Awards and Honors

The Chair's Award for Achievement

The Chair's Award for Achievement recognizes outstanding undergraduates who exhibit dedication and exceptional performance in the field of Computer Science. Awardees are presented with the award at the department's annual Evans-Hall Lecture Series each spring. Recipients are chosen by the department chair and the award committee based on instructor comments as well as outstanding success in course work. Winners will receive a monetary gift to be used for any purpose. Sponsorship of this award is part of the department's overall mission to encourage and promote excellence in undergraduate education in Computer Science.

Recipients of the Chair's Award for Achievement

  • 2022: Daniil Huryn, Mack Hutsell
  • 2021: Ran Xu
  • 2020: Ran Xu
  • 2019: Colin Jiang
  • 2018: Qihang Zhang, Jose Coves, Varoon Pazhyanur
  • 2017: Robert Dicks, Wenda Zeng, Ethan Zhou
  • 2016: Henry Yu-Hsin Chen, Noam Kantor, & Siqi Xue

The Deborah Jackson Award

Made possible by a generous gift from Alumna Deborah Jackson, these awards honor the academic achievements of undergraduate juniors and seniors in the department of Computer Science.

Selection procedure: Early in the Spring semester (mid-February) each year, the department undergraduate committee will meet to consider nominations from faculty for outstanding seniors and juniors in the department. Based on nominating recommendations, academic records (e.g. gpa, level of classes taken), and other factors (e.g. honors participation, Evans/Hall candidacy, Putnam exam performance) the department will award cash prizes to the most outstanding students from the senior and/or junior class. The prize money will be given in one lumpsum cash payment early in the semester, usually by April 15, and may be used for any purpose by the recipients.

Recipients of the Deborah Jackson Award

  • 2015: Andres Celis, James Ding, Jacob Eckert, Noam Kantor, Andrew Kilgore, Yilin Lin, Yan Sheng, Liqi Shu, Congzheng Song, Lee Vian, and Hanqiu Xia
  • 2014: Dallas Albritton, Shannon Buckley, Hyo Yul Byun, Andres Celis, Michael Conway, Jennifer Lin, Amy Shannon, and Hanqiu Xia
  • 2013: Emma Accorsi, Noah Adler, Dong Ba, Junying He, Andrew McLeod, Sarah Pitman, Leah Shiferaw, and Xinhui Wu
  • 2012: Chen Chen, Dylan Connor, Robert Lunde, Warrick Macmillan, Andrew McLeod, Philip Wu, and Katherine Yu
  • 2011: Chen Chen, Patrick Cook, James Nance, and Daniel Orner
  • 2010: Aaron Bush, Michelle Chu, Patrick Cook, James Herring, Joshua Keller, Sara Lykken, and Daniel Orner
  • 2009: Dan Acton, Phillip Andreae, Walter Askew, Allison Louie, and Jeremy McKibben-Sanders
  • 2008: Emily McIntosh, Veronica Mejia-Bustamante, and Christopher Verdery
  • 2007: Sam Ballas, Sabrina Rainwater, Solomon Stein, and Cory Trankle

The Outstanding Student Award

The Outstanding Student Award is given to the undergraduate Computer Science major who best demonstrates superlative academic performance, advanced scholarship in the discipline, and leadership in co-curricular activities.

Recipients of the Outstanding Student Award

  • 2022: Christina Chance
  • 2021: Xinman Zhang, Lydia Feng
  • 2020: No recipients
  • 2019: Jose Coves

The Academic Excellence Award

The Academic Excellence Award is given to the student who demonstrates consistently high achievement in coursework and in research during their studies at Emory. Awardees are selected on the basis of grades, quality of research projects and/or honors theses, and faculty recommendations.

Recipients of the Academic Excellence Award

  • 2022: Muran (Kevin) Qin, Alexandru Rudi
  • 2021: Daniil Huryn, Mack Hutsell
  • 2020: Caleb Ziems, Wenqin Dong, Renxuan Li, Ruixlang Qi
  • 2019: Yuzhang Guo, Zhengzhe Yang