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[MUSIC PLAYING] KAVITA BALA: Well, that was a long procession. Turns out we have 650 graduates. And that's what happens when you have that many graduates.
[APPLAUSE]
Welcome. It is so great to see you here in person. The last time was a very long time ago for the computer science department, and we are delighted that we have here. I am Kavita Bala, Dean of the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science. And it's a privilege to congratulate you, our 2022 computer science graduates. I'm going to give you another round of applause. You've earned it.
[APPLAUSE]
What a journey it has been for you. We are proud of all your work and dedication over the course of your studies here, and particularly over the trying time over the past few years for you. As you reflect on your journey to this exciting moment, I hope you will remember the positives. I hope you will remember the great friendships you made during study sessions in dorms, in gates, or, for your generation, on Zoom. I hope you will remember your instructors who have challenged you to achieve your best.
As dean, one of the privileges of my job is that I get to spend a lot of time with our alumni. So I look forward to actually seeing you on the other side as our alumni. And when I talk to our alumni, I always hear amazing things about our faculty and how much of an impact our faculty have had on your lives.
Our faculty are indeed some of the best in the field and in the world, and they are deeply committed to your success. They are proud to see you achieve this important milestone in your life, and I hope you will remember them and stay in touch with them as you go forward. I do want to give a round of applause to our faculty and for all that they have done for your education.
[APPLAUSE]
I will say, I try to thank them when I can, but they prefer to hear from you. So you should talk to them. I also hope you will remember all the lessons you have learned here from your assignments, from learning how to do research, from learning to juggle deadlines, from working on team projects and hackathons, and so many other life lessons that you learned as a student. I also do want to actually ask you to thank the other people who contribute to your life, all the parents and the friends who are here and all the staff who help run the college so that you are able to have these wonderful events.
[APPLAUSE]
While it has been a tough few years, the stars could not be shining brighter for our field and our college. For those of you who don't know our college's history, in 1999, Cornell undertook a bold experiment when we created the faculty of Computing and Information Science. We believed that computing and information technologies were not only going to have a big impact on various disciplines, but we believed that they would fundamentally transform our most basic institutions.
So we founded CIS with the notion that we should not only develop the technologies of the computing and information age, but also we should study and understand the societal and human impact of these technologies. We started with the top world-class computer science department, this one, and we created an interdisciplinary information science department, added statistics and data science under one big umbrella. This is called the Cornell CIS model by our peers.
And this model was decades ahead of its time and completely revolutionary. At that time, our peers believed that they would do the technology, and society would just take care of itself and figure out what to do with it. This past decade has shown that is just not the case. Now many of our peers are emulating our Cornell CIS model. In recognition of the CIS vision, in 2020, we were named the Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, the first college of computing named for a woman and the first college at Cornell named for a woman.
[APPLAUSE]
I am very proud of that, so I think that is worth it.
[APPLAUSE]
And many of you students here have been part of this historic moment in CIS's history. I am so proud to be dean at this time, and to mark the growth of our disciplines and our contributions to society. We are living in a time of both incredible opportunity and deep challenges. I tell my students, this is the best time to be in the computing and information disciplines because there is just so much to do. And you can have a tremendous impact with the degrees you've just earned here.
So whether you're headed into industry, starting your own company, or staying in academia, I encourage you to embody our college's bold legacy, to have a positive impact on your field and the world. Computer science will be at the forefront, fueling innovations that have the potential to transform our most basic institutions, ones that have stood for centuries. I'm confident your Cornell computer science education of world-class scholarship and experiential learning will empower you to excel wherever the future takes you and achieve great things.
As you forge your personal path, please remember you are part of the Cornell Bowers CIS family. Keep us updated on the many achievements you will achieve in your careers and your personal lives. And we will always take pride in seeing what you create, what you change, and what you become.
I'm also going to put a plug here for tomorrow. I look forward to walking with you tomorrow at the university commencement. For the first time ever, our students will be walking under the Bowers CIS banner, the banner for your graduating college. So congratulations again, and I'll see you tomorrow.
[APPLAUSE]
And with that, I'd like to invite Eva Tardos, the chair of the computer science department.
EVA TARDOS: Welcome, students and families and friends. I'm Eva Tardos, department chair of computer science. And it's really, really great to see all of you in person and being able to hold a true in-person graduation after two years of all online events.
I want to start by congratulating the students for all you have accomplished. And this applies to all programs, from undergrads, [INAUDIBLE] masters, PhD. Getting all these degrees from our demanding program is challenging even in normal times. And the times you have been here included COVID, and was anything but normal. I know you learned a lot, and I hope you will always be proud of what you accomplished.
It is, as Dean Bala already tried to explain, a truly exciting time to be a computer scientist. Computing is increasingly central in every aspect of our life. With all that you learned here at your time at Cornell, you can make a huge difference in whatever you decide to do. And I'm sure you will. You will make people's lives better, helping them do things easier, getting them access to more information. I hope you will also be thoughtful in your work, and also help make the world a better and more fair place, paying attention to the social impact of what you do, issues around privacy, fairness, dissemination of online content, and accountability in all of our online systems.
We have a lot of graduates. I'm looking forward to congratulating each and every one of you, so I don't want to make this speech very long. But I would like to say a few words for each of our programs.
So starting with the undergraduates, congratulations to close to 520 students that we are graduating in the class of 2022. This is a huge growth. Yeah.
[APPLAUSE]
This is a huge growth just from 2019, the last time we were allowed to hold an in-person graduation, where the class size was only 370. We're extremely proud of both all of you, every single one of you, and also at the diversity of our class. 40% of this class are women, and 13.5% are underrepresented minorities. To get here, every one of you had to do a large number of extremely challenging classes, functional programming, algorithms, operating systems, and many others. You had to do project. And I hope you will always be extremely proud of the project you did.
And then this all happened while you had to deal with COVID in spring of 2020 when, all of a sudden, you were sent home and had to do everything online, including even December this year, when you suddenly had to do some of your exams online. All of this was making everything so much harder-- harder to get help, harder to find groups. And I know it was hard, but I also know that you learned a lot, not only the subjects you were taught in classes, but also learned to be resilient, independent. And I hope you learned to believe in yourself. And I am thrilled that this last year was a bit more normal.
I also want to thank each and every one of you what you have done to help us. Very many of you were helping us teach as TAs. Thank you. All of you in your classes have been supportive and tolerant for all the challenges and all the changes that were happening, issues that came up from online classes, from Zoom exams during COVID for last-minute changes. Thank you for your amazing support.
Maybe this is a slight change of program. I want to also take this opportunity to thank the student groups. We have three amazing student groups, each organizing great events, helping students learn from each other, help older students help them mentor younger ones. Your community and leadership is very appreciated by both the students and all the faculty. So to start with, there is an Association of Computer Science Undergraduates. Maybe those of you who are ACSU members could stand up so we see how many there are. Could you please stand up?
[APPLAUSE]
Oh, you guys are chicken to stand up. I especially want to thank [INAUDIBLE] who was ACSU president, and want to encourage people to actually stand up. Then there is the Women in Computing. And maybe the Women in Computing at Cornell, the WIC group will be more daring and more willing to stand up. Please stand up if you are a WIC member.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
So in this graduating class, there is Jonah Chen and Olivia Zhu, who were big presidents. Thank you for all you've done.
And last and not least, there is a group of underrepresented minorities in computing, and I would like SQ guys to stand up.
[APPLAUSE]
And from that, I want to point out Mia Sanchez, who was your MC co-president last year. And thank you for all you have done, Mia.
[APPLAUSE]
Each of these groups is graduating-- has done an essential work to help organize our communities, helping students succeed. And to be honest, without your help, it wouldn't have worked. We don't know how to arrange things.
So thank you so much. And I hope there is a next generation that will continue doing this work.
[APPLAUSE]
Turning to the Master of Engineering students, some of you were undergraduates before, and were part of the whole COVID saga over all these years. Others were only here for a year. Doing the MEng program with its many classes and giant projects in just one year is a truly impressive accomplishment. Congratulations.
[APPLAUSE]
And I hope you still made friends, I hope you made new connections, and I hope you go home with great memories from Cornell.
And then, finally, there is the PhDs and master's students. You have spent more years with us, you were our colleagues, you helped us teach, you did research. You take two classes, but starting your first research led by faculty. And then as you got more senior, each of you growing into a true expert and leaders in one of your fields.
We are really, really proud of your accomplishment. And maybe a congratulation for those guys, too.
[APPLAUSE]
And then last but not least, I want to thank your families. I know how important it is to have an emotionally support for everyone's family, and the last couple of years with COVID was very hard on everyone. And so I need to especially thank, for the continued support from all of you, for all you have done. And definitely deserve a round of applause for the families. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
So with this, I will hand the microphone to the directors of various, programs and we will call each and every one of you to stage to congratulate you personally.
I know COVID is with us, so a couple sort of organizing things in order. I'm personally open to either shaking your hand or just doing a elbow bump, whatever you prefer. And we'll take your lead. If you hold out your hand, I'll shake it. If you would rather do your elbow, that's perfectly fine, also.
It's also OK if you want to take off your mask as you're coming up to the stage, because the pictures-- oh, I guess I should have taken off my mask. What a good idea. The pictures look so much better--
[APPLAUSE]
Pictures look definitely better with the mask off. So as you are coming to the stage, feel free to take off your mask. In any event, I'm thrilled that we can hold this event in person, and allowing me to congratulate each and every one of you in person. And then meet your families afterwards in person.
And with this, I'm handing off to the Director of Graduate Studies, Robert van Renesse.
[APPLAUSE]
ROBBERT VAN RENESSE: Hello, everybody. Welcome to the ceremony. My name is Robert van Renesse, and I'm the director of graduate studies. Thank you. Thank you.
I will be conducting the ceremony for our graduate students. And I will start with an apology to their families. I'm about to severely mispronounce the name of your loved one. Adding a Dutch accent, that's often leading to bizarre, perhaps exotic result, I hope you will feel solace in the knowledge that my own name is severely even butchered many times during the day.
We'll start today with a hooding ceremony for our PhD graduates currently lining up. Hooding symbolizes the candidates' readiness to do independent significant and original research. It's a moment of intense pride of the advisor of the graduates, as they fumble to try and correctly fit the hood. For the parents in the room, it's about as difficult as the first time you put on a diaper on a baby-- while being scrutinized by a large audience, while being dressed in a weird outfit, and while being recorded by a small army of photographers.
With that, I will call upon the first candidate, who's Sebastian Amant, the August '22 degree, and advised by Carla Gomes.
[APPLAUSE]
Title advances in Bayesian and sparse optimization for autonomous scientific discovery.
[INAUDIBLE]
Next, we have Jun-wun By, August 2022, also advised by Carla Gomes. Explore and exploit structure and self supervision and sequence representation learning.
[APPLAUSE]
Next, we got Sumia Basu, August 2022. And he'll be hooded by his advisor Gunt Scier, and the title is minimizing trust in the centralized systems.
[APPLAUSE]
Next is Bodjo Chenache, a May '22 degree, advised by yours truly. The title is supporting distributed systems of distributed systems.
[APPLAUSE]
Next, we got Dee Chin, again Carla Gomes advisor. Combining deep learning with reasoning from mapping species to solving games and crystal structures.
[APPLAUSE]
Next, we got Jonathan di Lorenzo, advised by Nate Foster. Nate unfortunately is on his way back from-- I guess from Barbados, life is tough. He was trying to get here in time, but didn't manage. He sends his apologies. He's hooded by Eva Tardos. Title of the thesis-- domain-specific languages for ad hoc data processing.
[APPLAUSE]
Next, we got Ich-Ing Wa, and advised by Tom Wresten-Park and Morin Amon. The thesis title is characterizing and mitigating threats to thrust and safety online. Hooded by Claire Cardy.
Next we got Sagar Ja, August '22 degree, and advised by Ken Verman, who will be hooding him. Title of the thesis, fast state machine replication for cloud services.
[APPLAUSE]
OK, so next we got Praveen Kumar, also a student of Nate Foster, who's again not here. He has a December 2021 degree. And will be hooded by Eva Tardos. The title of his thesis is [INAUDIBLE] predictable networks. And I want to add that this thesis got a Dissertation Award.
[APPLAUSE]
Next, we got Hubert Lin, a student of Kavita Bala's, May 2022-- towards robust perception systems in real world environments.
[APPLAUSE]
Never going to forget you.
OK, next we got May Malano, August '22 degree. Student of Andrew Meyer's, programming safely with weak-- and between parentheses, and strong consistency.
[APPLAUSE]
Next, Manish Raghavan, student of John Kleinberg's, at the societal impacts of algorithmic decision-making. Also a thesis with Dissertation Award.
[APPLAUSE]
And there are only two of those.
Next, we got Cijin Rajakrishnan, August '22 degree. A student of David Schwartz, who will be hooding him. And the title of the thesis, approximation algorithms for data center scheduling.
[APPLAUSE]
Next, we got John Ryan, August 2022 degree, student of Aneal Donnelly's, who will be hooding him. They're both rather tall, should work out. And the title of the thesis-- fast kernel matrix approximations by serious expansions.
[APPLAUSE]
Next, we got Naomi Serkin, August '22 degree. Student of Rafael Passis, will be hooded by Eva Tardos. Title of the thesis-- leveraging parallelism in cryptography.
[APPLAUSE]
Next, we got Stephan Smolka, December 2019 degree, also student of Nate Foster's. Will be hooded by Eva. And the title of the thesis is a code algebraic approach to programming and verifying computer networks.
[APPLAUSE]
Next, Elaine Sur, August '22, a student of [INAUDIBLE] is here. And title of the thesis is reasoning and learning in interactive natural language systems.
[APPLAUSE]
Next, we got Laurie Thompson, December 2020 degree, David Mindot is the advisor. And title is understanding and directing what models learn.
[APPLAUSE]
Next, David Wertheimer, May 2022 degree, student of Bharat Hariharan's. And the title is improving flexibility and performance in metric-based fuse-shot classification.
[APPLAUSE]
Next, Ming Xi Sha, August '22 degree, students of Steve Marchener. And title is physically realistic rendering of complex materials using wave optics.
[APPLAUSE]
OK, next, we got Maufen Tete-Yin, August 2021 degree. And will be hooded by his advisor, Gun, and by myself-- scaling the infrastructure of practical blockchain systems.
[APPLAUSE]
Let's see, and there is Fang Chen with a August '22 degree, with Ari Jules. Title is protocols for connecting blockchain with off-chain systems. And I'll be hooding him, since I co-authored the paper with him.
[APPLAUSE]
OK, next we're going to do the Masters of Science graduates, who have lined up there already. So in case you're wondering, the MS degree is a two-year graduate program in which students take courses, they help with teaching courses, they do research, they write a thesis. And they also have to do a minor in some external field of study.
So it's an enormous achievement, and we'll start here with Hadi Alsager with August 2022 degree, and was advised by Kavida Bala, capturing and understanding photos autonomously.
[APPLAUSE]
Next, we got Macht Bajumi, student of Forsten Jacom's-- recovering utility in the presence of implicit bias.
[APPLAUSE]
Jesa Katzman, student of Chris Desah who's not here, but Eva will be doing the photo with him. The title is Remanian geometry in machine learning.
[APPLAUSE]
That's out of order-- Samwise? Yeah. Next is Samwise Parkinson, who is another student to work with Nate Foster, Eva will do the honors.
[APPLAUSE]
OK, next is Ankush Ryaparry who worked with Emanuel Trumer. And the title of the thesis adaptively in compilation based execution engines of databases.
[APPLAUSE]
And last, but not least, Benjamin Steeper, August '22 degree with Chang Sheng. Is Chang here? No? Eva will do the-- so silent speech recognition with wearable devices.
[APPLAUSE]
OK, so next we're going to move on to the ceremony for the Masters of Engineering. So I'm standing in for my colleague, Chaim Hirsch, who cannot be here today due to a personal matter. Just quickly want to mention that the MEng degree is a result of an intense two-semester professional degree program, where they have to take approximately six-- or more courses in some cases-- and a capstone project.
We got about 150 of them. They are not all here, but-- and there, I got a little book. OK. Are we ready to go? OK.
Tell me when. OK, here we go.
[READING NAMES]
Oh, sorry. Going too fast. I'll try that again.
[READING NAMES]
OK, that brings us to the end of the ceremony for the graduate students. I want to end with asking our graduates to recognize the extraordinary efforts of our program administrators. These would be Becky Stuart, Stephanie Mayke, Jessica Beebe, and taking over from Stephanie Renee Milliken, if they're around.
[APPLAUSE]
LILLIAN LEE: Hi, I'm the Director of Undergraduate Studies. Where's my applause?
[APPLAUSE]
OK, undergraduates, it's just you and me. First thing we're going to do is announce some awards-- they're awards of awesomeness. To add some drama to the proceedings, first, I'm going to tell you who won them, but I'm not going to tell you what they won.
OK, so when I call your name, you come up to the stage if you're here. If you're not here, don't do that.
OK, so Vaishnavi Gupta, are you here? Please come up. Mia Sanchez, are you here? Please come up.
Henry Jung, are you here? Henry? Excellent. OK, and Siau Lee? Excellent.
While they're coming up here, let's do a micro stretch. Go ahead and stand up, because we're halfway through.
It feels good. Now, let's sit back down.
OK, the four of you have won different things. They're all very exciting. Are you ready?
OK, first, we'd like to recognize the recipient of the Alan S Mark's Prize for excellence at undergraduate teaching support. And that goes to-- and I'm going to read all your awards first, and then we'll bring you up here, and everyone is going to blow the rafters off, OK? But let me read the citations first.
OK, so Vaishnavi has won the Alan S marks Prize. This award recognizes a graduating CS senior who has most demonstrated excellence in commitment in supporting undergraduate teaching activities in the Department of Computer Science. Recipients are selected from those who assisted in teaching undergraduate CS courses as consultants, graders, or undergraduate teaching assistants.
Prize recipients will each receive a check for $500. Come up here.
[APPLAUSE]
The next awards are for the Jonathan E. Marks Memorial Senior Prize. Jonathan Eric Marks was a 1985 graduate of our program who died tragically in a skiing accident in Switzerland a few months after graduation. His family established the Jonathan E. Marks Memorial Fund in his honor.
Jonathan is remembered as a warm, friendly, outgoing young man who cared about people and who had an enormous enthusiasm for life and for Cornell. He was an avid athlete, an officer of the association for computer science undergraduates, a member of Sigma Pi, in which he was involved in several charitable services in the community. And a tutor, grader, and consultant for the mathematics and computer science departments.
The Jonathan E. Marks Memorial Senior Prize is awarded to the student or students majoring in CS who, in the estimation of the selection committee, have maintained a strong record of dedicated scholarship, but also exhibited qualities true to the spirit of Jonathan Marks-- leadership, service to the community, and a general love of life.
It gives me much pleasure to award this year's signorial surprise to two recipients, Mia Sanchez and Henry Jung.
[APPLAUSE]
The 2022 Computer Science Prize for Academic Excellence goes to Siau Lee. This prize is in recognition of a senior in the field of computer science who's performed exceptionally well academically, and who has shown a strong commitment to the ideals of the educational mission at Cornell.
Special consideration will be given to those students who have displayed an interest in research, and who plan to eventually pursue doctoral level studies. This award represents one of the highest honors given to an undergraduate by the Department of Computer Science, and it comes with a check for $500. Please step here.
[APPLAUSE]
And now a pause while we figure out what's happening.
Can anyone hum the Cornell anthem or something? Should we sing it along? Far above Cayuga's waters-- what's the rest of it?
All right, and we're going to do this with ruthless precision and amazing efficiency, and yet, with joy in our hearts and love for our dear Alma mater. Are you ready? You're ready. All right--
[READING NAMES]
I'm going to try to read each one in a different voice, just to add some drama to the proceedings.
[READING NAMES]
The next person, who is Linday Lowe, would like to say something.
LINDSAY LOWE: Just wanted to say, go, Big Red.
LILLIAN LEE: Now, get on over there.
[READING NAMES]
We have another comment from Maxine Nsegwu.
MAXINE NSEGWU: I just want to say, hi, mommy, Justino, Crystal, Lawson, Victor, Faith.
[APPLAUSE]
LILLIAN LEE: [READING NAMES]
I'm dying up here, I got t tell you.
[READING NAMES]
And if you guys walk a little faster, it gives me a little breeze and that helps out here.
[READING NAMES]
Can you guys see that Meghan Gatch has a little handheld fan and she's aiming it right at me? And that's the only reason I'm going to make it through.
[READING NAMES]
Get ready, row nine!
[READING NAMES]
Chang yung Wang would like to say something.
CHANG YUNG WANG: Special. thanks for families and friends overseas. [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
LILLIAN LEE: [NON-ENGLISH]
[READING NAMES]
We have a possible comment from Xiaolu Zhang. Make it good.
XIAOLU ZHANG: [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
LILLIAN LEE: [READING NAMES]
I am told you can celebrate, but you can't go anywhere. You need to stay seated for the picture. Just the students-- that's just the students, not the family. So but I think Eva Tardos, our chair, will explain more.
EVA TARDOS: So first of all, congratulations, again, the whole class.
[APPLAUSE]
And thank you for all of you families, friends, and students for their patience for more than 650 graduates. It's amazing to have so many of you. Congratulations.
What's happening next is we would like to have class pictures of the students, and there is a reception over there in the opening of the curtain. So if you're a friend and family, you can start enjoying the reception. If you're a student, could you please stay here so we can do a class picture.
And I guess with this, the official part of the ceremony ends. And thank you so much, and I hope I see everyone at the reception very soon.
Computing and Information Science Recognition Ceremony 2022
