Parrish Computer Science Scholarship

Background

In 2000, I endowed a scholarship at the University of Texas where I did my undergraduate work. Eleanor Moore, Director of Scholarships at the UT Ex-Students' Association, gave me useful and practical advice in how to establish the scholarship. Amazingly of the 160 named scholarships, this was the first for computer science students.

Laura Luthy (photo) of the UT Computer Science Department provided me with the key insights in how to operationalize the scholarship. The Parrish Computer Science Scholarship is awarded each year to an outstanding freshman in the Turing Scholars Program. The UT CS Department selects the nominee, and the scholarship is administered by the Texas Ex-Students' Association.

Lunches with Scholarship Supporters

In 2005, Judith Quinney, a distinguished academic advisor, replaced Laura Luthy, who transferred to UT San Antonio, as the CS advisor for the Parrish Scholarship. As usual, Eleanor Moore, Judith and I had another enjoyable lunch at the authentic Eastside Cafe.

In 2006, Tiffany Grady, Assistant Director of Academic Initiatives, who recently joined the Computer Science department, accompanied Judith Quinney, Eleanor Moore, and I for a delightful conversation and enjoyable lunch at the authentic Eastside Cafe.

In 2009, Jennifer Martinson, replaced Judith Quinney in CS. Here Eleanor, Tiffiny and Jenn pause for a photo after our usual enjoyable lunch. Zach Pringnitz, the 2009 Parrish Scholarship winner, demonstrates the true UT Hook 'em Horns spirit before our synergistic dinner conversation.

In 2010, Rob Poynor of the CS Dept., joined the team and poses after a lively lunch at the Eastside Cafe with Tiffany Grady and Eleanor Moore. I admire Eleanor for helping countless UT students & donors. Hopefully her upcoming retirement will not interrupt our delightful annual tradition.

In 2014, Doug Roberts joined the team replacing Rob Poynor. After a delightful lunch, the team lingers for a couple of photos. Left to right: Doug Roberts, Tiffany Grady, Don Parrish and Eleanor Moore.

In 2018, Doug Roberts celebrated his 5th lunch and Tiffany Buckley her 9th lunch. And yes, they brought their kids photos to share. Eleanor Moore and I celebrate our unbroken sequence of lunches at the East Side Cafe. since the beginning of the century and the Scholarship. We all look forward to this annual event.

In 2022, All 4 of us met again for lunch: myself, Tiffany Buckley, Eleanor Moore, and Doug Roberts. Unfortunately, the East Side Cafe has been gone for several years now. And the day before our luncheon the beloved Queen Elizabeth II passed at 96 after 70 years on the throne. I watched her coronation in 1953 on TV (military jet brought film to USA).

Lunches with Scholarship Winners

In 2016, we started a new tradition -- a luncheon of the existing Parrish CS Scholarship winners in order to meet the Freshman winner. The idea is to help integrate the Freshman into the Turning program with some friends and contacts in CS. In the photo left to right are Jake Crabtree (Freshman), Jo Bridgwater (Sophomore), Don Parrish, Sam Miller (Junior) and Robert Perce (Senior). Their mini bios are below.

In 2017, we had our second luncheon of the Parrish CS Scholarship winners. It was the second & final year that the Named Scholarships banquet was held at the AT&T Conference Center instead of the Alumni Center of the Texas Exes. This Alumni Center is redolent with the traditions and achievements of the Texas Exes and UT Alumni. It has dozens of oil paintings & sculptures, the Legends room, etc. I gave a Center tour to Jake Crabtree and Robert San Soucie like all past winners have received. It is magic achieving a photo with the UT President at the Scholarship reception.

Luncheon 2017 Don-Sam-Jo-Robert	Detailed Oil Painting Jake & Robert	Scholarship on Glass Two Valedictorians	Sculpture on 2 Legs Two Happy Scholars	Orange Tower Salutes Class of 2021	UT President Fenves with Don & Robert

In 2018, the new tradition continues. We had a dinner with the existing Parrish CS Scholarship winners in order to meet the Freshman winner, Santiago Cortes, and to help integrate him into the Turning program. In the photo left to right are: Jo Bridgwater (Senior), Jake Crabtree (Junior), Don Parrish, Robert San Soucie (Sophomore) and Sanitago Cortes.

In 2019, the tradition continues. We had a dinner with existing Parrish CS Scholarship winners in order to meet the Freshman winner, Hannah Hughes, and to help integrate her into the Turning program. Left to right are: Jake Crabtree (Senior), Robert San Soucie (Junior), Don Parrish, Sanitago Cortes (Sophomore) and Hannah Hughes.

In 2022, the tradition resumes after 2 years of Covid. We had a dinner with existing Parrish CS Scholarship winners in order to meet the Freshman winner, Joyce Lai, and to help integrate her into the Turning program. Left to right are: Hannah Hughes (Senior), Joanne Chen (Junior), Don Parrish, Joyce Lai (Freshman) and Emily Thompson (Sophomore).

Parrish Scholarship Genesis

In 1966, I graduated from the University of Texas with honors in Mathematics before the Computer Science department was established. In 1967, I became a life member of the UT Ex-Students' Association. In 2000, I fulfilled a life-long dream by establishing this scholarship at UT.

Parrish Scholarship Winners

Megan Beck

This is a photo (click to enlarge) of Megan Beck and myself taken on September 6, 2001 in Austin, Texas at the University of Texas.  There were about 500 recipients and donors at the banquet sponsored by the Texas Ex-Students' Association.  Since this was the first year for the Parrish Computer Science Scholarship, Megan and I were seated at the front of the ballroom in a choice table.  The President of the University of Texas made the introductory remarks.

• National Merit Finalist and scholarship winner
• Honor Student at the American Academy of Achievement Summit
• Towering Texan Scholarship winner
• Admission to the Dean's Scholars Program at UT

David Yu

This is a photo (click to enlarge) of David Yu, which I took on September 5, 2002 in Austin, Texas at the University of Texas after the the wonderful banquet for 500 recipients and donors sponsored by the Texas Ex-Students' Association. As usual, the President of UT made introductory remarks. I had the opportunity to converse with former National Security Agency Director Bobby Inman, who is a fellow scholarship donor.

• Korean American Scholarship Award
• Hughes Supply Foundation Scholarship
• USA Funds Access to Education Scholarship
• Admission to the Turing Scholars Honors Program at UT

Shan Wang

This photo of Shan Wang, was taken after the scholarship banquet of the Texas Ex-Students' Association on September 4, 2003. Shan was accepted and courted by a number of prestigious universities like MIT and Berkeley, but fortunately selected the University of Texas where she has already worked one summer as an intern in the Computer Science department. Shan was born in China and came to the U.S. when she was seven. She is fluent in Chinese and French.

Shan, in addition to her academic achievements, has played the piano for 12 years winning some awards. She was the Treasurer of her class council in high school and was active in journalism. Now she has taken up sailing. She has won a number of scholarships and honors:

• Ranked 1st in class of 530 at Round Rock High School
• Honor Graduate (GPA of 4.0) of Texas Academy of Math and Science
• National Merit Finalist and scholarship winner
• Admission to the Turing Scholars Honors Program at UT

Postscript dated May 20, 2006 announced by the Computer Science department: Senior Shan Wang was honored as the College of Natural Science's sole student commencement speaker, as chosen by a special faculty committee. Shan will be continue her studies in the fall at Stanford's PhD program in Computer Science.

Jason Petersen

This photo of Jason Petersen, was taken with Don Parrish at the scholarship banquet of the Texas Ex-Students' Association on September 2, 2004 in Austin, Texas. Jason was accepted by Rice University and the University of Tulsa, but fortunately selected the University of Texas where he has already started working as a Java and C++ developer at ARL, UT's Space and Geophysics Laboratories.

• Ranked 7th in class of 441 at Temple High School
• National Merit Finalist and scholarship winner
• Admission to the Turing Scholars Honors Program at UT

Brandon Bolling

This is a photo (click to enlarge) of Brandon Bolling, which I took on September 8, 2005 at the University of Texas after the delightful banquet for 450 scholarship recipients and donors sponsored by the Texas Ex-Students' Association. Brandon was born in Texas, but moved to Colorado when he was 11 years old in order to attend better schools. In addition to graduating in the top 1% of his class in high school, Brandon has exceptional SAT scores: 770 in English and a perfect 800 in Math. He obtained 70 hours via advanced placement tests achieving the top score in almost all of them.

• One of 15 participants from Colorado in the 2004 National Chemistry Olympiad
• Received the Colorado School of Mines Medal of Achievement in Math and Science
• National Merit Finalist and scholarship winner
• Admission to the Turing Scholars Honors Program at UT

Thomas Jack

This photo of Thomas Jack, was taken after the Texas Ex-Students scholarship banquet on September 7, 2006. Tom chose UT over Rice and Georgetown "mainly in order to study in the Turing scholars computer science honors program. I am very excited to begin CS research in the area of biologically inspired computing. Neuroevolution particularly interests me, and I hope to participate in research with UT's neural networks research group."

• National Certamen champion in 2005
• Perfect SAT 800 in both English and Mathematics
• Received Sons of Italy, Pompeo Coppini Lodge Scholarship
• Named a Piper Scholar
• National Merit Finalist and scholarship winner
• Admission to the Turing Scholars Honors Program at UT

Chris Renard

This is a photo of Christopher Renard taken on September 6, 2007 at the University of Texas before the banquet for 450 scholarship recipients and donors sponsored by the Texas Ex-Students' Association. After the banquet, Chris was photographed with William C. Powers, Jr., President of the University of Texas.

During the summers of 2006 and 2007, Chris worked full time at the UT Southwestern Medical School on eTBlast, a full-text similarity search for medical journal articles, grants, etc. Chris' successful participation in the UIL CS Competitions brought him to UT during both his junior and senior years where he had the opportunity to discuss the Turing Program with its head, Dr. Lin.

• Awarded the rank of Eagle Scout by the Boy Scouts of America
• National Merit Finalist and scholarship winner
• National AP Scholar
• Fourth Place Individual State UIL Computer Science
• Admission to the Turing Scholars Honors Program at UT

Emily Russell

Emily Russell was photographed on September 4, 2008 in Austin after the banquet for 450 scholarship recipients and donors sponsored by the Texas Ex-Students' Association. Emily has perfect SAT scores: 800 in English and 800 in Math.

Emily was very active in clubs and organizations at Georgetown High School. She was the President or co-President of the Book Club, the Spanish Club, and the National Honor Society. She won many awards in math or computer science at the district or state level. Emily managed to find time for the marching band & symphony orchestra, and she won awards in piano. During her summers, Emily helped students as a lead counselor at Math Rocks! math camps. Emily was a finalist for Homecoming Queen her senior year, and graduated near the top of her class.

• National Merit Finalist and Scholarship winner
• Presidential Scholar Semi-Finalist
• AP Scholar with Distinction
• Three year Qualifier for the AIME
• Admission to the Turing Scholars Honors Program at UT
• Admission to the Dean's Scholars Honors Program at UT

Zach Pringnitz

This is a photo I took of Zach Pringnitz, in front of the Texas Ex-Students Association on October 20, 2009. Click it for surprise enlargement. Zach was born was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and grew up in Katy, Texas (near Houston). His brother is currently attending Texas A&M University as a senior in Mechanical Engineering. His father has a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering and is a Department Manager at Schlumberger. His mother who has a BS in Education is currently a homemaker.

Zach is a generalist with wide-ranging interests and accomplishments. In high school, he received academic awards in French, Latin, Physics, Math, and History. Zach was recognized at the national level in Who's Who of American High School Students. There were also awards in Citizenship, National Honor Society Summer Service Award, Rachel's Challenge, CATS award for volunteering, etc. As VP of Mu Alpha Theta, the Math Honor Society, he organized a school-wide weekly math tutoring program. He was the President of Dance Club, which with over 100 members is one of the largest clubs in the high school. Zach was the Secretary of the Senior Class.

Zach was a member of the Freshman Football team and the Ultimate Frisbee team. He volunteered 3 summers on construction projects in Houston and Mexico for the disadvantaged. Zach managed to find time to work as a Mathnasium math tutor, house & pet sitter, and a rock-climbing fitness instructor.

At the University of Texas, Zach will double major in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. He has a strong interest in how these fields can be applied to medicine "to make an impact on our future".

Zach has won a number of scholarships and honors:

• Ranked 9th in a Class of 621 at Cinco Ranch High School
• Outstanding SAT scores: 780 in Math and 740 in Writing
• National Merit Letter of Commendation
• Four scholarships including one from the UT School of Engineering
• Admission to the Turing Scholars Honors Program at UT

Andrew Wiley

I congratulated Andrew Wiley on September 2, 2010 for becoming the 10th winner of the Parrish CS Scholarship and took this photo of him as well as one with UT President William Powers. Andrew is a generalist with wide-ranging interests and accomplishments. He has exceptional SAT scores: 800 in Math, 770 in Writing and 740 in Reading.

In high school, Andrew was in the marching band and top concert band for 4 years, serving as the front ensemble lieutenant his senior year. His high school band was selected as the Texas TMEA 4A State Honor Band.

Andrew volunteered as the Friendswood high school computer science lab manager for 3 years. Andrew was a member of the National Honor Society and the German National Honor Society. He won numerous German language awards on the regional level and was in the top 10 competitors in 2 events at the state level. He was a leader of the German classical music ensemble that won 2nd place in Texas.

Andrew has been active in a variety of community and church projects including voluteering for an immigration shelter for minors near the Texas border and cleaning up damage from Hurricane Ike.

• National Merit Finalist and Scholarship winner
• Winner at State in UIL Computer Science 4A Individual Test in 2010
• Winner at State in UIL Computer Science 4A Team in 2009 and 2010
• Winner of 4 scholarships including one from the UT School of Engineering
• Admission to the Turing Scholars Honors Program at UT

Reid McKenzie

I took this photo of Reid McKenzie on September 1, 2011 in Austin after the Scholarship Banquet. He and I were also photographed together. Reid’s mother home schooled him and his 3 younger sisters. This experience helped Reid become an exceptional reader as demonstrated by his near perfect 790 SAT score in reading.

During his period of home schooling, his family spent 3 years in England, but they returned in time for him to enter the 9th grade at the highly ranked Union County Magnet High School for Math, Science and Technology in New Jersey where he was an honor roll student. As a junior, he was the only student in his high school selected to be one of the 75 NJ students for the Governor’s School of Engineering and Technology, a month-long, intensive summer program.

During high school, Reid was active in various personal research projects including resurrecting 30 computers from local recycling centers, building pneumatic cannons for ballistic analysis, experimenting with coil gun design, designing and implementing a multi-robot swarm, etc. His and his teammate came in 2nd in the model bridge building competition. Reid was the lead programmer and acting President for the Robotics Club in high school. Reid developed an automated unit test library for TechGuard Security’s flagship PoliWall Denial of Service product during a summer internship.

Reid has been a competitive swimmer since he was 7 years old. He is a Red Cross certified life guard. In 2009, he was appointed Boys B Team Captain at the Summit, NJ YMCA and was responsible for 45 boys from 6 to 18.

• Selected for NJ Governor’s School of Engineering and Technology program
• Near perfect 790 SAT score in Reading
• Nominated for the US Air Force Academy
• Admission to the Turing Scholars Honors Program at UT

Jarran Pedersen

I took this photo of Jarran Pedersen on September 6, 2012 in Austin after the Scholarship Banquet for 450 scholarship recipients and donors sponsored by the Texas Ex-Students' Association. Jarran was born in Florida and then raised in New York since he was 7 years old. He was accepted by a number of universities, but was most impressed by the Turing program at UT.

In high school, in addition to his many academic achievements, Jarran played trombone for the Symphonic Pep and Jazz bands. During the summer of his junior year, he went to France with a Volunteers for Peace group. There with a multicultural team, he built a bridge for children to cross into a playground.

Jarran also designed and built a robot as part of the Science Olympiad. With it he won 5th place at the state level in New York in the Robo Cross Competition. (A YouTube video from California gives an idea of what a competition entails.)

In addition to graduating from high school with an Advanced Regents Diploma, Jarran received 18 college credits at CTEC in the New Vision Engineering Program.

Jarran has outstanding SAT scores: 790 in Math and 720 in Reading.

• Won 5th place in NY State for Robo Cross Competition as part of Science Olympiad program
• Near perfect 790 SAT score in Math
• National Merit Finalist and Scholarship winner
• AP Scholar
• Admission to the Turing Scholars Honors Program at UT

Robert Perce

I took this photo of Robert Perce in Austin on September 5, 2013 after the Scholarship Banquet for 400 scholarship recipients and donors sponsored by the Texas Ex-Students' Association. Robert was born in Maryland. He, his younger brother and parents have lived in several places in the United States as well as overseas. His father is a colonel in the US Air Force.

During high school, Robert participated in various extra curricular activities including katate, figure skating, juggling and ballroom dancing. He can juggle up to 4 balls and has mastered various techniques like Mills Mess.

Robert has been active in music since he started piano lessons at age 5. In the 7th grade he added the alto saxophone and in 8th grade the basson. Robert has won numerous awards with each of these three instruments, and he has been employed in various jobs on the piano. In the 11th grade, he mastered yet another instrument, the mellophone, and was the section leader in the O'Connor High School marching band.

In his junior year, Robert won the regional Science Bowl and advanced to the National Science Bowl held in Washington, D.C. In his senior year, he was the Captain of the O'Connor Math and Science team.

Robert enjoys the intersection of computer science and mathematics. In his spare time, he solves problems at Project Euler, a mathematical coding problems site. In 2013, he was at level 3.

Robert has outstanding SAT scores: 770 in Math, 750 in Reading, and 690 in Writing.

• Won 1st in Region and 11th place in Texas UIL competition in written Computer Science
• National Merit Finalist and Scholarship winner
• National AP Scholar
• Admission to the Turing Scholars Honors Program at UT

Samantha Miller

I took this photo of Samatha Miller in Austin on September 3, 2014 outside of the Alumni Center before the Scholarship Banquet sponsored by the Texas Ex-Students' Association. Samantha Miller was born and raised in Austin. Both her parents have graduate degrees in Chemistry and her older sister is studying for a master's degree in Mechanical Engineering at UT.

Samantha took advantage of educational opportunities. She took 8 courses at the Austin Community College with a 4.0 GPA. She attended in a number of programs at UT for high school students such as the Honors Colloquium, Women in Engineering Program, the Sonia Kovalevsky Math Day and visits to the CS department.

She first developed an interest in computer science after attending the First Bytes Summer Camp at the University of Texas. She is interested in many parts of Computer Science, including artificial intelligence and theory. Computer Science's fundamental appeal for Samantha is its mixture of creativity and logic.

The summer before entering college, Samantha attended Google's Computer Science Summer Institute in Seattle. There she learned about website programming and built an online game.

Samantha has exceptional SAT scores: 790 in Math, 760 in Critical Reading, and 800 in English.

• Salutatorian of her class of 652 at James Bowie High School
• National Merit Finalist and Scholarship winner
• National AP Scholar with Distinction
• Admission to the Turing Scholars Honors Program at UT

Joanna Bridgwater

I took this photo of Joanna Bridgwater before the Named Scholarship Banquet sponsored by the Texas Ex Students Association in Austin on September 9, 2015. Joanna was born in Scotland to a Welsh mother and an English father. She moved to Toulouse, France at age 5 where she lived for 11 years.

She first became interested in computer science in middle school when she learned programming as a way of solving cryptography puzzles more efficiently. Since then her interest has evolved alongside her appreciation of mathematics and she is now most interested in discrete math and information security.

In high school, Joanna founded a Girls Who Code club, in which instructors who are experts teach girls the fundamentals of programming. She received the National Center for Women and Information Technology Austin Affiliate Award for Aspirations in Computing twice, and was a runner-up for the national award.

In high school, Joanna was involved in several computer projects. One was a Hackathon Project for a Google Glass application to translate spoken words in any language and display an English translation on screen. She had an independent study project to design a programming language and a class project for a Social Network Database which implemented AES encryption on files in the database.

Joanna is also interested in natural languages, being bilingual French/English and having studied Spanish for 10 years and Japanese for almost 3. At UT she will continue her study of the humanities in the Jefferson Scholars Program, alongside her projected double major in mathematics and computer science.

• A perfect score on her AP Spanish Language exam
• A score of 41/45 on the IB diploma (approximately 97th percentile)
• Outstanding SAT scores: 790 in Reading and 780 in Math
• National AP Scholar with Distinction
• Admission to the Turing Scholars Honors Program at UT

Jake Crabtree

A candid shot of Jake working in Perry's high school computer lab during Hack Day. Jake was born in Chandler, Arizona. He grew up there with his parents, Michael & Susan and younger brother Evan. The family pet is a dog named Molly.

Jake was the Treasurer of the Computer Programmers United Club and Co-Founder of the Perry High School Hackathon. The theme for the Hackathon was was Cool for School and they made a tower defense game in Unity in which the students had to stop secret agents from taking over the school.

During the summer of 2015, Jake gained experience at Mobile Mini Inc as an IT intern. He entered and researched employee and branch data. He set up, assessed and fixed various types of computer problems.

In the summer of 2016, Jake gained professional experience as a systems intern at State Farm. He was part of a team that developed a project using an open source dashboard, Hygieia, to monitor the health and metrics of internal software projects. His team won the State Farm Hack Day Fan Favorite for an anti-phishing app cleverly named Go Phish. It raised awareness of security risks using a gamified approach. Here is a 2-minute video explaining Hack Day.

In addition to the Parrish Computer Science Scholarship, Jake won UT's College of Natural Sciences Scholarship awarded to an outstanding freshman in the College of Naural Sciences. He won the Kiwanis Chandler Scholarship awarded to a high school senior with outstanding leadership with Key Club and service within their community.

Jake's interests in Computer Science are in AI and Virtual Reality with a focus on game design. He plans to get the CS Game Development certificate.

• Valedictorian of Perry High School (rank 1 of 706)
• Best Game Award at Arizona State University Game Design Camp 2014
• STEM Scholar Diploma
• National AP Scholar with Distinction
• Admission to the Turing Scholars Honors Program at UT

Robert San Soucie

An informal photo of Robert taken in front the Texas Capitol as he shows some UT pride. Robert was born and raised in Dallas, Texas, where he lived with his parents, Rick and Nancy, and his 4 siblings, Michael, David, John, and Carolyn.

In high school, he discovered his passion for programming after taking AP Computer Science as a freshman. He went on to become treasurer and subsequently president of his school’s computer science club, participating in numerous competitions, including UIL Computer Science and HP CodeWars.

During his senior year, Robert interned at Bottle Rocket, a mobile development company in Addison, Texas.

Robert attended summer camps at the University of Texas at Dallas. In 2015, he attended Cyber Security Camp where he became experienced with multiple areas of computer security. In 2016, he attended Computer Science and Programming Summer Camps where he took months of additional coursework in C++, Python, Data Structures and Algorithms, and Android App Development.

Robert’s interests in computer science are in web and app development, computer security, and cryptography.

During high school, Robert was involved in various extracurricular activities, including as captain of the mock trial team, saxophone section leader in the band, and vice president of the political engagement club. Furthermore, he was a member of the pre-med club, Mu Alpha Theta, National Honor Society, and as a senior volunteer in a senior-freshman mentorship program called Starting off Strong where he mentored a class of 25 incoming freshmen.

At UT, Robert will major in Plan II in addition to being a Turing Scholar.

• Valedictorian of J.J. Pearce High School (rank 1 of 493)
• ACT Score of 35
• National Merit Commended Student
• National AP Scholar & AP Scholar with Distinction
• Admission to the Turing Scholars Honors Program at UT

Santiago Cortes

An informal photo of Santiago when he visited Google HQ in Mountain View, CA. Santiago was born in Bogatá, Colombia, where he lived with his parents, and his younger sister, Gabriela. His family moved to the United States in 2010, and since then they have lived in the Katy, Texas area.

In high school, Sanitago was the co-founder of the Investor's Club and well as an active member of the Future Business Leaders of America and the Model United Nations. He participated in debate during his freshman year, until he joined hs schools's UIL Computer Science Club, and eventually became its president. Santiago and his team participated in a variety of competitions, resulting in several local victories across UIL Computer Science events.

The club also engaged in launching a weather ballon which reached a height of 10,700 feet (over 3,000 meters) and traveled for over 100 miles (over 160 kilometers). For more details, click here.

Santiago has worked on a variety of projects throughout the years, such as an online multiplayer tournament creator for two player games, the website and data rendering of weather balloon project, and a quizbowl-style websocket based buzzer app to replace mechanical handheld systems during practices.

His interests lie in both front end and back end development, as well as machine learning and AI. Aside from the fundamentals of computerscience and data structures, Santiago is largely self-taught in his knowledge of full stackdevelopment. Most of his projects are open source and can be found on his GitHub page.

Santiago has also put in extensive hours in helping organize and run his school's annual UIL Computer Science tournament, as well as judging junior high debaters. Last November, he participated as a volunteer dancer/actor for a charity stage production held to raise money for the Rutledge Foundation.

• Ranked in top 1% in High School
• Outstanding SAT Scores of 800 in Math and 770 in EBRW
• National Merit Finalist
• National AP Scholar
• Qualified for the FBLA National Conference in Website Design
• Admission to the Turing Scholars Honors Program at UT

Hannah Hughes

Hannah was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, where she lived with her parents, Shawn and Xochitl, and her 2 younger siblings, Patrick and Daniel. The family pets are a cat named Remy and a dog named Louie. Hannah attended the Engineering and Technology Academy at Roosevelt High School, where she graduated in the top 2% of her class, 11th of 641 seniors.

In CyberPatriot, she worked with her team to compete in an online cybersecurity competition against thousands of other students. She specialized in Linux, creating scripts with Bash and Python to secure basic system settings automatically. In Robotics, she took part in FIRST’s First Tech Challenge program, where she led as her team’s captain. Hannah and her team programmed the robot to run in both autonomous and driver-controlled modes.

In the summer of 2018, Hannah interned at H-E-B and took part in the MIT Online Science, Technology, and Engineering Community (MOSTEC). At H-E-B, she worked as an application development intern to adapt desktop applications to mobile applications for employee use. In the MOSTEC program, she learned about electrical engineering and programming with a Raspberry Pi.

Her interests in computer science are in cybersecurity, machine learning, and web and app development.

• National Center for Women and Technology Aspirations National Award Winner
• 16th National Placement in CyberPatriot Open Division
• Holder of CompTIA’s A+, Security+, and Network+ certifications
• ACT score of 35 (top 1%)
• Admission to the Turing Scholars Honors Program at UT

Joanne Chen

Joanne Chen was born in Dallas, Texas, and, despite having lived in St Louis, Missouri for her middle school years, wound up returning to Dallas for her high school years. Throughout her life, she has lived with her parents, John and Yu-Chuan, and her older sister, Lyann. Joanne attended Independence High School in Frisco, Texas, where she undertook several Advanced Placement and Project Lead the Way (engineering) courses. While studying, she also worked as a tutor and grader at Code Ninjas and Best Brains to help foster an early interest in STEM for children.

In freshman year of high school, Joanne took her first computer science course, falling in love with the methodical nature of algorithms and data structures. This prompted her to participate in a multitude of competitions, including UIL Computer Science and HP Code Wars.

In one specific competition, Girls Go Cyberstart, Joanne was introduced to cybersecurity, where she utilized digital forensics and Python scripts to investigate suspicious activity on a system. She and her team won first place in Texas, which helped provide her the opportunity to attend the Women in Cybersecurity Conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This widened her perspective to different opportunities related to computer science, such as computer networking and security, in which she obtained the Microsoft Technology Associate certification in Networking Fundamentals and Security Fundamentals.

After developing a foundation in the logical side of computer science, Joanne’s enthusiasm for computer science evolved into appreciating its creativity and applicability. She has started to work on more projects, some of which include using C++ to code a light show at the University of Texas at Austin’s First Bytes Summer Camp and integrating a translation API with a chrome extension at Google’s Computer Science Summer Institute (CSSI: Online)

Joanne’s passion for computer science lies in the fact that it is a constantly emerging field with a plethora of subsets to explore. Specifically, she is interested in cybersecurity, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. However, computer science is always evolving, so she looks forward to exploring all the different aspects and integrations of computer science.

• Valedictorian of Independence High School, ranking 1st out of 469 students
• ACT Score of 35 and SAT Score of 1590 (800 in EBRW and 790 in Math)
• National Merit Finalist
• National AP Scholar with Distinction
• A perfect score on her AP Computer Science A exam
• Admission to the Turing Scholars Honors Program at UT

Emily Thompson

Emily Thompson was born in Austin, Texas, where she has lived for most of her life with her parents, Tommy and Amanda, and her younger sister Frances. Emily attended the Liberal Arts and Science Academy, and graduated in the top 7% of her class. She took a variety of AP classes while at LASA, earning the distinction of National AP Scholar, as well as being a National Merit Finalist and a National Hispanic Recognition Program winner.

Emily also competed in Cyberpatriot while in high school, focusing on the Windows Server image and qualifying for gold semifinals. The summer before her sophomore year, she extended what she had learned from participating in Cyberpatriot to a cybersecurity internship at American Innovations, a company in Austin. The summer before her senior year, she participated in the virtual University of Texas Computer Science Academy, where she learned more about pursuing a computer science education at a higher level. She also had the opportunity to take a variety of computer science classes throughout high school, including an independent study class where she spent the year studying data science.

In addition to the Parrish Computer Science Scholarship, Emily was also awarded a College of Natural Sciences Freshman Scholarship, and the Tucker Long Honorary Scholarship. She also distinguished herself as a National Hispanic Scholar and was awarded funds by the Hispanic Scholarship Fund.

Emily’s interests in computer science currently lie in the fields of data science and machine learning, however, she looks forward to exploring all the options available to her at UT, as well as pursuing a double major and exploring computer science’s interdisciplinary opportunities.

• National Merit Finalist
• National AP Scholar
• National Hispanic Scholar
• Scored a 5 on 12 AP exams
• SAT score of 1570 (790 in Math and 780 in EBRW)
• Admission to the Turing Scholars Honors Program at UT

Joyce Lai

An informal picture of Joyce Lai taken by her peers in front of the famous clocktower during her orientation shows her excitement and pride for UT. Joyce was raised in San Antonio, Texas where she graduated in the top 1% of her class from Louis D. Brandeis High School. She took almost every single available AP course offered, earning her the AP Scholar with Distinction Award. She was able to maintain her academic life while also balancing her schedule as a varsity swimmer, representing her school every year at a regional level, specializing in Individual Medley & breaststroke.

Joyce continued to explore and push the boundaries of what hands-on cybersecurity experiences she could find as a high school student. Although her high school did not allow her to join the school’s ROTC CyberPatriot nor start a civilian division. She was able to find her own internships and mentorship opportunities such as a summer internship working with NASA to mitigate the grocery shortage caused by COVID-19.

She worked with UTSA Professor Rajendra Boppana in his network lab in order to explore the applications of artificial intelligence in network security. Her port of flowtbag into Python allowed the team to easily use necessary modules and increased the efficiency of the lab.

Her father was a great inspiration for her. Although he passed away during her junior year, Joyce continued to work hard in order to get into a top institution to continue her education. She was awarded as a National Merit Scholarship Finalist as well as scoring a 1590 on her SAT and 36 on her ACT.

Joyce’s passion for computer science has been and continues to be in cybersecurity. However, as computer science is an every-changing and far reaching field, she does does not want to limit her opportunities and will continue exploring them at UT in the fall of 2022.

• National Merit Finalist
• Perfect ACT Score of 36
• SAT score of 1590 (800 reading and 790 Math)
• CCNA Certified by Cisco
• Admission to the Turing Scholars Honors Program at UT
• Valero Alamo Bowl Scholarship Winner
• NCWIT Award Winner National Honorable Mention
• College of National Sciences Departmental Scholarship Recipient

Annie Li

A photo of Annie Li taken in 2023. Annie Li was born in Hillsdale, New Jersey, where she has lived all her life. She attended local magnet school, Bergen County Academies (BCA), "majoring" in the Academy of Computer Science and Technology (ATCS). She took a variety of AP classes, resulting in her receiving the National AP Scholar with Distinction Award.

Annie has worked on many collaborative programming projects throughout the years, most of which are viewable on her GitHub page. The largest project was a year-long project made for a cosmetic company. Her team made a cosmetic formulation software for internal use by employees primarily used for inventory management and formula creation.

Outside of programming, Annie was the co-founder of the New York Area Model United Nations organization and was an active member of her school's Varsity Debate and Model UN Team, winning awards such as Best Delegate at Yale Model UN XLIX. She also interned at New Jersey Senator Cory Booker's office in her senior year at BCA as well as participating in Jersey Girls State in the summer of her junior year.

Annie's interests in computer science primarily lie in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. She is also extremely interested in computer science's interdisciplinary nature and hopes to find a way to combine computer science and government. She looks forward to exploring the opportunities UT gives to find the right combination.

• President's Volunteer Service Award
• National AP Scholar with Distinction Award
• SAT score of 1530 (770 Reading and 760 Math)
• Admission to the Turing Scholars Honors Program at UT
• Admission to the Jefferson Scholars Program at UT
• Gregg and Mariko Zeitlin Endowed Presidential Scholarship