In the Northeast Regional Preliminary Contest of the 2012 ACM International Collegiate Programming Competition, one of the UMass Amherst Computer Science teams placed second, qualifying them for the regional finals.
The "Garbage Collector" team, consisting of Khanh Nguyen, Aibek Sarbayev, and Tung Pham competed against 17 other teams from nine schools at the event held in October at Western New England University. Associate Professor Erik Learned-Miller coached the UMass Amherst CS teams. During the Northeast North America Regional Finals held at Rochester Institute of Technology in November, the team placed sixth.