A team of three University of Texas at Dallas computer science students has qualified to compete in the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) World Finals in Egypt in November.
The students ranked 12th in the ICPC North America Championship in May. The team scored higher than any other Texas university team and finished alongside teams from the nation’s top-ranked computer science programs — ahead of the University of California, Berkeley and one spot below Harvard University.
The UT Dallas team, “Whoosh,” includes junior Suraj Mathashery and seniors Evan Bailey and Mike Nguyen.
ICPC competitions task students with designing and implementing algorithms to solve 10 to 15 increasingly challenging problems in five hours. Success requires expertise in problem-solving, advanced algorithms and data structures, mathematics, abstract thinking and programming languages.
The students on UTD’s team, one of few to answer eight or more questions in the national competition, prepared by competing in weekly competitions through Codeburners, a student organization dedicated to programming competitions, said Bhadrachalam Chitturi PhD’07, the team’s coach, ICPC site director at UT Dallas and associate professor of instruction in computer science in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science.
“They had good math backgrounds and were very serious,” Chitturi said. “They started working together slowly, and they gelled.”
In fact, Mathashery and Bailey, both National Merit Scholars, also competed on a separate UT Dallas Putnam Club team in December that ranked No. 32 among 456 university teams in the 83rd annual William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, considered to be one of the world’s most challenging mathematics competitions.
“Supporting the Codeburners will continue to be important to UTD’s success in future ICPC seasons,” Bailey said.
The students advanced from regional and national competitions. Whoosh was the lone team to advance from the South Central USA competition, hosted by UT Dallas, in February.
“We practiced often as a team to establish good teamwork and cooperation during the competition,” Mathashery said. “We have a wide range of skills among the three of us that enabled us to solve a majority of the problems.”
One of the keys was determining how to leverage each other’s strengths.
“I believe that one of the most critical factors that contributed to our success in the national competition is the fact that each member of our team solved the problems that are closely related to their strong suit,” Nguyen said.
Health Care Student, Alum To Present Research
After submitting a high-scoring abstract, Nanditha Niranjan, a healthcare studies junior in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at The University of Texas at Dallas, and Shriya Veluri BS’22, an MD/MPH student at UT Health San Antonio, were selected to present their research as part of the Emerging Scholars program at the American Public Health Association’s 2023 Annual Meeting & Expo.
Hosted by the oldest and largest organization of public health professionals in the world, the event will take place in November in Atlanta.
Niranjan and Veluri founded Upstream United, a student-led patient education program designed for recently resettled refugees in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. The students developed an interactive health-literacy program to help resettled refugees navigate the U.S. health care system.
The pair currently is administering health education workshops to their first group of Afghan refugees through a community partnership with Catholic Charities Dallas.
Niranjan and Veluri also presented their research at the American Medical Association Medical Student Section Poster Showcase in June in Chicago. Their research highlighted the role of patient education in reducing the cost of health care services and showcased their work through the health education workshops.
Accolades is an occasional News Center feature that highlights recent accomplishments of The University of Texas at Dallas faculty, students and staff. To submit items for consideration, contact your school’s communications manager.