Brown University's Department of Computer Science has just announced that Qiuhong (Anna) Wei, a Brown CS student in the concurrent Master's program concentrating in Computer Science and Mathematics, a researcher in the Brown Visual Computing and Theoretical Computer Science at Brown groups, and one of the Meta Undergraduate Research Assistants (MURAs) who coordinate undergraduate research, has just won the Norman K. Meyrowitz '81 Award. Named for an alum known for his contributions to the department, the award recognizes exceptionally meritorious service to Brown CS and is accompanied by a cash prize of five hundred dollars.
Anika Bahl, Nathan Benavides-Luu, Nicholas Bottone, Swetabh Changkakoti, Ivery Chen, Jiahua Chen, Jack Cheng, Daniel Cho, Troy Conklin, Benjamin Goff, Mandy He, David Heffren, Dylan Hu, Helen Huang, Hammad Izhar, Mehek Jethani, Anirudh Narsipur, Anna Ohrt, Nishka Pant, Sreehari Rammohan, Joseph Rotella, Shreyas Sundara Raman, Shirley Loayza Sanchez, Anh Truong, Qiuhong (Anna) Wei, Angela Xing, Carolyn Zech, and Conrad Zimmerman have each received the Senior Prize in Computer Science for their academic work as well as their service to Brown CS.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT’s) iQuHACK (Interdisciplinary Quantum Hackathon) is MIT’s annual quantum hackathon that aims to bring students from a diverse set of backgrounds and from high school through early-career professionals to explore improvements and applications of near-term quantum devices. The 2024 iteration of the hackathon was held in early February and offered both an in-person hackathon where participants developed and tested their code on real quantum hardware as well as a virtual hackathon for a larger outreach to further students.
Brown University’s Dean of the Faculty gives out five different awards annually to recognize continued excellence in teaching, and this year, Brown CS and Data Science Institute faculty member Ritambhara Singh has received the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching for a junior faculty member from the physical or life sciences.
Okta Ventures, the venture investment arm of cloud-based identity solutions provider Okta, has recently announced the Identity 25, a list of trailblazers in the burgeoning field of digital identity, and Brown University’s James A. and Julie N. Brown Professor of Computer Science Anna Lysyanskaya is one of the honorees.
The International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR) is a nonprofit scientific organization whose purpose is to further research in cryptology and related fields. Every year at the Real World Crypto Symposium (RWC), they award the Levchin Prize for Real-World Cryptography, which honors major innovations in cryptography that have had a significant impact on the practice of cryptography and its use in real-world systems. Two prizes are awarded each year, and one of this year’s winners is Brown University James A. and Julie N. Brown Professor of Computer Science Anna Lysyanskaya.
The Randy F. Pausch '82 Computer Science Undergraduate Summer Research Award, given this year to Jay Lin to support his work with Brown CS faculty member Amy Greenwald, recognizes strong achievement from undergraduate researchers and offers them the opportunity to continue their work over the summer.
Now in its seventh year, the Brown Venture Prize, given by Brown University’s Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship, awards a total of $50,000 to empower the most advanced entrepreneurial ventures by Brown students. It’s intended to help them accelerate and scale their innovations through funding, critical mentorship, and access to leaders in the Brown entrepreneurial community and beyond. This year, four of the eight honorees, including the first place and second place winners, were teams that included Brown CS students, faculty, or alums.
Held in Orlando, Florida, this week, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Virtual Reality conference (IEEE VR) is widely considered the premier international venue for the presentation of research results in the broad area of virtual reality (VR). The event’s Best Paper Awards are given to approximately the top 1% of total submissions, and new work, “Evaluating Text Reading Speed in VR Scenes and 3D Particle Visualizations”, from Brown CS alum Johannes Novotny and faculty member David Laidlaw, his doctoral advisor, is one of just six winners.
The Fulbright Program’s 2023-2024 year saw Brown University students and alums earn 36 Fulbright scholarships, the second-highest number in the nation. One of them, Bill Marino, is a recent recipient of Brown’s Master of Science in Cybersecurity, a fully online degree program that can be completed from anywhere in the world.
