CS/SE Spring’17 Graduates Celebrate All Their Hard Work With A UT Dallas CS Hosted Luncheon In Their Honor
This May, the UT Dallas University, families, and friends celebrated the accomplishments of more than 3,400 graduates during eight commencement ceremonies. The Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science has 929 candidates for its two ceremonies. To honor the hard work and dedication of the Spring 2017 Computer Science and Software Engineering graduating class, the UT Dallas Computer Science department hosted a luncheon in the ECS courtyard the day before the commencement ceremonies.
The luncheon began with a congratulatory speech by Dr. Gopal Gupta, the UT Dallas CS department head, who commended the graduating students for all their hard work as well as their family and friends. “I want to congratulate you all on your successes and hard work. You have all done a great job. Of course, you all worked very hard to get your degree, but you could not have done it without the support of your family members and friends.” Following Dr. Gupta’s congratulatory speech was Dr. Mark Spong, Dean of the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, who congratulated the graduates and their families as well. This year, the largest group of CS2 honor students from the first intake of the program graduated. Dr. Ivor Page presented the students with a forest green rope to wear during the commencement ceremonies to symbolize the CS2 Honors Program. Dr. Page noted that this was an extremely proud moment for him and the program. This fall the program is bringing in 30 new freshmen students.
At the end of the graduation luncheon, as per tradition, Professor Shyam Karrah, director of graduate studies and Dr. Gupta distribute awards for academic excellence. The following undergraduate students were recognized for their academic achievements (GPA of 3.9 or above): Aaron Parks-Young, Andrew Vaccaro, Christie Baker, Benjamin Cao, Catherine Jojo, Tran Pham, Hunter Werlla, Shiva Sharma, Satsuki Ueno, Nathan Morrison, Ryan Duan, Dino Occhialini, Vivien Ngo, Tristan Fun, Chi-Kan Cheung, and Amber Hasan. The following Master’s students were recognized for their academic achievements (perfect GPA of 4.0): Krishna Chaitanya Reddy Dodda, Longhao Gao, Lu Han, Josina Joy, Malini Kottarappatt Bhaskaran, Manoj Kumar Natha, Rachna Sidana, Xue Yu, and Prathish Dodabelle Prakash. The following Ph.D. students also were recognized for the academic achievements (perfect GPA of 4.0): David Brodie Smith and Juliette Ugirumurera.
The Kurt Holmes prize for the top performing undergraduate student went to Christie Baker. The Doctor Family prize for the top graduate student went to David Brodie Smith.
Since the University’s inception in 1969, UT Dallas has awarded over 113,000 degrees. Candidates for graduation this spring included 2,029 undergraduates, 1,755 master’s students, and 95 doctoral recipients. Approximately 3,480 students participated in this spring’s ceremonies.
Click here to view all the photos from the CS Spring’17 Graduation Luncheon.
ABOUT THE UT DALLAS COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT
The UT Dallas Computer Science program is one of the largest Computer Science departments in the United States with over 2,100 bachelor’s degree students, more than 1,000 MS master’s students, 150 Ph.D. students, and 86 faculty members, as of Fall 2016. With The University of Texas at Dallas’ unique history of starting as a graduate institution first, the CS Department is built on a legacy of valuing innovative research and providing advanced training for software engineers and computer scientists.