Five CSE students awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowships

Five current and incoming graduate students in computer science and engineering at the University of Michigan have received the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, one of the most prestigious honors for early-career researchers in STEM fields. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported STEM disciplines who are pursuing research-based masters and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions.

The five students receiving this honor cover a broad range of research areas in CSE, including human-computer interaction, computer architecture, graph mining, software engineering, deep learning, and natural language processing.

The NSF awardees in CSE are as follows:

Priscila Santiesteban

Santiesteban’s research focuses broadly on the human side of software engineering and programming. Her current work investigates the cognitive processes associated with debugging and other compounded programming tasks. Through this research, she aims to provide new insight into how programmers code on a neural level in order to inform the development of novel approaches to better train and support programmers. Santiesteban is a third-year PhD student and is advised by Prof. Westley Weimer.

Donald Loveland

As part of the Graph Exploration and Mining at Scale (GEMS) Lab in CSE, Loveland’s research seeks to improve the interpretability, robustness, and fairness of graph neural networks. The goal of his work is to identify limitations and mitigate potentially harmful biases in current methods used in building and analyzing graph neural networks. Loveland is a third-year PhD student in CSE and is advised by Prof. Danai Koutra. 

Noah Kaplan

Kaplan’s research interests center on machine learning and data science, particularly computer architecture, hardware accelerators, and heterogeneous systems. His past work has focused on the development of unsupervised deep learning techniques for the detection of rare categories and events. Kaplan will be joining CSE as a PhD student this fall. He completed his undergraduate degree at Whitman College in 2022.

Ivris Raymond

As an undergraduate student in computer engineering at the University of Arkansas, Raymond performed research on computer architecture and embedded systems. Her thesis concentrated on the digital simulation of memristors for the purpose of supporting rapid prototyping of devices and novel architectures. She plans to continue exploring similar topics as a PhD student in CSE at U-M this fall.

Josue Torres-Fonseca

Torres-Fonseca’s research interests lie at the intersection of natural language processing and machine learning. He has performed research on topics ranging from neural network learning to critical infrastructure security. His research goals focus on designing intelligent systems that enhance people’s lives, particularly those with disabilities. He recently finished his undergraduate degree in computer science at Boise State University and will be joining CSE as a PhD student this fall.