Brown CS News

Click the links that follow for more news about the Senior Prize in Computer Science and our award-winning students.

Brown CS has just announced that it will recognize 27 graduating seniors for their achievements at Commencement in May. Michael Ball, Laura Blackstone, Isaiah Brand, Leslie Bresnahan, Jonathan Chemburkar, Joshua Chipman, Loudon Cohen, Grant Fong, Montana Fowler, Alex Fratila, Purvi Goel, Mae Heitmann, Elaine Jiang, Atsunobu Kotani, Zach Kirschenbaum, Benjamin Murphy, Shivam Nadimpalli, Nina Polshakova, Silei Ren, Lucas Rosenblatt, Josh Roy, Sumit Sohani, Chantal Toupin, Chinenye Uduji, Nathan Umbanhowar, Nathaniel Weir, and Alan Yu will each receive the Senior Prize in Computer Science for their academic work as well as their service to Brown CS. It's the largest number of Senior Prizes ever awarded in one year, reflecting both the increased size of the department and the many contributions of these individuals. 

"These are our top students," says Associate Professor (Research) and Vice Chair Tom Doeppner. "As a group, they've done superior work, but we were also very impressed with how generously they were able to give back to the department and their fellow students." 

Montana Fowler will be starting a PhD program at UC Santa Cruz in the Computational Media department. "I discovered my passion for teaching in the Undergraduate TA program at Brown and my passion for research in Daniel Ritchie’s lab," she says. "It’s thanks to Brown’s encouragement for undergraduates to be involved in the department that I discovered my dream to become a professor."

"Brown Computer Science has been everything I could have asked for in an undergraduate education," says Benjamin Murphy. "I’ve gotten to take challenging classes in topics from theory to systems, and have gained a great deal of experience in industry. I’m honored to have won the prize, and to have had the opportunity to give back towards the department even a small portion of what I’ve gained – the department uniquely values undergraduates, and the teaching I’ve received from my peers contributed an incalculable amount to my education. Brown has also given me the confidence to explore outside of computer science, and consequently I will be heading to Google for a couple years after graduation, before matriculating at Harvard Law School to study privacy law."

Isaiah Brand tells us that he's always felt that teaching is instrumental to learning, and Brown CS has consistently enabled him to tutor and collaborate with other students. “I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to design and help teach a robotics course as an undergrad," he says. "Where could an undergrad design a course that has every student build a drone?”

For more information, click the link that follows to contact Brown CS Communication Outreach Specialist Jesse C. Polhemus.