Two UD students honored for computing research

Litza Stark and Matthew Huernerfauth

Two UD students won honors in the Computing Research Association's (CRA) 2001 Outstanding Undergraduate Awards competition, underwritten by Microsoft Research.

Litza Stark was selected a runner up and Matthew Huenerfauth won honorable mention. Both are seniors in the honors program majoring in computer science. They are involved in research on human-computer interaction, especially in the area of natural language processing.

Sandra Carberry, computer and information sciences, said the award is based on more than academic achievement. "This recognition is a credit to Litza and Matt who have made significant research contributions as undergraduates and also to Dr. Kathy McCoy, who motivated them to join her research team and who has mentored them throughout their undergraduate years."

Stark also is majoring in Spanish, with minors in cognitive science, linguistics and psychology. She has done experimental research on language acquisition and is interested in analyzing the mental representation of language with the goal of modeling it.

She has received the Delaware Academy of Science Award, several academic scholarships and departmental awards as outstanding junior and outstanding female student, is the coauthor of a paper on her research and is working on an honor's thesis. She also spent two summers working at AT&T research laboratories. Stark is currently a teaching assistant and has helped to develop a program to attract high-school girls into computer science. She is the daughter of Cruce Stark, English.

In addition to his computer science major, Huenerfauth has minors in cognitive science and mathematics. His research focuses on artificial intelligence and the processing of natural languages by computers. Basically, he said he wants to teach computers how to talk, or, more precisely, how to hold conversations with humans.

Huenerfauth, a National Merit Scholar, National AP Scholar and a Eugene duPont Memorial Distinguished Scholar, has won Delaware Academy of Science awards and was offered a Marshall Scholarship which he declined to take a Mitchell Scholarship. As a Mitchell scholar, Huenerfauth will study at the University of Dublin for a year then return to the U.S. where he hopes to receive National Science Foundation and Hertz Foundation grants to continue his research.

The Computing Research Association is an association of more than 180 North American academic departments of computer science and computer engineering; laboratories and centers in industry, government and academia engaging in basic computing research; and affiliated professional societies.

CRA's mission is to strengthen research and education in the computing fields, expand opportunities for women and minorities, and improve public and policymaker understanding of the importance of computing and computing research in society.

–Barbara Garrison

Photo by KATHY FLICKINGER