Dec 14, 2010 - Claremont, Calif. -

Three Harvey Mudd College students received honorable mentions in the Computing Research Association’s Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Awards 2011 competition.

Sponsored this year by Microsoft Research, the award program recognized undergraduates who showed outstanding research potential in the computer science field. Honorable Mentions were awarded to nominees whose work was considered exemplary.

Sarah Ferraro ’12
Sarah Ferraro ’12 (shown far right with Martha Cuenca ’13) received an Honorable Mention for her research and development of a game that encourages senior citizens to exercise through dance. Ferraro and her team designed and conducted user studies at local retirement communities to learn what game features would best serve seniors’ needs.

The game, “Senior Prom,” uses computer software to project the image of a virtual ballroom, while users play through Foxtrot and Swing dance routines.

A particular challenge was the creation of a two-camera tracking method that detects socks worn by the user. The seniors preferred it to traditional game dance mats—like those used in the popular Dance, Dance Revolution game—since it felt more like real dancing.

“Every design choice had to be carefully considered in terms of usability and user feedback,” Ferraro said. “I got to see for the first time how users would react to a program I had written. I feel much more prepared for testing of the software I will develop in the future.”

Ferraro’s research contributes to the growing field of human-computer interaction, said Christine Alvarado, assistant professor of computer science, who served as Ferraro’s project adviser. “Sarah had to deeply understand this population and their needs to design the game,” Alvarado said. “The goal of this research was to study how computers can be used to change people’s lives for the better—in this case to influence them to maintain a healthier lifestyle through regular exercise.”

Daniel Fielder ’11
Daniel Fielder ’11 received an Honorable Mention for his computational biology research and contribution to a software program that helps biologists determine how two species may have co-evolved.

The program, “Jane,” applies computational techniques to analyze and reconcile the evolutionary histories of ecologically linked species—such as bees and flowers—to determine if and how they may have impacted each other’s development.

“This is a fundamental problem in biology and is ultimately a problem that requires computational techniques to solve,” said Ran Libeskind-Hadas, computer science professor and Fielder’s project adviser.

Fielder studied a variety of theoretical aspects of this problem and ultimately contributed to the design and development of the Jane software.

Within nine months of its release, more than 120 biologists in 17 countries had downloaded the free software.

“Our software ended up being faster than anything that existed at the time, so it allowed biologists to start looking at larger data sets,” Fielder said. “It was cool to see how much of an effect even undergraduates can have if they happen to be at the right place at the right time.”

Anak Yodpinyanee ’12
Anak Yodpinyanee ’12 received an Honorable Mention for his work in further developing the Jane software that resulted in another release, dubbed “Jane 2.”

Faced with the challenge of analyzing a dataset too large for available software tools—including Jane—Yodpinyanee devised an algorithm so fast that it empowered Jane 2 to solve the dataset in a single day.

“The original Jane software would have required more than 40 years of computation,” said Libeskind-Hadas, Yodpinyanee’s project adviser.

The multinational research group that provided the large dataset later used Jane 2 to demonstrate the co-evolution of figs and the wasps that pollinate them.

“Before participating in this research, I developed algorithms and wrote programs mainly for competitions. This was my first opportunity to use those same skills to solve a problem that had impact on research in other fields,” Yodpinyanee said. “Its value for other people confirmed to me that theoretical computer science is the right focus of study for me.”