CCIS Associate Dean Doreen Hodgkin accepts the Outstanding Service Award from Northeastern President Joseph E. Aoun and Provost Stephen W. Director, at the Academic Honors Convocation. The convocation is a tradition started 5 years ago which strives to honor outstanding students, faculty, and staff, whose work has had a deep impact in its respective field. CCIS Professor Alessandro Vespignani was also honored with the Excellence in Research and Creativity award. The event took place on April 23, 2015, in Northeastern’s Blackman Auditorium.
This academic year has been marked by the achievements of CCIS personnel, both on campus and off. Students have been honored for their performance on co-op and their innovation and entrepreneurship while students, faculty and staff have been recognized for their contributions to the Northeastern community at large.

Two students, Joe O’Neill and Daniel Moreh, won Outstanding Co-op Awards. Joe, who will graduate in August with a combined major in computer science and business administration, was nominated for his co-ops at Microsoft in the spring of 2014, and at Facebook this spring. At Microsoft Joe received a Hero Award for going beyond the scope of his job and making an impact at the company. He was the first Northeastern co-op at Facebook, where he was the top of 90 first-time interns at the social media giant, and is described by his co-op advisor, Katie Hughes, as “mature, diligent, and resourceful.”

Daniel, who co-op advisor Aileen Kent Yates describes as “an integral part of the CCIS community,” will graduate this year with a bachelors in computer science, having completed co-ops at Intuit, HubSpot and Square. At Intuit, he worked on a feature that allows people to take pictures of their W-2 forms and have the data uploaded to TurboTax. He also co-founded and raised $70,000 in grants and investments for Checkit, a mobile payment app for sit down restaurants, in addition to publishing four iOS apps and interning at Google last year.

Joe, Daniel and eight others were also honored by President Aoun as part of the Huntington 100, a designation that celebrates students who excel at school and in the community. Theresa Aristarco, Forrest Bice, Matthew Clamp, Robert Kleinhenz, James Magnarelli, Esther Michel, Jeffrey Wallace and Alex Williams were the other CCIS students honored by President Aoun. Matthew, who worked as a software engineer at HubSpot, is graduating ahead of schedule this year because his employers there offered him a job.

Groups of CCIS students also presented their research at RISE:2015, Northeastern’s Research, Innovation and Scholarship Expo, where pitches are met with feedback from students, faculty and alumni. Juniors Liam Fratturo, Ian Swain, Mackenzie Denker and middler Michael Rinaldi presented on “Digital Empathy: Exploring Clinical Depression through Interactive Media,” while sophomores Cheryl Downie, Brian Desnoyers and Lucas Magee presented “Bike Beacon,” coursework from a software development class. Seniors Eric Peterson and Brett Davis showcased “Cupid Kerfuffle,” and junior William Manning displayed a poster on “Modular Education Game Architecture.” Bochao Shen and Chisheng Liang won graduate and undergraduate RISE awards, respectively, in computer science. Bochao’s poster was on how to deal with supply/demand imbalances in electricity, proposing incentives to move electricity demand from peak hours for greater consumption in non-peak hours. Chisheng created a multi-player tablet game to improve decision-making skills when under pressure.

Rose DeMaio was one of nine students to receive the Compass Award, given each year to seniors who demonstrate a commitment to leadership, volunteerism, academic integrity and Northeastern during their time on campus. Junior Dan Calacci received the Garnet Award, which recognizes one middler or junior who shows promise for success while displaying the same values at Compass recipients.

Doreen Hodgkin won a staff award for Outstanding Service at the Annual Honors Convocation. The award celebrates contributions to the Northeastern community. Sternberg Distinguished University Professor Alessandro Vespignani received the Excellence in Research and Creative Activity award, presented to full-time faculty to mark work of national and international significance.

– As seen in the April 2015 E-Newsletter –