisitive, studious, and a fast-learner. His performance throughout my courses was excellent. Josh will be graduating this Spring. However, he will be coming back to pursue graduate studies in embedded and digital systems in our department. His interest to pursue graduate studies in these areas heightened, after he took my courses. I believe Josh has the potential to be a very successful engineer. It would be a great pleasure to see him aspire to his personal and professional goals. I am looking forward to mentoring him during his graduate studies in our department." - Dr. Darshika G. Perera	Electrical and Computer Engineering
Aloisio Henrique Kawakita de Souza	Master of Science in Electrical Engineering	"Aloisio began his study at UCCS in 2015 as an undergraduate having recently arrived in the U.S. from his home country of Brazil. He quickly gained the attention of the engineering faculty through his exceptional academic performance. Aloisio independently designed and conducted a complex program of experimentation as a senior undergraduate to investigate the thermal behavior of lithium ion batteries. His interest in battery research brought him back to UCCS to pursue a masters in 2016 where he studied under the mentorship of Profs. Trimboli and Plett to develop a novel predictive control methodology for advanced management of lithium ion batteries. Exhibiting an exceptional enthusiasm for learning and a rare gift for deep understanding, Aloisio produced numerous papers along the way, two of which were published prior to completion of his masters program. Aloisio’s comprehensive research culminated with an impactful thesis that will make important and lasting contributions to the automotive industry." - Scott Trimboli	Electrical and Computer Engineering
Dubari Borah	PhD in Electrical Engineering	"Dubari Borah joined UCCS ECE department in 2017 to pursue Ph.D.. Her dissertation is on " Differential Multiband Adaptive Filters for RF front end" directed by Professor T.S. Kalkur. Her dissertation has resulted in 3 journal papers and 4 refereed conference publications. She was a graduate teaching assistant for 2 years and well appreciated by ECE students and faculty. She is president of UCCS student branch of IEEE and responsible in organizing activities. She was also selected for "Student Achievement" campus award for the year 2019-2020. She has accepted job offer from Qualcom Inc, San Diego., CA." - Dr. Kalkur	Electrical and Computer Engineering
Mathew Pollard	Bachelor of Innovation in Computer Science	"Mathew has been an exemplary BI in CS student. Not only did he master his computer science courses well enough to graduate with honors, he also showed that he could work with and lead a multi-disciplinary team of students design and delivering quality software that adds significant value for a client. In his INOV4010 class, he led a team where he was the only CS major to design and deliver a new short-answer scoring system for a Colorado Springs client, Braintz, that is transforming how video-based education is used. An example of reaching across to other fields, Mathew was able to get an education major on the team to not only provide feedback on content but to help in UI design and feedback. He led the game's majors in the complex linear algebra needed for latent semantic analysis, all while assisting them in learning a new language (python) and new tools/environment." - Terry Boult	Computer Science
Thayer Shepherd	Bachelor of Innovation in Computer Science Security	"Thayer Shepherd has been an excellent BI in Security students showing both substantial advances in software and cybersecurity skills while working with multi-teams. His performance on a particular client project doing web dev was so exceptional the client talks about it every time I see them, even years later. That is the kind of impact we hope to see our students make in our community." - Terry Boult	Computer Science
Sam Layton	Bachelor of Innovation in Game Design and Development	"Sam Layton has done an incredible job as a GDD student. He has consistently excelled in the course work in the program, and this semester he developed one of the best capstone games in the history of that course. He has also been a TA for Dr. Chamillard for several years, and he's done a great job in that role, helping GDD students in the first few years of the degree learn how to start becoming game developers." - Dr. Tim Chamillard	Computer Science
Brandon Collins	Bachelor of Science in Computer Science	"Brandon Collins has been an outstanding student in the BSCS program at UCCS; he mastered his classes, served as president of the UCCS ping-pong club, and worked as a PASS leader in the math department. On top of this, he has been active in computer science research since 2018, and his first research paper is scheduled to be published this summer on the topic of how to prevent adversaries from manipulating social networks. Brandon has an uncommon combination of creativity and self-motivation that serves him well in pursuit of his goals. He is always quick with an insightful question and works with dedication. We are pleased that Brandon plans to continue his studies and research in graduate school at UCCS!" - Phillip Brown	Computer Science
Andreas Solvacek	Master of Science in Computer Science	"Andreas Slovacek is graduating from the Master of Science in Computer Science program at UCCS. He is also a scholar in the inaugural Colorado-Washington Security Scholars Program (CWSSP) and the first to graduate from the scholarship program. Always with a positive can-do attitude, Andreas has been tremendous in working with and helping his peers and contributing to the programs he was a part of. He also researches in cybersecurity, wireless, and cyber-physical systems and uses software-defined radios for his research. Andreas has a bright future and a career ahead of him, and we look forward to his continued success beyond UCCS. Congratulations, Andreas!" - Sang-Yoon Chang	Computer Science
Guillem Tirado	Master of Science in Computer Science	"Guillem is part of Balsells UCCS scholars who joined UCCS. His MS Thesis involves using drones for identifying parking lot spots. I am most fortunate to work with students who can take ideas and run with it. His thesis implements novel drone navigation technique involving Neural Networks to identify empty parking spots and guide parking customer to those spots interactively. Technically solid and merging the best from several disciplines: VR, Image processing, ANNs, mobile devices is not an easy task yet the speed with which technology was implemented is outstanding including the GMI portfolio. MSCS(GMI) program, therefore, is proud to nominate Guillem to CS Faculty as their outstanding student." - SK Semwal	Computer Science
Lida Fallahian	Master of Engineering in Software Engineering	"Lida is an exceptional student who graduated with a MESE in December 2019. During her time in the program, she also worked full time as a software engineer, and she happily brought her knowledge and experience from work to the classroom, which stimulated many conversations. Lida did research in the analysis and visualization of user ratings in iOS and Android application datasets. She also completed a portfolio reflecting on her software engineering experiences in the workplace. Her enthusiasm, strong work ethic, and perseverance will carry her far." - Kristen Walcott	Computer Science
Shaoqi Wang	PhD in Computer Science	"Shaoqi Wang joined PhD in Computer Science degree program in Fall 2015. His PhD research was conducted in Distributed, Sustainable and Cloud Computing Systems (DISCO) Lab. His thesis, entitled "Toward Scalable Distributed Machine Learning on Data-Parallel Clusters", designs and develops novel synchronization, parameter server framework optimization, and multi-GPU scheduling approaches, which optimize the popular data-parallel computing frameworks to achieve scalable distributed machine learning. The approaches are implemented in several open-source distributed machine/deep learning frameworks. His research outcomes were presented and published in AAAI 2009, IEEE INFOCOM 2019, IEEE IPDPS 2018, ACM HPDC 2019, ACM Middleware 2018-19, ACM SoCC 2019, and IEEE Trans. on Parallel and Distributed Systems 2019. As a senior PhD candidate, he also helps and co-mentors junior graduate students in the lab." - Xiaobo "Charles" Zhou	Computer Science
Oluwatobi Akanbi	PhD in Security	"Oluwatobi Akanbi joined PhD in Security degree program in Fall 2016. His PhD research was conducted in Distributed, Sustainable and Cloud Computing Systems (DISCO) Lab. His thesis, entitled "A Novel Network Orchestration Layer for SDN: Fine-Grain Control and Security", introduces a novel logical layer to the existing Software-Defined Networking (SDN) architecture and makes significant contributions in fine-grained and secure control of resource management that drives the current architecture to high-performance standards with core network application abstractions. The abstraction of such functionality reduces the complexity of the control plane and simplifies the development and integration of core network applications previously enabled via middleboxes. His research outcomes were presented and published in IEEE LCN 2018 & 2019, IEEE CCNC 2019, and IEEE Access 2019. He is the president of UCCS Lions Cybersecurity Club and the national society of leadership and success (NSLS), Colorado Spring chapter." - Xiaobo "Charles" Zhou	Computer Science
Bryce George	Outstanding Student in Data Analytics and Systems Engineering	“It is an honor to recognize Bryce George as the winner of the “Outstanding DASE Student Award.” When Bryce was a Freshman in “Introduction to Programming,” I was struck by his diligence, intelligence and humility. Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of becoming better acquainted with Bryce on campus and in additional classes. My initial impression was correct: Bryce has distinguished himself as an intelligent, motivated, and dedicated student. This semester, I’ve been impressed with Bryce’s calm demeanor, agile intellect and ability to help other students understand difficult concepts. He has provided excellent insight and recommendations for improving the nascent DASE curriculum. Although still an undergraduate, Bryce has started his career in engineering, working as a Software Engineer at Eclypses Incorporated. We can be confident that Bryce will continue to impress those around him at work and in his future studies." - Bill Michaels	DASE