2020 COE Senior Awards

COE Outstanding CE Senior in Class of 2020

The College of Engineering recognized the graduating senior who has the highest cumulative GPA from each degree program.  Rick Franc earned his computer engineering degree with a 3.97 cumulative GPA, graduating among the top 2.5 percent of his class. Interested in coding since the seventh grade, Franc says that UCSB broadened his skills to include the electrical engineering aspect of computers, sparking an interest in computer vision and computer graphics. After interning at Facebook the past two summers, Franc has accepted a position as a software engineering at Facebook in Seattle.

COE News – "CoE Announces Outstanding Seniors in Class of 2020"

Hynes-Wood Award
Computer engineering major Boning Dong is the recipient of the 2020 Hynes-Wood Award, which recognizes students for outstanding contributions to student activities and helping others with professional growth and development. The award is named for Jacqueline Hynes, former assistant dean for academic programs in engineering, and the late Roger Wood, a beloved electrical and computer engineering professor and former associate dean for academic affairs. Dong also received a University Award of Distinction for contributing greatly to the quality of life by giving unselfish service to others within a particular area.

Dong joined the IEEE club as a freshman, becoming a project manager and president the following two years.  Club membership grew from forty to nearly two-hundred students during that time. With a 3.95 cumulative GPA, Dong is graduating with High Honors. In addition to a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering, he also minored in art. He will return to campus in fall as a graduate student in ECE’s master’s program. 

COE News – "Student Awards & Recognitions for Class of 2020" (full article)

Class of 2020 Student Speaker
Computer Engineering major Michelle Nguyen was selected to represent the COE’s class of 2020 during the undergraduate celebration. Throughout her time at UCSB, Nguyen has been active in the campus community in a number of fronts. She was a founding member of UCSB’s chapter of Phi Sigma Rho, a sorority for women STEM majors, with a mission to empower and support women in engineering and technical fields where women are historically underrepresented. She was also part of a group of students whose work culminated in the installation in October 2017 of a full chapter of the sorority known as the Alpha Xi Chapter, recognized by both UCSB’s Panhellenic and the Phi Sigma Rho national organization. In addition, she was a founding member of Women Hacks, a group that organized the first all-female hackathon at UCSB in 2019. She plans to continue her career as a software engineer at Capital One Financial Corporation in Dallas, Texas.

COE News – "Student Awards & Recognitions for Class of 2020" (full article)