Hall of Presidents
Lauren Hayward Schaefer (2008-2009)
The Schaefer administration saw the introduction of blogging and staying up to date on trends in Computer Science. Schaefer graduated with Master’s in Computer Science in the Spring of 2009. In 2014, Schaefer was chosen for a 4-week trip to Kenya as part of the IBM Corporate Service Corps program (read more). Schaefer continues to blog and share the spark of computing.
The Grafsgaard government promoted mandatory socialization among members. No longer were students allowed to hide behind pizza slices of solitude. Grafsgaard graduated with his Ph.D. in Computer Science in the Spring of 2014 with research in Multimodal Affect Modeling in Task-Oriented Tutorial Dialogue.
The Chakraborty transition while short-lived promoted community building at the college level. Over the years Chakraborty has become fascinated with artificial intelligence, and related stuff like vision, robotics, cognitive science, etc. Chakraborty co-authored a data mining book titled “Practical Graph Mining in R” published by CRC Press in July 2013 (read more). In Spring 2014, Chakraborty graduated with his Ph.D. in Computer Science with research on A Biologically Inspired Active Vision Framework for Cognitive Agents.
The Cateté-Udechukwu dynasty ran for several years and began the tradition of co-Presidents. This dynasty saw the rise in K-12 outreach programs as both co-presidents led their own SPARCS programs. Cateté and Udechukwu both graduated undergrad at NC State in Fall 2010. They now continue working on their Ph.Ds. Cateté has since led the transition of power, knowledge, and bookkeeping on all historical STARS knowledge for future presidents. Cateté has also continued her passion in K-12 outreach through a 6-week trip to Rwanda as part of Mothering Across Continents (read more).
The Milliken-Price period saw a shift towards a more robust STARS executive board, with new Outreach, Internal and External Relations officers taking over some of the presidential duties. The co-presidents emphasized community building, introducing STARbursts social events and organizing general meetings around group activities. Alex started the FLAMES outreach group for middle and high school girls and continues on as outreach organizer and co-president. Thomas retired from the presidency but continues to lead the SPARCS@NCSU outreach group as he works to finish his PhD.
The Isvik initiative led STARS through the COVID-19 pandemic and helped direct the course of STARS through virtual and hybrid modality events. This included the introduction of virtual book clubs and tech panel social events with our sponsors.