Meet the Siebel Scholars Class of 2020
10/2/2019 10:18:51 AM
Five accomplished Illinois Computer Science master’s students have been recognized for their academic achievements and leadership, joining the 2020 class of Siebel Scholars. Each will receive $35,000 during their final year of study.
As an Illinois undergraduate, Nuraini was the secretary for the Malaysian Student Association registered student organization, and she received the Asian American Cultural Center Leadership Award for her contributions. She also participates in volunteer programs, including completing the 48-hour homeless challenge in Washington D.C. Upon graduation from the School of Molecular and Cellular Biology, she received the High Distinction in Research Award for her undergraduate thesis in microbiology.
Last summer, Qingrong interned with Facebook Core Systems team to understand the reliability issues in real-world large-scale systems. In the past, he interned with Intel to build machine learning models for analyzing program logs. Qingrong earned his bachelor’s degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and he received the University’s Best Thesis Award. He was also an active volunteer, leading study groups and launching an activity to help students focus in class. In appreciation, he was named Excellent Undergraduate in Shanghai and awarded the National Scholarship of China.
Before joining Illinois, Aniket was an undergraduate at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB), where he received the Academic Excellence Award, which is given to the top ten students of that Institute. At IITB, he volunteered to mentor students in the CSE Department’s Academic Mentoring Program, and he also co-led the editorial team for BitStream, the Department’s student-run newsletter, as the Head Panelist. Aniket has interned for The Institute of Science and Technology (IST) Austria, as well as Adobe Research Bangalore.
Just prior to graduating summa cum laude from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Jonathan spent a semester in the Dominican Republic teaching AP Computer Science. He has also held internships in a wide variety of other areas, such as automated control systems, marketing, and, most recently, full-stack iOS development.
Previously, Joon Sung worked with the Stanford HCI Group as a visiting scholar, collaborating with Professors James Landay and Jeff Hancock to systematically and longitudinally study the outputs of a search engine. His research has appeared at top conference venues such as CSCW and ICA, as well as in The Guardian. As an undergraduate at Swarthmore College, he co-founded and developed Galamingo, a web platform for sharing creative portfolios.
In addition to the five Computer Science students, Electrical and Computer Engineering doctoral student Thomas Foulkes was among the Siebel Scholars chosen from graduate schools of energy science. For the complete list of this year's Siebel Scholars, see the news release.
The Siebel Scholars program was founded in 2000 by the Siebel Foundation to recognize the most talented students at the world’s leading graduate schools of business, computer science, bioengineering, and energy science. These include: Carnegie Mellon University; École Polytechnique; Harvard University; Johns Hopkins University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Northwestern University; Politecnico di Torino; Princeton University; Stanford University; Tsinghua University; University of California, Berkeley; University of California, San Diego; University of Chicago; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; University of Pennsylvania; and University of Tokyo. Today, our active community of over 1,400 leaders serves as advisors to the Siebel Foundation and works collaboratively to find solutions to society’s most pressing problems.
About the Siebel Foundation
The Thomas and Stacey Siebel Foundation, a nonprofit, public benefit corporation, was established as a private foundation in 1996. Its mission is to foster programs and organizations that improve the quality of life, environment, and education of its community members. The Siebel Foundation funds projects to support education, the homeless and underprivileged, public health, research and development around the world.