The Georgia Tech computing community gathered this week to celebrate outstanding students, staff, and faculty during the 25th annual College of Computing Awards Celebration.

Zvi Galil, the John P. Imlay Jr. Dean of Computing, hosted the luncheon event held April 25 at the Klaus Advanced Computing Building. More than 35 awards were presented to recognize achievements during the 2015-2016 academic school year.

“This celebration to recognize student, staff, and faculty achievements each year is vitally important to the life and community of the College,” Galil said during his remarks. “Congratulations to all of our award winners.”

A few highlights of the students awards included the Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Assistant Award, which was presented to Justin "Eric" Cook for his dedication and commitment to his fellow students, and the Donald V. Jackson Fellowship Award for graduate students, which was presented to Katherine Cannella, Aditi Dhar, and Apurv Verma for exemplifying academic excellence and leadership.

A number of staff members were also honored during the event. Wes Kirkbride, College of Computing academic advisor, earned the Outstanding Staff and Service Award; Ben Powell, College of Computing director of finance administration, received the Outstanding Supervisory staff and Service Award; and Marcus Johnson, College of Computing director of faculty administration, received the Outstanding Staff for Community Leadership Award.

Several faculty members received awards as well. Among these were winners of the Dean’s Office Awards. Presented by Senior Associate Dean

Charles Isbell, this year’s awards were presented to:

• Mark Riedl, School of Interactive Computing associate professor, received the James C. Edenfield Faculty Fellowship Award for his work in artificial intelligence.
• Jacob Eisenstein, School of Interactive Computing assistant professor, received the James D. Lester III Family Award for his recent work on understanding and managing online writing.
• Dana Randall, ADVANCE professor of computing in the School of Computer Science, received the Dean’s Award for her work and commitment to the advancement of women in academic scientific and engineering careers.

The event concluded with service acknowledgements for nine staff and faculty members with either 10 or 25 years of service at Georgia Tech.

Click here to see a complete list of this year's winners.