On Friday, March 12th, the Computer Science Society hosted its 24th annual Snowball awards. The Snowball is an event that allows the Faculty of Computer Science to come together to celebrate each other’s successes and recognize students and faculty for their achievements.

Due to the pandemic’s current restrictions, the event was hosted virtually for the first time in history. This did not stop students, faculty, and staff from attending however, as the society had over 150 attendees present at the event. The Computer Science Society also gifted its first 200 registrants $20 food vouchers to honor the Snowball spirit.

The event began with three keynote speakers. Through telling the stories of his past students, Dr. Srinivas Sampalli started off the event by speaking on the definition of success and the importance of hard work. Dr. Rija Orji spoke on the power of data as she showed attendees an app she developed over the pandemic and what valuable insights she was able to extract from its data. Finally, Dr. Raghav Sampangi shared some valuable lessons he’s learned over the years and encouraged students, faculty, and staff to take a collaborative approach when tackling the challenges caused by our new normal. 

Following the keynote speakers, the award ceremony commenced. Below, we’ve highlighted all of our award winners.

Computer Science Society Awards

Each year, students vote for three awards to be given out by the Computer Science Society.

The Srini Award for Teaching Excellence was awarded to Dr. Raghav Sampangi.

The Staff Appreciation Award was awarded to Sarah O’Brian.

The Best TA Award was awarded to Sahl Zahoor and Robert Smith.

Faculty of Computer Science Awards

The Leadership Award was awarded to Robert Smith.

The Citizenship Awards were awarded to Yara Ahmed, Julia Lewandowksi, Amelia, Hernandez Beltran, Darshana Upadhyay, and Mitchell Kane.

The Sedgwick Memorial Award was awarded to Ben Kelly.

The Morven Gentleman Award was awarded to Renyare Forbes.

MACS Medal of Excellence

The Gold Medal of Excellence was awarded to Amelia Hernandez Beltran.

The Silver Medal of Excellence was awarded to Niharika Prasad.

The Bronze Medal of Excellence was awarded to Kethan Kumar.

The Bronze Medal of Excellence was also awarded to Rashmi Chandy.

Bruce and Dorothy Rossetti Scholarship Awards

These awards are given to a student in second, third, and fourth year respectively for their academic achievements.

The Bruce and Dorothy Rossetti Scholarship Gold Award was awarded to Warren Fisher, Richards Joel, and Elizabeth Eddy.

The Bruce and Dorothy Rossetti Scholarship Silver Award was awarded to Yara Ahmed, Katie Arsenault, Tabea Marzlin, and Christian Guinard.

The Bruce and Dorothy Rossetti Scholarship Bronze Award was awarded to Justin Daneau and Janessa Ridley.

To highlight some of the stories behind these students’ achievements, we will be profiling a few of them on our Instagram and Facebook pages over the coming weeks.

Congratulations to all of our award winners!