CICS to Honor Alumni and Graduate Students During the 10th Annual Outstanding Achievement and Advocacy Awards Ceremony

On Friday, April 27, the College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst will celebrate the college's Outstanding Achievement and Advocacy (OAA) award recipients during the 10th annual banquet and award ceremony. The OAA awards were established to celebrate the remarkable accomplishments of the college's degree programs and to acknowledge important friends and supporters of CICS.

The banquet ceremony will take place in the Campus Center's Marriott Center beginning with a 5:00 p.m. reception. John McCarthy, interim provost and senior vice chancellor for Academic Affairs will deliver opening remarks. Laura Haas, CICS dean, and James Allan, chair of the faculty, will also provide remarks during the evening.

Bruce Croft, distinguished professor and former CICS Dean, Bruce Croft will present the following OAA awards to CICS alumni:

• Outstanding Contributions to Society - Esha Sahai (BS '02, MS '04)

• Outstanding Achievement by a Young Alum - Shiraj Sen (MS '07, PhD '12)

• Outstanding Achievement in Technology Development - Subhabrata "Shubho" Sen (MS '97, PhD '01)

• Outstanding Achievement in Education- Rahul Simha (MS '86, PhD '90)

• Outstanding Achievement in Research - Lisa Zurk (BS '85)

The 2018 OAA recipients have demonstrated excellence leadership, success in their fields, and have honored CICS with their accomplishments. 2018 OAA Award Recipient Bios

In addition to the alumni being recognized with the OAA awards, CICS Outstanding Graduate Student awards will be presented to Daniel Barowy and David Belanger (doctoral dissertation), Kaleigh Clary and Milad Nasr Esfahani (synthesis project), and Benjamin Kushigian and Keen Sung (teaching assistant).  New for this year's ceremony, CICS scholarship and fellowship recipients will also be recognized.