{"id":9562,"date":"2022-01-19T09:50:38","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T17:50:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about-hmc\/?p=9562"},"modified":"2026-02-17T12:00:59","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T20:00:59","slug":"cra-recognizes-undergraduate-computing-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/2022\/01\/19\/cra-recognizes-undergraduate-computing-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Maina-Kilaas &#8217;23 Named Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Harvey Mudd College computer science and mathematics major Amani Maina-Kilaas \u201923 is a recipient of the Computing Research Association\u2019s (CRA) 2022 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award. CRA also recognized computer science and mathematics major Mia Taylor \u201922 with an honorable mention, given to students whose work CRA considers exemplary.<\/p>\n<p>The prestigious program celebrates undergraduates at North American colleges and universities who demonstrate outstanding potential in an area of computing research.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-9565 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/01\/thumbnail_maina-kilaas_amani-300x300.jpeg\" alt=\"Maina-kilaas\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/01\/thumbnail_maina-kilaas_amani-300x300.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/01\/thumbnail_maina-kilaas_amani-1024x1024.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/01\/thumbnail_maina-kilaas_amani-150x150.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/01\/thumbnail_maina-kilaas_amani-768x768.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/01\/thumbnail_maina-kilaas_amani.jpeg 1162w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Maina-Kilaas \u201923 is a member of computer science professor George Monta\u00f1ez\u2019s lab AMISTAD (Artificial Machine Intelligence = Search Targets Awaiting Discovery). \u201cI joined the lab in the summer after my freshman year and worked with Cynthia Hom \u201923, Kevin Ginta \u201921 (Biola University) and Cindy Lay CMC \u201922 to investigate how the ability to perceive intention can advantage virtual agents,\u201d he says. \u201cWe created simulations to study intention perception directly through a multi-agent, prey-predator encounter and a two-player, game-theoretic adversarial situation and also indirectly through having agents analyze artifacts left behind by another. That summer resulted in three publications, two for which I was lead author and one for which I was co-lead author with Cynthia. My nomination and selection for the award is primarily based on that summer research, but I have also since continued with AMISTAD throughout the academic year, working mostly on collating past research from the lab.\u201d After graduating from HMC, Maina-Kilaas intends to pursue a PhD in computer science.<\/p>\n<p>Honorable mention recipient Taylor conducted research on synthesizing search algorithms with computer science professor Lucas Bang. \u201cAs a model for search problems, we studied deduction games: those where you make guesses and learn information about some secret value from each guess,\u201d she says. \u201cSolving a deduction game\u2014figuring out the correct sequence of guesses to locate a secret for each possible secret\u2014corresponds to creating a search algorithm. In my time with this group, I implemented an algorithm for solving deduction games, performed experiments and derived some theoretical results.\u201d After graduation, Taylor will join Meta as a software engineer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Harvey Mudd College computer science and mathematics major Amani Maina-Kilaas \u201923 is a recipient of the Computing Research Association\u2019s (CRA) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":6274,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,14,30],"class_list":["post-9562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-computer-science","category-faculty","category-students"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9562"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15066,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9562\/revisions\/15066"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}