Departmental Awards 2023-2024

Student Awards

Galileo Circle Scholars, the University of Arizona's finest undergraduate and graduate science students, represent the tremendous breadth of research interests in the College of Science

Galileo Circle Scholar: Portia Cooper

Portia Cooper is a Freshman pursuing a BS degrees in Computer Science and a minor Mathematics.

Highlights:

Lead Facilitator for UArizona Girls Who Code
Works with Dr. MIhai Surdeanu and Dr. Eduardo Blanco to develop neural classifiers to detect hate speech masked by homoglyphs (visually similar Unicode characters).
Got a first author paper published in EMNLP Finding.

Galileo Circle Scholar: Shahriar Golchin

Shahriar Golchin is a Final-year PhD Candidate pursuing a PhD in Computer Science with a minor in Information.

Highlights:

Outstanding Graduate Student Scholarship
Got an important paper at ICLR 2024
Internship at Harvard Medical School and Walmart Global Tech

Galileo Circle Scholar: Mahshad Habibpourparizi

Mahshad Habibpourparizi is a Senior pursuing a BS in Computer Science and a minor in Mathematics.

Highlights:

Research assistant with the CS department
Math Teaching Coordinator
Internship at Electoral Innovation Lab @Princeton University
College of Science Honors Academic Distinction Award

Galileo Circle Scholar: Zachary Hansen

Zachary Hansen is a Junior pursuing an undergraduate degree in Computer Science.

Highlights:

Senior Teaching Assistant, CS Department
Internship at UA (Nephrology wing of Banner - University Medicine North)
Data Analyst at Biomedical Lab @UA
Published several research abstracts.

Galileo Circle Scholar: Tatiana Rastoskueva

Tatiana Rastoskueva is a Junior pursuing BS degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics.

Highlights:

Volunteering with the Science Mentorship Institute, a platform that supports high school students underrepresented in higher education to bridge their gap in science engagement.
Arizona Excellence Tuition Scholarship

Galileo Circle Scholar: Mohammad Hossein Rezaei

Mohammad Hossein Rezaei
is a Junior pursuing BS degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics.

Highlights:

CS Peer Mentor
CS Ambassador
Vice lead of the Google Developer Student Club at the UofA
Undergraduate RA for Computational Language Understanding (CLU) lab

Galileo Circle Scholar: Abhyuday Singh

Abhyuday Singh is a Junior pursuing a BS degree in Computer Science.

Highlights:

CS Tutor
TA for CSC 335
Ambassador for the Franke Honors College
Works with Dr Steve Bethard in the CLU Lab

Galileo Circle Scholar: Akshat Kumar Singh

Akshat Kumar Singh is a Sophomore pursuing a BS degree in Computer Science.

Highlights:

Was a Student Software Developer at the Centre for Digital Humanities Laboratory
Completed a micro internship at Paradox.ai as a Design Intern
Interned as a Data Science Intern at ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (Ola Cabs),

Galileo Circle Scholar: Suhani Surana

Suhani Surana is a Sophomore pursuing BS degrees in Computer science and Astronomy and Physics.

Highlights:

Undergrad TA since 2023
Research Assistant for TIMESTEP Apprenticeship Program

Excellence in Undergraduate Research: Reza Sanayei

Reza Sanayei is a Senior pursuing an Honors BS degree in Computer Science.

Highlights:

Course Coordinator for CSC 335
CS Buddy Mentor
President of UA's Google Developer Student Club
Former College of Science Ambassador

Outstanding Graduating Senior (Spring 2023): Vatsav Sethupathi

Vatsav Sethupathi graduated in the Fall 2023 and received a BS degree in Computer Science.

Highlights:

Undergraduate Research Assistant: University of Arizona IVILAB
Course Coordinator for several courses
Internship at Apple

Outstanding Graduating Senior (Spring 2023 - Special Mention): Kapua Ioane

Kapua Ioane graduated in the Fall 2023 and received a BA degree in Computer Science, a BS degree in Information Science, a minor in American Sign Language and a Certificate in Agricultural Leadership and Innovation.

Highlights:

CS Course Coordin for 3 years
Helped pilot the CS Buddy Program
Was a College of Science Ambassador

Outstanding Graduating Senior (Fall 2024): Nimet Beyza Bozdag

Nimet Beyza Bozdag a Senior pursuing BS degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics.

Highlights:

CS TA and Course Coordinator since Fall 2021
Co-President for Women in Information and Computer Science (WICS) Club
CS Ambassador
Former CS Buddy Mentor

Outstanding Graduate Service: Yinan Li

Yinan Li is a 4th year graduate student Pursuing a PhD in Computer Science with a minor in Applied Mathematics.

Highlights:

DEI officer in CS
Does research in machine learning and optimization.

Outstanding Graduate Scholarship: Shahriar Golchin

Shahriar Golchin is a Final-year PhD Candidate pursuing a PhD in Computer Science with a minor in Information.

Highlights:

Outstanding Graduate Student Scholarship
Got an important paper at ICLR 2024
Internship at Harvard Medical School and Walmart Global Tech

Staff Award

Tina Mendoza

Tina Mendoza joined the Department of Computer Science as the Graduate Program Coordinator in November 2021.

Tina's responsibilities include advising and supporting all of the Master’s students and Ph.D. students in computer science, handling all of the administrative processes associated with graduate student admissions, interfacing between our faculty and graduate students regarding student progress and program requirements, communicating with the Graduate College regarding student issues, working alongside our faculty to manage graduate student curriculum and requirement changes, etc.

Tina was chosen for this award for being an exceptional role model in the department and for doing above and beyond what is expected from his role as the Graduate Program Coordinator.