The School of Computer Science (SCS) graduated 11 Ph.D. students and 10 master’s in cybersecurity students this spring.

“One of the bittersweet joys of being a faculty member is seeing your students graduate,” said Chair Vivek Sarkar.  “The bond between a graduate student and their advisor is lifelong. I wish all the graduating students the best of success and happiness in the future.”

The Ph.D. students included Prithayan Barua, Bobin Deng, Ren Ding, Prasun Gera, Ramyad Hadidi, Jinho Jung, Joshua Kimball, Xiangyu Li, Stacey Truex, and Jun-Kun Wang. The master’s students were Jonathan Ciak, Apruv Singh Gautam, Andrew Leitheiser, Maneel Modi, Tanishq Rupaal, Rahul Saranjame, Farzam Tafreshian, Ruhao Tang, Kai Yi, and Yiwen Zhou.

The students are off to exciting futures. Gautam, who was advised by Professor Mustaque Ahamad, will be a threat researcher at Cyble after graduation. His experience as a teaching assistant prepared him for the role.

“My favorite memory is TAing CS 4235/6035 Intro to Info Security for three semesters” Guatam said. “I really enjoyed helping students and also got to learn a lot from that experience.”

Saranjame, who also was advised by and TA’d for Ahamad, will be a security engineer at Praetorian.

Barua, who was advised by Sarkar, will join SiFive, an open-source hardware startup.

Four master's students and 11 Ph.D. students graduated earlier in the academic year and are headed off to academia (EPFL, UCLA) and industry (Facebook, IBM Research).

Yet all the graduate students will miss the SCS community in different ways. Hadidi, who studied computer architecture under Professor Hyesoon Kim, will remember how supportive SCS was on every level, including catered events.

 “I could go back to lab without worrying about what to eat when hunger strikes,” he said.