Annual Dean's Awards

The 2025 SET Outstanding Community Partner Award was award to Dr. Ed Lazowska, Professor of UW Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering

Recipients of the Community Partner Award have demonstrated support and participation in the mission and goals of SET at an extraordinary level. This outstanding community partner has demonstrated excellence through program support, the giving of time and expertise, relationship building with industry and community as well as contributions on both an advisory and direct hands-on level.
 

The 2025 Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Student Award was awarded to Sikha Pentyala, Yin Jin, Nicole Guobadia, and Carla Peterson, the Women in Data Science (WiDS) Ph.D. student group

During the SET sisterhood event, this group of students setup a booth with well-designed posters, videos, and swags to show their research stories as a group of women students in SET. Through this event, their booth attracted a big group of women students to the research areas of trustworthy AI, AI for healthcare, AI for medical imaging and AI for underwater. More importantly, they are from different backgrounds: international students, First-generation African American, and Military Profession, to attract various backgrounds of women to STEM. 

They have also helped the organization of the Women in Data Science Tacoma @ UW Tacoma event. This event has attracted women leaders in data science from industry and academia, and a large group of students from different schools of UW Tacoma. Within this event, this WiDS PhD Student Group has also demonstrated their progress of research and promoted the collaboration within UW Tacoma and to the industry around UW Tacoma.

The 2025 Andrew and Julie Fry Innovation Award was awarded to Andrew McDonald, Alondra Ramirez-Perez, Celina Gabriel Schlecht and Kari Stephenson, the Green River Coalition Team

The team did full stack development for the Restoration Site Management System. Its designed to help manage and document environmental restoration projects.  The Team had a steep learning curve in terms on technology use, but they were able to finish all the requirements. The team also did an excellent job communicating with the client and gather requirements.

The 2025 Andrew and Julie Fry Innovation Award was awarded to Jiayu Li and Putthida Samrith, Ph.D. in Computer Science and Systems

Their work has been adopted by the cities such as Las Vegas, Bellevue, and San Francisco for curb management and industry such as Inrix Inc. They won several awards such as runner up best application and industry paper award in IEEE MDM 2024, NSF I-Corps Spirit Award, first place as CEO in the Milgard School of Business’s Entrepreneurship Academy, and Pierce County Business Accelerator award.

The 2025 Andrew and Julie Fry Innovation Award was awarded to Steven Golob, Ph.D. in Computer Science and Systems

Steven has won both the UW Distinguished Master’s Thesis Award for STEM, as well as the Western Association of Graduate Schools (WAGS) ProQuest Distinguished Thesis Award for his master’s thesis in privacy-preserving artificial intelligence. He is also a Carwein-Andrews Distinguished Fellow, an endowed fellowship that provides support for Ph.D. students in computer science at UW Tacoma.
 

The 2025 Outstanding Staff Award was award to Julie Palumbo, Civil Engineering Lab Manager

Julie cares deeply about UWT and it’s students. She is active in our campus community and has volunteered her time to various initiatives, including advocating for sustainability efforts.

She’s open, warm and prepared. She’s a valued employee on campus and in the department.

Julie has gone above and beyond to leave a lasting positive impact in SET through her dedication to safety, compliance, and sustainable lab practices. She has actively collaborated with EH&S to ensure that SET remains fully compliant with safety regulations, fostering a secure and well-maintained lab environment for students, faculty, and staff. As a member of the safety committee, she has played a key role in advocating for best practices and improving safety protocols across the school.

The 2025 Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award was awarded to Dr. Matthew Ford, Assistant Teaching Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Matt has a great dedication to his students. He creates engaging activities for his students to learn from and provides a positive learning environment for his students. Matt's efforts are always directed to his student's experiences. He employs evidence-based teaching techniques and relies on data gathering to assess his impact on his students. Matt is eager to collaborate with other faculty on teaching initiatives.

He uses so many methods that all instructors in SET should observe his class sessions.

In addition, he supports peer learning which is an important skill for students. He is using labor-based grading to improve learning and shifting the focus from grades to learning the concepts.

The 2025 Outstanding Student Leadership Award was awarded to Claire Reading, B.S. in Electrical Engineering

I am pleased to nominate Claire, the President of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) at UW Tacoma, for her outstanding leadership and dedication to advancing opportunities for engineering students. Under her leadership, SWE has forged strong industry partnerships, providing invaluable professional development opportunities that prepare students for successful careers. Claire has also been instrumental in fostering a supportive community for engineering students, creating a space where they can connect, grow, and thrive. Beyond campus, she is a passionate advocate for equity in engineering, working to break down barriers and ensure a more inclusive and diverse future for the field.

The 2025 Outstanding Student Leadership Award was awarded to Daniil Filienko, M.S. in Computer Science and Systems

In the CSS program, Daniil is the representative of the graduate students in the CSS program committee. In this role, he has organized social activities for the PhD students, such as get-togethers with pizza and board games. Activities like these are very important to foster a positive atmosphere and sense of belonging in our young PhD program. It is commendable for a young graduate student like Daniil to take the lead in organizing these activities, which are a first of their kind at SET.

Daniil is a research assistant in the interdisciplinary Responsible Health AI Lab at UW Tacoma. In this lab he has, in no time and in a friendly way, established himself as the leader of two projects on the use of large language models. It has been fascinating to see Daniil coordinate an interdisciplinary team with other students and faculty members from different departments and disciplines (computer science and nursing) across UW Tacoma and UW Seattle. It has resulted in a paper that Daniil presented at the Annual Symposium of the American Medical Informatics Association in San Francisco in November 2024, as well as a paper that he presented at a workshop at the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Philadelphia in March 2025. These papers came together in a very short time frame because of Daniil's determination and leadership of the teams of authors.

The 2025 Outstanding Student Leadership Award was awarded to Isabella Claeson, B.S. in Computer Engineering

Izzy is a first year student and new to our campus, yet she consistently advocates for diversity, equity, and inclusion within SET, both for herself and her fellow students. Izzy is unafraid to speak up when she encounters a situation that is unjust, and I know she will continue to blossom in her advocacy as she progresses into her major and takes on even greater leadership roles.

The 2025 Outstanding Student Leadership Award was awarded to Kari Lau, B.S. in Civil Engineering

I am pleased to nominate Kari for her exceptional leadership as an inaugural campus ambassador for the Civil Engineering program at UW Tacoma. Through her efforts, she has played a vital role in recruiting students into the program and building lasting connections with prospective students from Highline College. Kari’s dedication to fostering these relationships has strengthened pathways into civil engineering, ensuring that future students feel welcomed and supported. Her commitment to outreach and mentorship has had a lasting impact on the program, helping to grow a diverse and engaged community of aspiring engineers.

The 2025 Outstanding Student Leadership Award was awarded to Marcus Abram, B.S. in Mechanical Engineering

He has shown leadership in the community of Tacoma through his academics and on-campus involvement in student organizations. He is an intelligent young man who is always seeking opportunity to level up and distinguish himself from his peers.

The 2025 Outstanding Student Leadership Award was awarded to Putthida Samrith, Ph.D. in Computer Science and Systems

Putthida has demonstrated exceptional leadership within SET, across UW, and beyond. She has shown initiative, creativity, and dedication through multiple roles and recognitions.

As a TA for core computer science courses, she has earned excellent evaluations and mentors M.S. students with outstanding feedback. Outside the classroom, she serves as a mentor with AnitaB.org and Girls Who Code, helping students grow their skills and confidence in tech.

Her entrepreneurial achievements include receiving the NSF I-Corps Spirit Award and leading her team to first place as CEO in the Milgard School of Business’s Entrepreneurship Academy. Most recently, she was accepted into the Pierce County Business Accelerator to grow her startup’s impact in the local community. She was also selected as a finalist in competitive pitch events such as the ACE program, Falling Walls, and the Environmental Innovation Challenge.  

What sets Putthida apart is not just what she has achieved, but by the initiative she takes to turn ideas into meaningful real-world outcomes.

The 2025 Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award was awarded to Gian Carlo Obico, B.S. in Mechanical Engineering

Gian first participated in undergraduate research last spring, in his first year at UWT. He has continued this work and is currently working on undergraduate research this spring. He exemplifies the kind of innovation, critical thinking, and collaboration that is necessary to the field of engineering, all while excelling in his difficult pre-requisite coursework. He demonstrates excellence in and out of the classroom and is sure to help transform the field of engineering.

The 2025 Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award was awarded to Shane Menzies, B.S. in Computer Science and Systems

Shane is a phenomenal BSCSS student. He has been active in my research group for almost 2 quarters. In that time, he has co-authored several pieces of work, he has won multiple awards to support his research financially and to travel to conferences, and he has led the submission of my research group's solution in a competition on privacy-preserving AI. I struck gold when meeting Shane in my TCSS343 course, and I am very honored to serve as his research mentor.

The Outstanding Graduate Research Award was awarded to Daniil Filienko, M.S. in Computer Science and Systems

I have been greatly impressed by the way in which Daniil navigates the nature of his research on the development of AI to improve healthcare. Interdisciplinary research in this space is often hampered by communication barriers and mismatched expectations between technical and clinical teams. Daniil has shown exceptional skill in bridging these gaps, translating complex AI methods into clinically relevant tools, and adapting his work in response to real-world needs of patients and caregivers. Less than 2 years in the Ph.D. program, this has already resulted in 2 papers with Daniil as the first author, and a substantial NIH Fellowship to support his research.

The Outstanding Graduate Research Award was awarded to Deyang Zhong, Ph.D. in Computer Science and Systems

Deyang has published 4 papers as follows. During 2024-2025, he has co-authored three publications (IEEE MOST'24, BMVC'24, and ACM Journal). More importantly, he has submitted another first-author paper to ACM MM'25 (under review). His progress in research is outstanding.

1. J. Li, P. Samrith, Y. Jin, D. Zhong, J. Hu, and W. Cheng. Curbside Parking Regulation Digitization and Inventory Management System. In press, ACM Journal on Autonomous Transportation Systems, 2025
2. R. Franklin, J. Yao, D. Zhong, Q. Qian, and J. Hu. Text-Guided Mixup Towards Long-Tailed Image Categorization. To appear in: Proceedings of the 35th British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC'24), Glasgow, UK, 2024.
3. J. Li, Y. Jin, D. Zhong, J. Hu, and W. Cheng. Efficiently Build An Accurate Curbside Parking Rule Database on Edge. In: Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Mobility: Operations, Services, and Technologies (MOST'24), Dallas, TX, 2024, pp.72-82.
4. D. Zhong, J. Li, W. Cheng, and J. Hu. Dictionary-Guided Text Recognition for Smart Street Parking. In: Proceedings of the 34th British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC'23), Aberdeen, UK, 2023.”

The Outstanding Graduate Research Award was awarded to Jiawei Yao, Ph.D. in Computer Science and Systems

Up to now, Jiawei has published 4 first-author and 1 second-author papers on top-tier AI conferences (e.g., CVPR'24 and NeurIPS'24). Within the calendar year of 2024-2025, he has published one paper at NeurIPS'24 and submitted one paper to IJCAI'25 (under review). Moreover, he has also been awarded the JP Morgan PhD Fellowship with 45k. Therefore, Jiawei has been an outstanding graduate student, as also evidenced by the following publication list.

1. J. Yao, Q. Qian, and J. Hu. Customized Multiple Clustering via Multi-Modal Subspace Proxy Learning. In: Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems: 37 (NeurIPS'24), Vancouver, Canada, 2024.
2. R. Franklin, J. Yao, D. Zhong, Q. Qian, and J. Hu. Text-Guided Mixup Towards Long-Tailed Image Categorization. To appear in: Proceedings of the 35th British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC'24), Glasgow, UK, 2024.
3. J. Yao, Q. Qian, and J. Hu. Multi-Modal Proxy Learning Towards Personalized Visual Multiple Clustering. In: Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR'24), Seattle, WA, 2024, pp.14066-14075.
4. J. Yao and J. Hu. Dual-disentangled Deep Multiple Clustering. In: Proceedings of the SIAM International Conference on Data Mining (SDM'24), Houston, TX, 2024, pp.679-687.
     5) J. Yao, E. Liu, M. Rashid, and J. Hu. AugDMC: Data Augmentation Guided Deep Multiple Clustering. Procedia Computer Science, 222 (2023): 571-580. DOI: 10.1016/j.procs.2023.08.195.”

The Outstanding Graduate Research Award was awarded to Jiayu Li, Ph.D. in Computer Science and Systems

Jiayu's research has been recognized by the community of smart transportation systems and has achieved more impacts than her peers.

1. Her research outcome has been adopted by the cities such as City of Bellevue, City of Las Vegas, and the City of San Francisco.
2. Her research outcome has been adopted by industry such as Inrix Inc.
3. She received the best runner-up paper award from IEEE MDM 2024
4. She has published more than 5 papers in high quality journals and conferences since becoming a Ph.D. student in CSS.

The Outstanding Graduate Research Award was awarded to Patrick McKeever, M.S. in Computer Science and Systems

Patrick is doing an outstanding job in his Master’s thesis project titled “Supporting bioinformatics analysis using a hybrid cloud and HPC architecture” since September 2024. He is very focused, asks good questions, has demonstrated excellent technical, communication, collaboration and research skills. He works well with other students and staff in my lab as well as external collaborators. We are currently writing 2 journal papers for his thesis project. He also presented a poster at the NIH MorPhiC face-to-face meeting at UCSF in Feb 2025. His work was so well received that we were invited to give a demo to NIH program officers.

Patrick's productivity sets the tone in my research lab. What impressed me most about Patrick is that he cares about other students and his willingness to share resources.

Patrick is the most productive student that I have ever mentored since I came to UW Seattle in 2002. His work will result in several high-quality papers and grant applications.

The Outstanding Graduate Research Award was awarded to Sikha Pentyala, Ph.D. in Computer Science and Systems

Sikha is a phenomenal researcher who is expected to graduate from our PhD program in Spring 2025. As one of the first students to go through the PhD program, she has set the bar very high by conducting research that has been published in top conferences in AI and by winning international data science competitions. She has recently been selected by the eScience Institute to become a UW Data Science Postdoc Fellow, providing further external validation of the high quality of her research.

The Outstanding Graduate Research Award was awarded to Steven Golob, Ph.D. in Computer Science and Systems

Steven impressed us all this year by winning the UW Graduate School’s Distinguished Thesis award as well as the 2024-25 Western Association of Graduate Schools (WAGS) and ProQuest Distinguished Master's Thesis Award. He his the first student at UWT to ever win these awards. This external recognition is clear evidence that Steven stands out among our graduate students and very much deserves to get the SET Outstanding Graduate Research Award this year.

The 2024 SET Outstanding Community Partner Award was awarded to Bruce Kendall, President and CEO of the Economic Development Board Tacoma-Pierce Co.    

Recipients of the Community Partner Award have demonstrated support and participation in the mission and goals of SET at an extraordinary level. This outstanding community partner has demonstrated excellence through program support, the giving of time and expertise, relationship building with industry and community as well as contributions on both an advisory and direct hands-on level.

The 2024 Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Faculty Award was awarded to Dr. Martine De Cock, Professor of Computer Science and Systems

Martine De Cock employs innovative DEI methods by integrating empathy into her teaching, fostering an environment where students freely share and understand diverse perspectives, thereby enriching classroom discussions and maintaining focus on educational objectives. Martine actively promotes the participation of underrepresented groups in her research by engaging with diverse students and leaders, broadening scientific dialogues in her field, and recognizing the value and contributions of all participants through her work in the Privacy-Preserving Machine Learning and Machine Learning for Health Equity research groups.

She builds student confidence and showcases their abilities, encouraging them to become self-motivated and committed to equity and inclusion in collaborative work, thus fostering an empowering environment within her research community.

The 2024 Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Student Award was awarded to Kara Nichols, B.S. in Mechanical Engineering

Kara Nichols has served as an officer in the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) club. She has gone out of her way to volunteer at K-12 events, outreach events, and most recently Girls Day. She is an advocate for mental health, inclusion and a great supporter of everyone in her cohort. In classrooms and research, she makes everyone feel included and supported and has gone out of her way to mentor other students. Kara has a great attitude and as her nominator mentioned.  She is a GIVER and by far the most important community builder in her cohort.

Kara is a tireless advocate for gender equity in engineering. She actively seeks opportunities to promote diversity and inclusion within the field, or engaging in discussions with prospective students. Kara is committed to breaking down barriers and creating a more equitable and accessible environment for women in engineering, and her passion for this cause is truly inspiring.

The 2024 Research Showcase Best Poster Award was awarded to Steven Golob, M.S./Ph.D. in Computer Science and Systems

The SET Research Showcase was created to build a culture of innovation at SET by stimulating collaborations through networking among SET faculty, students and external collaborators.  The 3rd annual showcase was held on March 1st, 2024.

A panel of judges reviewed more than 20 posters and named Steven Golob the winner of the SET Research Showcase Best Poster Award. The title of Steven’s poster is: Privacy Vulnerabilities in Generative AI.
 

The 2024 Andrew and Julie Fry Innovation Award was awarded to Caroline El Jazmi and Daniil Filienko, M.S./Ph.D. in Computer Science and Systems

Caring for Caregivers Online (COCO) Project

The significant responsibilities of caring for a loved one with a chronic disease largely fall upon family. Family caregivers - who tend to prioritize the health of their loved ones over their own - experience physical, mental, and financial burdens, which can lead to caregiver burnout. To help ease the caregiving burden, Caroline and Daniil developed CocoGPT, a Large Language Model based chatbot that family caregivers can turn to for support. CocoGPT is set up to act as a therapist that provides Problem Solving Therapy (PST). It can be accessed directly through an app on the phone, which lowers the barrier to seek help compared to scheduling an appointment with a therapist which costs time and money.
 

The 2024 Andrew and Julie Fry Innovation Award was awarded to Shkuri Biggerstaff, Justin Doan, Cynthia Gu, Gurleen Sandhu and Brynn Zehnder, B.S. in Information Technology

This team aimed to create a game that engages young minds and equips them with essential knowledge about online safety 
and responsible digital citizenship.  By leveraging technology and understanding student attention patterns, the team created a captivating and educational experience. The team implemented the game in middle schools, facilitating interactive sessions, where students could immerse themselves in the gameplay. Through this innovative project, the team successfully demonstrated the effectiveness of using engaging and interactive methods to educate young people about cybersecurity.

The 2024 Outstanding Staff Award was award to Gabi Crosby, Program Coordinator

Gabi is not afraid to speak up about issues that are occurring in the department. With her outspoken-ness, much needed changes are being made, creating a more positive work environment for everyone around her.

She supports everyone with a positive approach, great attitude and very diligent and helpful.

Her steadfast determination and selflessness have not only ensured the seamless operation of our academic community but have also established her as the very heartbeat of our department. Gabi's remarkable contributions surpass the norm. Gabi's unwavering dedication and tireless efforts in ensuring the success of all faculty searches, epitomize excellence in service. Gabi's commitment to excellence shone brightly as she meticulously navigated every aspect of the process, leaving no stone unturned. Gabi consistently identifies gaps within our department and takes proactive measures to ensure they are addressed. She consistently exceeds expectations in her work and actively seeks opportunities to enhance the functioning of our department through learning and assistance.

The 2024 Outstanding Facuilty Teaching Award was awarded to Menaka Abraham, Teaching Professor of Computer Science and Systems

Over the past decade, Menaka has demonstrated a deep commitment to excellence in teaching, consistently innovating her methods and seeking feedback from students to fine-tune her curriculum. She is praised as an engaging and enthusiastic educator who promotes active learning through hands-on activities, such as concept mapping, panel discussions, and field trips. Menaka's dedication to supporting student needs is equally impressive, as she has served as a mentor, advocated for at-risk students, and spearheaded the creation of new degree pathways to better serve the diverse learning styles and career aspirations of her students.

Menaka has been a leader in professional development, organizing teaching workshops and book clubs, while also prioritizing her own growth in the areas of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Menaka's tireless efforts to improve the student experience, coupled with her innovative teaching practices and the support for her students, make her a truly exceptional educator.

The 2024 Outstanding Student Leadership Award was awarded to Nnenna David-Uka, M.S. in Cybersecurity and Leadership

Nnenna David-Uka is an outstanding student leader in fostering exclusivity and bridging gender gaps, especially for underrepresented groups groups in cybersecurity.  Nnenna has held a President position at Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS) UW Tacoma Chapter since Summer 2023. She volunteers her time to organize many events, such as cybersecurity career workshops in partnership with local organizations, helping students for career advice, resume editing, and interview preparation. She also actively participated in UW Tacoma GenCyber camp events teaching high school students about general concepts in Cybersecurity, and inspiring underrepresented students to pursuing college degree in cybersecurity.

Nnenna has also served on a panelist in SET Girl Day in Engineering to share her experience in STEM  and encourage K-12 girls to pursue a college education in STEM. In recognition of her significant contributions to campus activities and community service as a student leader, Nnenna has been awarded the National Society of Leadership and Success (NSLS) Honor Society award.

The 2024 Outstanding Student Leadership Award was awarded to Vinial Kumar, B.S. in Civil Engineering

As a member of the inaugural Civil Engineering Cohort, Vinial has demonstrated outstanding leadership by founding the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) chapter at UWT. Through his initiative and dedication, he has provided a platform for students to engage with their field beyond the classroom, fostering a sense of camaraderie and professional growth. His commitment to student success is further evident in his role as a Peer Advisor at the Career Development Center, where he tirelessly supports his peers in achieving their academic and career goals.

His guidance and mentorship have had a profound impact on the UWT community, empowering students to navigate their academic and professional journeys with confidence and resilience. Vinial is deeply invested in supporting outreach programs with prospective students, advocating for diversity and inclusion within the field of engineering. Through his involvement in these initiatives, he has worked tirelessly to break down barriers and create opportunities for underrepresented students to pursue careers in Civil Engineering. His passion for leadership, coupled with his unwavering dedication to serving others, truly sets him apart as an exceptional student leader.

The 2024 Outstanding Student Leadership Award was awarded to Kara Nichols, B.S. in Mechanical Engineering

Kara has consistently demonstrated her dedication to fostering a sense of community among her peers. Her natural leadership skills and compassionate demeanor have played a pivotal role in creating a supportive and inclusive environment within the department. Whether collaborating on group projects or organizing SWE activities, Kara consistently goes above and beyond to ensure that every student feels valued and empowered.

Academically, Kara has excelled in her studies, consistently achieving a high GPA and demonstrating a deep understanding of complex engineering principles. Her passion for learning is evident in her willingness to explore challenging concepts and her ability to apply theoretical knowledge to real-world problems.

The 2024 Outstanding Student Leadership Award was awarded to Mahek Nizar, B.S. in Information Technology

Mahek is not only a stellar leader among her peers in the IT cohort, but she continues to thrive as a leader among the SET student assistants as well. She continues to use her privilege of being a student employee to advocate for IT students broadly which continues to advance the opportunities we can create for IT (and SET students broadly).

The 2024 Outstanding Student Leadership Award was awarded to Simon Njorge, B.S. in Mechanical Engineering

Simon has emerged as a clear leader in his cohort of mechanical engineering students. He is often one of the first to ask a brave question in class, and he manages his time well so he asks questions about homework early. He is also one of the most professional and polite students I have ever worked with. He is gracious when helping other students in class, and careful to make sure they feel safe asking him questions. I first met Simon at one of the Society of Women Engineer (SWE) club meetings that I serve as the faculty advisor for. He had attended because he heard the students were working on a NASA project and he wanted to participate. I am always impressed when young men are willing to support the women in SWE in some way, and Simon has gone on to bring a regular collection of other men  to the meetings.  

Simon worked with a few of the other students on a proposal for a NASA project, and he is now participating in NASA L’Space Mission Concept Academy (MCA). He has a really excellent sense of how collaboration can help support diversity and equity work, and I am grateful for his leadership in the club. The caliber of Simon’s professional behavior is far beyond most undergraduate students I work with. Over the last two years this work has led to two peer-reviewed papers in a conference (both in review) and Simon is the lead author for one of the papers.

The 2024 Outstanding Student Leadership Award was awarded to Sikha Pentyala, Ph.D. in Computer Science and Systems

Sikha is a pioneer, creating paths where no students on our campus have gone before, facing many obstacles along the way. Through her excellence in research, she sets the bar high for students who will follow her lead, and she takes great responsibility and care in documenting processes and sharing resources to make the journey smoother for future students.

Sikha has demonstrated student leadership for her contributions to the field of synthetic dataset generation techniques and privacy enhancing technologies, as well as her impact on the academic and professional trajectories of her peer students.  Her commitment to leadership, particularly in mentoring, that truly sets her apart. Under Sikha's guidance, undergraduates and beginning graduate students have not only improved  their research skills but have also achieved considerable academic success. Her mentorship has been instrumental in the production of several significant papers. Her leadership has had a tangible, positive impact on the careers of these emerging scholars. Through her encouragement and guidance, she has helped to shape the future of our program and her discipline.

Sikha is an amazing colleague, she has been incredibly selfless and demonstrated impressive candor in her involvement with our research team, which has included initiating and leading our reading & discussion group, finding new opportunities and sharing with the group, and familiarizing herself with all of our individual projects so that she can help. I can think of no better exemplar for a leadership award.
 

The 2024 Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award was awarded to Jose Sosa, B.S. in Mechanical Engineering

Jose’s research is focused on the design of autonomous ferries for the Puget Sound. We are investigating the best ways to provide autonomous transit to remote regions via water. Jose is leading the research focused on autonomous docking procedures for the ferry. This is challenging research for an undergraduate since it requires advanced programming and knowledge of machine learning. He is working independently with our industry partner, Numurus, with several of the test engineers in the firm. We plan to publish a peer reviewed paper in the fall with Jose and one other student as the lead authors.

In addition to Jose excellent research skills, he is an exceptionally kind person. Each day in my numerical methods class he stands up and walks to the row behind him to help two students that struggle. He does so without prompting from me, motivated instead by his own compassion. His leadership in his cohort is mature and he holds the respect of all the students and faculty that work with him. Knowing a bit about his family and financial struggle, I am doubly impressed with his optimistic and gracious nature.

The 2024 Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award was awarded to Masumi Yano, B.S. in Computer Science and Systems

In all my years at SET, this is my first experience engaging in research with an undergraduate student so early on in the BSCSS program. I am truly amazed by Masumi's intellectual capabilities, and his level of maturity.  As an undergraduate student he is already making active research contributions! When I told him recently how exceptional this is, he replied that when he is passionate about something, he dedicates all his time and attention to it.

As an undergraduate student researcher in machine learning, I find him to be outstanding.  This quarter (Winter 2024) he became the leading student researcher from SET in a project on the use of supervised machine learning to predict whether a patient with diabetes will develop skin related complications from repeated insulin injections. We are conducting this research in the context of our new NIH supported Responsible Health AI Lab (RHAIL), together with Dr. Weichao Yuwen from the School of Nursing and Healthcare Leadership, and graduate student Jingjing Xu from Nanjing Medical University. Masumi has successfully trained a series of machine learning models and is currently in the process of researching follow up questions regarding the algorithmic fairness of the trained models. The findings will be documented in a joint paper that Masumi will co-author (which he is very excited about!), and his work has the potential to improve the quality of treatment for patients with diabetes.
 

The Outstanding Graduate Research Award was awarded to Steven Golob, M.S./Ph.D. in Computer Science and Systems

Steven is expected to earn his MS and PhD degrees in Computer Science in 2024 and 2027, respectively. His research achievements and awards since returning as a graduate student include: 

• The first student at UWT with an NSF fellowship for graduate studies (CSGrad4US); Steven is one of 15 students selected nationwide for this fellowship in 2021
• Top Scholar Recruitment Fellowship from the UW Graduate School Fund for Excellence and Innovation, 2022 Carwein-Andrews Distinguished Fellowship in 2021-2022 and in 2023-2024
• Price finalist in the 2023 U.S. Privacy Enhancing Technologies Prize Challenge,1 hosted by NSF
• A workshop paper, as 1st author, on privacy and the data economy at ACM SIGMOD/PODS 2023
  Winning the international SNAKE competition2 on membership attacks against synthetically generated data, 2023
• Being selected and awarded a $8000 stipend for an NIH Traineeship in Advanced Data Analysis using the All of Us Clinical Database, 2024
• A paper, as 1st author, at the Privacy-Preserving Artificial Intelligence (PPAI) workshop at AAAI2024
• Being nominated by SET for the UW Distinguished Thesis Award (each school can nominate one master thesis), 2024

The Outstanding Graduate Research Award was awarded to Tucker Stewart, M.S./Ph.D. in Computer Science and Systems

Tucker joined our PhD program in Autumn 2020 after he obtained his bachelor's degree from SET (he was in our dean's list every quarter). After that, he has maintained a perfect GPA, and finished his master's thesis with all required electives done for PhD. His first author paper was accepted by IEEE BigData'23 (ranked 7th in the domain of Data Mining & Analysis under Google Impact Ranking) as a regular paper. He has also co-authored two papers, one published in IEEE BigData'22 and one accepted by the 9th International Conference on Health Informatics & Medical Systems (HIMS’23).

Tucker's research achievements have been exceptional. Tucker's dedication to academic excellence, coupled with his significant contributions to research, make him a standout candidate for this award.

The Outstanding Graduate Research Award was awarded to Jiawei Yao, M.S./Ph.D. in Computer Science and Systems

Jiawei joined my research group as a PhD student in Winter 2023. Jiawei has finished all course requirements with a good GPA.  Jiawei has been focusing on the research topic of user-friendly deep multiple clustering using data augmentations and vision-language models.

Jiawei has achieved three publications as the first author in this research direction. Impressively, one of his paper will be published at SIAM Data Mining 2024 (ranked the 16th of all journals and conferences in the domain of Data Mining and Analysis under Google's impact ranking ) and one will be published at IEEE/CVF CVPR 2024 (ranked the 1st of all journals and conferences in Engineering and Computer Science). Jiawei has also been awarded the NSF's SIAM Student Travel Award to support his attendance of SIAM Data Mining 2024.

The 2023 SET Outstanding Industry Partner Award was awarded to GeoEngineers, Inc.

The School of Engineering and Technology recognizes Industry Partners who have made a significant impact on the success of our programs and our students through the Dean’s Industry Partners award. 

Recipients have demonstrated their impact on a multitude of levels of interaction including our student projects, internships, hiring, research support, outreach to the community, support of our programs, labs and events as well as feedback and support in the development and ABET accreditation of our curriculum. 

The 2023 recipients of the SET Outstanding Community Partner Award are Joe Burianek and Tom McGoogan. 

The School of Engineering and Technology (SET) recognizes Community Partners who have made a significant impact on the success of our programs and our students through the Dean’s Community Partners award.

Dr. Jie Sheng, Associate Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, is the first recipient of the JEDI award. Dr. Sheng was awarded for her standard of teaching for both herself and her colleagues, and her hard work to make sure that all students, regardless of their background, are able to make progress towards the course learning goals each quarter. 

Sikha Pentyala, Ph.D. in Computer Science and Systems student, is the first recipient of the JEDI Student Award. 

"Sikha teaches introductory programming to undergraduate students (TCSS143). She does this with the kind of enthusiasm and care that is helping these students find their way to a major in computer science, thereby having a far-reaching impact on their careers and lives. As an instructor in TCSS143, she makes students from underrepresented groups in STEM understand that they belong, an important factor in deciding whether to pursue the Computer Science major."

Dr. Seyyed Babak Hamidi is a postdoctoral scholar, who presented their work in the 2023 SET Research Showcase and was awarded the Best Poster Award. 

"Seyyed has shown tremendous growth as a Postdoctoral Scholar working on multiple NASA funded projects that have been impressive to external collaborators" 

The 2023 Andrew and Julie Fry Innovation Award was awarded to the PPML Huskies Team, which included students Dean Kelley (MSCSS), Sikha Pentyala (Ph.D. CSS), and Steven Golob (Ph.D. CSS). Dean, Sikha, and Steven worked together to turn discussions and ideas into a concrete implementation. 

“It was their persistence that enabled PPML Huskies team to make it through Phase 1 & 2 of the competition-despite many technical difficulties imposed by the competition organizers”

The PPML Huskies team were recently announced as a winner of the US-UK PET's Prize Challenge, with a press release announcing their win released from the White House in March 2023. 

Kira King, Lead Academic Advisor, was awarded the 2023 SET Staff Award for her incredible work done for SET. “Kira is incredibly organized and efficient in everything she does. She is also one of the most collaborative people I have ever worked with. She is a great team player. She is always willing to jump in and help with anything anyone in our team needs. She keeps us all in the loop whenever she acts on behalf of the team. She is always focused on equity and can be counted on as a trusted and supportive colleague.”

“Kira's empathy is a bright light in the office - she cares deeply, and uses her privilege to advocate for lower level staff and students to the "higher ups." She is a strong and positive voice in SET, always thinking of others and how we can better serve students.”

“Kira is a great individual to brainstorm with, her experience at UWT gives her plenty of ideas and resources. She is constantly looking for ways to improve processes to make sure that student are having the best experience they can. Kira is constantly looking at current practices and asking the hard questions to make sure that they are "best practices" for our students and our unit. Student success is very important to her.”

“Kira has been on the DEI council and not just talks but walks the walk. She cares about the students, staff and faculty and shows compassion and understanding. She signs up for workgroups and committees to learn outside of SET.”

Dr. Chris Marriott, Associate Teaching Professor in Computer Science and Systems, was awarded this year for his continued dedication to teaching and his students. 

“Professor Marriott constantly promoted projects in class. He did that by showcasing previous students’ work especially research projects. He even motivated us further by making it a part of the class.”

“Professor Marriot loves competitive programming. He promoted this activity in the classes and even hosted a competition locally for us UWT Students to join… Most companies look for achievements in these competitions as they are where it is concentrated. By participating, we can gain their attention and get to see for ourselves the insider insight in the industry.”

Sophia Elmobdy (BS Mechanical Engineering)  is described by her nominators as a key leader in SWE, who helped build community amongst the current Mechanical Engineering cohorts and future cohorts. “Sophia helped facilitate SWE members attending the local conference in Seattle this quarter, which allowed members to build stronger relationships with one another, build connections between other institutions, and expand professional networks.”

Vinial Kumar (BS Civil Engineering) won the 2023 Outstanding Student Service Award for their help establishing a welcoming community for the first cohort of Civil Engineering students. "Vinial worked tirelessly to help create a new club with faculty, and advocates for fellow peers."  

Isabel Ramos (BS Information Technology) was awarded for being a key member of the UW Tacoma community, and working to create community during her Freshman core courses. Her nominators mention that Isabel "continues to demonstrate what she has learned academically at UW Tacoma throughout various ways in the local community" and “in addition to service to our campus community, Isabel supported Stadium High School with drafting cyber kill chain scenarios.”

Rachel Cohn (BS Civil Engineering), was awarded the 2023 Outstanding Student Leadership Award for her work spearheading the establishment of a student chapter for the American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE) at UWT, and for her service as the newly-appointed Student Representative on the UWT's Chancellor's Student Advisory Board. Rachel is described by her nominators as a “kind and dedicated person, who has a ruthless focus on doing your best and being a service to your friends and classmates”

Toàn Nguyễn (BS Computer Science and Systems) has served as the President of the Google Developer Club, and helped run/market the SET programming contests for the last two years. Toàn eagerly pitched programs and activities to enrich the student experience at UWT, and is described by his nominators as a "strong leader among students." 

Daniil Filienko, Trevor Tomlin, Kyler Robison, and Yudong Lin (all BS in Computer Science and Systems students), also known as the "Dream Team" were one of the groups awarded the Undergraduate Research Award in 2023 for their excellent team work in the "Pushback to the Future Challenge," a machine learning competition hosted by NASA. “Daniil, Kyler, Trevor, Yudong are very talented undergraduate students who work together in an exemplary symbiotic manner that seems to come natural to them.”

Rick Zhang (BS Mechanical Engineering), was awarded the 2023 Undergraduate Research Award for their impactful research on wave impacts on Tacoma sea walls, as a result of sea level rise predictions to climate change. “Rick has a clear passion and ability to do quality research, contracted to do a grant-funded research project that seeks to understand the best practices for course-based undergraduate research experiences for engineering education." 

Bryce Fukuda, Ph.D. in Computer Science and systems student was awarded the 2023 Outstanding Graduate Research Award for his work as a Research Assistant, where he has been working on multiple funded projects that have been impressive to external collaborators. “Bryce is a top Ph.D. student both inside and outside the classroom, highly motivated, sincere, hardworking, diligent, detail-oriented, and eager to learn new concepts.”

The PPML Huskies Team, consisting of Dean Kelley (MSCSS), Sikha Pentyala (Ph.D. in CSS) and Steven Golob (Ph.D. in CSS), was awarded the Outstanding Graduate Research Award for their impressive teamwork that led them to win the US-UK PETs Prize challenge. 

“Dean, Sikha and Steven worked together to turn discussions and ideas into a concrete implementation, a few lines of code at a time.”

“It was their persistence that enabled PPML Huskies team to make it through Phase 1 & 2 of the competition-despite many technical difficulties imposed by the competition organizers”

Joseph Casebeer, BSCES '22, has worked diligently to promote entrepreneurship within SET and has consistently brought in industry representatives and company founders to the campus to speak with the students. He kept the SET Entrepreneurs Club moving forward through the pandemic and has provided momentum to propel it into next year, promoting membership across the campus, including students from other disciplines. All while building his green solution platform Terrestrious.

Recent graduate Natalie Hong, BSCSS '22, is a shining example of students involved in research and development at the undergraduate level having real world impact Undergraduate student work with our entrepreneurial faculty is fundamental to building out innovative business solutions that grow companies and the economy. Natalie is highly motivated and eager to learn new skills. She often volunteers to do more work by joining new projects. She picks up new skills quickly, takes feedback seriously and works well with other interns.

Marife Tabao, Program Coordinator, is one of the most dedicated people on the SET staff and is always eager to help and support new staff, continuing staff, faculty, and students with a smile on her face. She conducts her work from a place of care, empathy, and passion for higher education and student success, and serves as a touchpoint for everyone in SET and always helps guide you to the correct answer.

Mike McCourt, Assistant Professor in Electrical Engineering, is an excellent teacher who has demonstrated his abilities both inside and outside of the classroom. He shows passion for every aspect of teaching and he is committed to the success of his students. He works to extend the learning experience for students beyond the classroom through hands-on projects and research and his students appreciate his approach to teaching which includes well organized lectures and an enthusiasm for the topics he teaches. "Teaching is his gift."

Heather Finch, BSCSS '22, is active in RSO’s such as Women in Computer Science (WiCS) and HusciiCoding club and she held a senator position at the campus level. She is a high achieving student and a great role model for the other students.

Lourdes Tolmich, MCL '22, has a long and successful career in information technology and cybersecurity ahead of her. She has exhibited professional behavior and a commitment to learning and success in her career, exceptional leadership skills, communication abilities and personal fortitude.

James Wedum, BSCSS/BSCES '22, represents multiple programs in SET. He is a motivated student who wants to work on assistive robotics in the future. He is starting a Ph.D. program in Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin Madison in the fall where he will continue to be a leader in his future education and future career.

Kumiko Dunn, BSCSS '22, is always prepared and asks intellectually stimulating questions. She puts in major effort in researching the background and learning technical skills for the project, and is a star in undergraduate research.

Since joining UWT as a graduate student in 2019, Sikha Pentyala, MSCSS '22, has truly excelled in her studies and research. She has turned every research project that she worked on into a success due to her exceptionally high level of creativity, intelligence, and ambition, combined with a level of professional maturity far above that of her peers.

Shishir Reddy, MSCSS '22, has demonstrated excellent proficiency in programming, bash, Docker, cloud computing, machine learning, data science and genomics workflows. In addition, he is very dedicated, motivated, intelligent, diligent, mature, responsible, and demonstrated excellent communication skills.