Khoury College undergraduate researchers honored by Computing Research Association

BOSTON—On Jan. 4, three students from Khoury College of Computer Sciences were recognized by the Computing Research Association, or CRA, in its 2022 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Awards. Sponsored by Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs this year, these awards highlight college students in North American schools who demonstrated excellence in their computing research projects.

Khoury College had one finalist and two honorable mentions for these awards:

• Finalist: Max Daniels, fourth-year computer science and math combined major with a physics minor
• Honorable Mention: Maggie Van Nortwick, fourth-year cybersecurity major with an interaction design minor
• Honorable Mention: Levi Kaplan, fourth-year computer science major

(Clockwise from top left): Max Daniels, Maggie Van Nortwick, and Levi Kaplan

The award recipients, runners-up, finalists, and honorable mentions were selected by a committee of professors from universities across the U.S., including Northeastern, Pomona College, and Williams College. Khoury College professor Jonathan Bell was a member of the 10-person committee.

Daniels’ award application to the CRA described two research projects, both of which were in collaboration with assistant professor of mathematics and computer science Paul Hand of Khoury College. One project focused on signal recovery, where the goal is to recover an image from partial information, and the other was on optimal transport, which aims to create the most efficient system for resource distribution.

“It has definitely contributed a lot to my excitement in starting research as a career,” Daniels said, remarking on the CRA recognition. “It’s really amazing to work on projects that you have a personal stake in, especially when you have some independent role in creating it, putting it together, and writing a paper about it to share with people. So, the support from the award is mostly encouragement to keep doing that because I really enjoy it.”

Van Nortwick was recognized for her data privacy project that she worked on as a research co-op at Khoury College, which investigated whether websites are complying with the California Consumer Privacy Act. Kaplan, in his CRA application, also submitted work from his research co-op, where he analyzed data brokers, or companies that collect and license personal information, as well as the accuracy of their data and the role of demographics in data collection.

Written by Kelly Chan

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