Events & News
Ekaterina Spriggs Wins Multiple Awards
April 30, 2007
Congratulations to Ekaterina (Kate) Spriggs who is the 2007 spring convocation College of Science outstanding senior. This follows upon three other recent accomplishments: Computer Science Outstanding Senior award, Computer Science Excellence in Research award, and a Galileo Circle Scholarship. These awards celebrate combined academic strengths, research contributions, and outreach efforts.
Kate has made research contributions to the modeling of biological structure, specifically in the case of microscopic fungus from the genus Alternaria (in collaboration with Joseph Schlecht, Barry Pryor, and Kobus Barnard). In particular, she has developed a stochastic L-system model for Alternaria, and an on-line interface that allows domain scientists to experiment with different modeling assumptions and parameters. She is also developing models for the role of tone in emotional conversations (in collaboration with Emily Butler and Kobus Barnard). In addition, Kate has taken a lead role in setting up the new department-wide visualization and interactivity laboratory in GS 756, and has been a tremendous asset to the computer vision group at the university.
Kate has contributed to outreach activities targeted at high school and middle school students, encouraging them to attend college, study math and computer science, and become involved in research. She has also served for several years as a College of Science ambassador, and has encouraged many potential students to come to the University of Arizona.
During her undergraduate career, Kate has received a long list of honors and awards including:
- Finalist in the nationwide CRA outstanding undergraduate research award program (2007)
- Winner of a BIO5 innovator award (2006)
- First place in 2006 and 2005, and second place in 2004, in the Physical Sciences, Mathematics, Computer Engineering, & Computer Science category at the UA student showcase
- Among the undergraduate students chosen for the Pillars of Excellence (2005)
- Two time recipient of research grants from the Honors College (2004 and 2005)
- Recipient of the International Student Association Super Achiever Award, University of Arizona (2005)
- Invited to attend the "Beyond Silicon Computing Summer School" at Caltech (2004)