CSC News

September 09, 2008

Students Recognized at STARS Alliance Conference

Congratulations to computer science students Jennifer Robison, Joseph Grafsgaard, Jonathan Rowe and Jarred DeVaughn-Brown who were recognized for their work at the Students & Technology in Academia, Research and Service (STARS) Alliance Celebration at Auburn University in August.

Robison, a doctoral student, and her co-author, Scott McQuiggan, won a poster award for their research project on affective computing.  Grafsgaard, also a doctoral student, and his co-authors, Chris Assi, Samuel Jean-Phillip, and Kristen Respers from St. Augustine’s College, and Amanda Macik and Jennifer Robison from NC State, took the award for the best middle school outreach poster.  Robison’s and Grafsgaard’s teams won two of the five top student poster awards presented at the conference!

Rowe, a graduate student, and DeVaughn-Brown, a sophomore, received recognition at the Celebration for their outstanding work facilitating exercises at the mentoring workshop.

The STARS Celebration is an annual Alliance-wide student research conference to promote community building, share experiences, and prepare students for their upcoming STARS Leadership Corps assignments.

“As demonstrated by these outstanding award winners, we have an incredibly talented and motivated group of students involved in the Raleigh STARS Alliance this year,” said Kristy Boyer, STARS Academic Liaison, who attended the mentoring workshop at the STARS Celebration.

The STARS Alliance is a system of regional partnerships among colleges & universities, industry, primary schools and the community to collaboratively implement programs for student recruitment and success in computing.

The Raleigh STARS Student Leadership Corps provides local college students with the opportunity to learn more about computer science careers, participate in service and outreach programs to local schools, meet with leaders in the computer field, all while earning a stipend!

In addition to a substantial National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, the STARS initiative at NC State is sponsored by several corporate partners including NetApp, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of North Carolina, Cisco Systems, Tekelec, EMC, Duke Energy and SAS Institute.    

This year, the NC State STARS students will be participating in various projects that include: nursing home service, middle school outreach, CSC116 Mentoring, Wiimote Whiteboards, undergraduate research, internships, web development, and a wide-area wifi service project.

To learn more about the Raleigh STARS Alliance, visit http://research.csc.ncsu.edu/stars/.

~forcina~

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