The Wellesley Daily Shot featured Jess Abrahamson ’19 on inclusion in CS.
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Administrative Assistant Rita Purcell retired as of June 1, 2017, after 19 years at Wellesley. Here’s Rita with the department back in 2001 (left) and again in her final academic year with us, 2016-2017 (right):
Rita writes:
I greatly enjoyed working with the CS faculty and CS/MAS students during my years at Wellesley. We had a lot of fun together and I will miss you. Much happiness to you always!
Lip Sync MVP
Rita marked her last month at Wellesley by debuting to great acclaim at the 2017 Science Center Faculty Lip Sync. She starred with a runaway success in “Another Day of Sun” (below) and featured prominently in 5 other numbers, including with the CS 240 faculty. The senior CS majors cited her as Lip Sync MVP of 2017. Brava!
Check out Rita’s performance in this video of “Another Day of Sun” (requires Wellesley login), featuring Rita Purcell, Ophera Davis (Africana Studies), Elaine Igo (Science Center), Lauri Wardell (Physics), and Julia Miwa (Chemistry), with video courtesy of Deborah Nickerson and the Science Center, plus Nick Doe (Chemistry).
CS Department Sendoff
Rita has been a fixture (and magician) in the department for longer than many of our faculty. The CS department gathered in May to celebrate her years with us and congratulate Rita and her husband Dixon on their simultaneous retirement. We will miss you Rita, but we wish you both all the best in new adventures!
Madeleine Barowsky ’18, a rising senior majoring in CS and Math at Wellesley, is one of this year’s winners of the Computing Research Association‘s competitive Scholarships for Women Studying Information Security (SWSIS). Madeleine plans to attend graduate school to pursue her passion for computer security and cryptography.
Congratulations Madeleine!
Wellesley students have a good track record with this honor: Nick Manfredi ’15 received the award in 2014.
Members of the Wellesley HCI Lab demonstrated their HoloMuse application at a Venture Cafe Foundation event on augmented reality.
Several members of the Wellesley community traveled to Denver in May for ACM CHI 2017. The Wellesley HCI Lab presented several papers, including:
- Communicating Personal Genomic Information to Non-experts: A New Frontier for Human-Computer Interaction.
- Designing for Uncertainty in HCI: When Does Uncertainty Help?
- Understanding Gaming Perceptions and Experiences in a Women’s College Community
Wellesley participants included HCI Lab director Orit Shaer, HCI research programmer Lauren Westendorf ’15 (pictured presenting), alumnae Johanna Okerlund ’14 (now a grad student at University of North Carolina Charlotte) and Veronica Lin ’15 (now a grad student at Stanford), professor Takis Metaxas, and others.
Despite a strong showing by CS and a close game, Math somehow managed to prevail during the annual CS-Math Frisbee game. The proof was in the pulling, so to speak, but proofs are just programs and fun was had by all.
Photos by Lyn Turbak
On the last day of Spring Reading Period, a crowd of Cserious Scientists gathered for CSICSOCS 2017: the Second Annual Wellesley College Completely Serious International Conference and Symposium on Computer Science, disorganized by returning general chair Ben Wood. Illustrious and extinguished speakers delighted the intellects of all present with scintillating accounts of their research breakthroughs, both prepared and karaoked.
Photos by Lucy Shen ’17
CS and MAS faculty and senior majors and minors gathered at a luncheon in the Alumnae Ballroom to celebrate the red Class of 2016. This year, we look forward to graduating 43 CS majors, 11 CS minors, and 18 MAS majors!
The CS department presented awards to seniors. Jenny Wang received the Spirit Award for promoting CS community. Tiffany Ang and Jenny Wang were recognized for their co-leadership of the student CS Club. Sam Mincheva received the Academic Award. Kim Asenbeck and Naomi Day received the Rhys and Laurel Price Jones Team Leadership Award, established by former colleague Rhys Price Jones and his wife Laurel.
Congrats Class of 2017!
Sam Mincheva ’17, the lone CS thesis student of 2017, presented their undergraduate honors thesis work, Sound Thread Local Analysis for Lockset-Based Dynamic Data Race Detection, at a lively and well-attended public talk on Friday, May 5. We hope public thesis talks become a tradition in the department.
Advisor Ben Wood and committee members Ashley DeFlumere, Lyn Turbak, and (doctored) Alex Diesl (Math) posed with Sam in the senior-pranked Chamber of CS after delivering the good news. (No math faculty were eaten by the basilisk — Prof. Diesl had to run to another thesis defense immediately after Sam’s.)
The green class of 2017 executed their senior prank to transform the CS department into a Harry Potter world for the last day of spring classes.
Photos by Doug Chudzik, Takis Metaxas