Computer science students and faculty who received departmental and school honors were recognized at the annual Computer Science Department Awards Ceremony on Thursday, May 1. This year’s ceremony took place during the lunch break of the annual OlympiCS event, co-hosted by Women in Computer Science (WiCS) at Johns Hopkins and the Johns Hopkins Chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery (JHU ACM).
Outstanding Senior Awards were given to Chloe Donelan, Owen Reed, and Kuleen Sasse for their academic excellence, leadership, and service to the CS community, acknowledging their efforts as course assistants for particularly difficult classes.
Dennis Plotnikov and Hanbei Zhou were presented with 2025 CS+X Awards for their outstanding achievements in combining diverse studies with computer science—specifically physics and neuroscience, respectively.
This year’s Special Service Awards—given to students who have performed outstanding work to benefit the Department of Computer Science, the university, and the community—went to fourth-year undergraduates Josephine Deng, Stella Huo, and Miseok Kim for their leadership of JHU ACM, WiCS, and HopHacks, the department’s annual coding marathon.
In recognition of their outstanding performance as teaching assistants, fourth-year undergraduates Jamie Stelnik and Tian Zhou received this year’s Neuhauser Family Undergraduate Teaching Awards in Honor of Dr. S. Rao Kosaraju. Associate Teaching Professor Gagan Garg praised Stelnik’s punctuality, compassion, and humility, while Associate Professor Michael Dinitz commended Zhou for his effectiveness and willingness to take on additional responsibilities.
The annual Michael J. Muuss Research Award, established in honor of the late 1979 Hopkins graduate of the same name, was conferred to fourth-year undergraduate TaiMing Lu for his application of computer science research to real-world practice. A member of the GenEx research team, Lu was also a finalist for the Computing Research Association‘s 2024-2025 Outstanding Undergraduate Research Awards.
Nominated by her peers, third-year undergraduate Sujin Lee won this year’s Most Valuable Peer Award in appreciation of her contributions to the undergraduate CS community and overall departmental spirit.
Finally, five Joel Dean Excellence in Teaching Awards were awarded to graduate students Francis Durso, Tatiana Kashtanova, and Kaitlynn T. Pineda, as well as Assistant Professor Daniel Khashabi and Joshua Reiter, a senior lecturer in the department. Initiated by Joel and Monia Dean with the objective of promoting excellence in undergraduate education, these annual awards recognize faculty and graduate students who have exhibited extraordinary performance in teaching undergraduates. Associate Teaching Professor Ali Madooei praised Durso as “one of the best teaching assistants I’ve ever had,” while Kashtanova and Pineda were recognized for their extraordinary dedication, class enhancements, and ability to manage complex grading processes; Khashabi and Reiter were lauded for their commitment to teaching, passion for helping students, and customized, thoughtful, and engaging curriculum.