Undergraduate researchers win big at computer science showcase
Computer science faculty and alumni, along with industry partners, evaluated student research projects and gave feedback on their real-world ideas.
The Virginia Tech Undergraduate Research in Computer Science (VTURCS) symposium, held on April 29 in the Squires Ballroom, offered a dynamic platform for undergraduate students to present their original research to an audience of faculty members, industry representatives, invited guests, and peers.
Held annually, the symposium highlights student-led research across a range of engineering disciplines, from advanced materials and biomedical applications to robotics, computing, and environmental innovation.
Computer science professor Cal Ribbens, one of the VTURCS judges, emphasized the value of both curiosity and humility in research.
“VTURCS is a wonderful demonstration of the extreme breadth of topics that CS students can work on,” Ribbens said. “My advice to new students is not to pretend to know everything, but to show interest and demonstrate what you’ve learned from your investment of time in the topic.”
Throughout the event, students presented poster sessions, fielded questions, and discussed the real-world impact of their work. Faculty mentors and industry affiliates provided feedback and ranked the projects.
Applying coursework in the real world
One of the standout projects this year and the winner of the People’s Choice Award, “Bun Appetit,” tackled the challenge of maintaining meaningful familial connections across distance with an original gaming app. Developed by Clara McDaniel, Olivia Chan, Kalina Kazmierczak, Raghav Pajjur, and Parker Woody, the app transforms traditional food journaling into a gamified, shared experience between parents and children.
Team members said the project was born from their shared coursework in the Nature Human-Computer Interaction class (CS 4774) and quickly grew into something they hope will continue even after graduation. The team members said they fell in love with the app the more they worked on it and are grateful it was introduced to more people throughout their process.
Another project titled “NatureCards” received the Capstone Award for exploring the intersection of technology and the natural world. This project originated from a collaborative merger of two student groups. Begun by Travis Chan, Maguire McMahon, Matthew Titi, and Guido Visioni, it was later joined by Aidan Carraretto, Allie Quach, Catherine Doan, and Patrick Skoff.
The group set out to create a mobile experience that encourages users to engage with nature and learn about local plant life. The research was inspired by Pokémon Go and the Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket, aiming to foster real-world exploration through a card game model. The result was an experience that brings people outdoors and closer to nature through playful, educational interaction.
Another standout project explored privacy risks in augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) systems and took home the Research Award. Led by Allie Craddock, Casie Peng, Claire Shin, and Jai Sundaram, with guidance from faculty advisors Margaret Ellis, Bo Ji, and Brendan David-John at the Private Eye Lab, the team investigated how the Magic Leap 2 headset’s power usage could reveal a user’s location.
VTURCS award winners
Capstone awards
First place: “NatureCards: Connecting and Educating Users in Nature”
Guido Visioni, Maguire McMahon, Patrick Skoff, Matthew Titi, Aidan Carraretto, Catherine Doan, Allie Quach, Travis Chan
Second place (two teams): “Energy Landscape Navigation in Protein-T Folding: Computational Strategies and Visualization”
Antonio Balanzategui, Bobby Whitehead, Matthew Topping
“AI-Enhanced Intelligent Reporting System”
Alek Breitenbach, Awida Neji, Youssef Kamel Kamel, Ammar Mohamed, Adham Zewail
Third place (two teams): “Socio-Emotional Journey of Appalachian Trail Hikers”
Afreen Ali, Shamsia Ahmed, Krish Mhatre, Tien Min Tan, Emily Elkins, Morva Saaty
“Interpretable Machine Learning for Diabetes Prediction: A Multi-Dataset Analysis”
Nicholas Danh, Vasu Gatne, Ethan Mauger, Eric Uehling
Research awards
First place: “Exploiting Power Telemetry to Detect AR User Location”
Allie Craddock, Casie Peng, Claire Shin, Jai Sundaram
Second place (two teams): “Dynamic Subtitle-to-Script Alignment for Movie Scene Recovery”
Kaushik Narasimhan
“Interactive Learning: AI Concepts and VR Experiences”
Ayda Haydarpour
Third place (two teams): “When Close Shaves Cause Razor Burn: Truncating Protein Complexes for Faster Computation”
Alan Cai, Luke Elder, Timothy Johann, Fatemeh Ghafouri, Alexey Onufriev
“Smart Watershed Monitoring: AI Integration for Environmental Data Access”
Dhruv Varshney
People's Choice awards
First place: “Distant Family Outdoor Game Design — Bun Appétit”
Clara McDaniel, Raghav Pajjur, Kalina Kazmierczak, Olivia Chan, Parker Woody
Second place: “Energy Landscape Navigation in Protein-T Folding: Computational Strategies and Visualization”
Antonio Balanzategui, Bobby Whitehead, Matthew Topping
Third place: “SeeMore II: Visualizing Distributed Algorithms”
Pedro Rabadan Ribeiro, Alexander Urbina, Arjun Panwar, Hayden Estes, Gregory Bolet
Written by Julie Deacon, Virginia Tech alumna and communications staffer