Northwestern CS Announces Fall 2024, Winter 2025 Outstanding Teaching Assistants and Peer Mentors
The quarterly department awards recognize exceptional service to the CS community
Northwestern Computer Science honors and recognizes students who demonstrate excellence in computer science mentoring and teaching with the Peter and Adrienne Barris Outstanding Teaching Assistant, Outstanding Peer Mentor, and Career Peer Mentor awards. A new award category this year, Career Peer Mentors have demonstrated exceptional service for at least three quarters.
"The competition was very fierce as usual and the committee awarded the best among numerous strong nominees,” said Aleksandar Kuzmanovic, professor of computer science at Northwestern Engineering and chair of the awards committee.
Nominated by any member of the department for service to the CS community that goes beyond expectations, the teaching assistants and peer mentors work with faculty to deliver courses and support of the highest quality. Thirteen students were cited in fall 2024 and winter 2025.
"We are proud and delighted to showcase some of our hardest working and best performing teaching assistants and peer mentors,” said Samir Khuller, Peter and Adrienne Barris Chair of Computer Science at the McCormick School of Engineering. “They provide an invaluable service to the community by helping other students learn.”
Fall 2024 Peter and Adrienne Barris Outstanding Teaching Assistants
PhD student in the Northwestern CS Theory Group
Adviser: Professor Aravindan Vijayaraghavan
Course: COMP_SCI 335: Intro to the Theory of Computation
Nominator notes: “Bob exemplifies a rare balance of deep expertise in the subject matter, genuine investment in student learning, and commitment to administrative tasks. He attended every class and took the initiative to post bonus examples each week on our course discussion board based on class discussions. He regularly took on additional responsibilities, such as reviewing students' in-class work and leading exam review sessions. And, at the end of the quarter, Bob delivered a highly effective guest lecture, which many students praised.”
Karl Hallsby
PhD student in computer engineering
Adviser: Professor Peter Dinda
Course: COMP_SCI 213: Intro to Computer Systems
Nominator notes: “Karl went well beyond the call of duty and has had an outsized and lasting impact on CS 213 and related courses. In addition to being a great TA, he was also integral to revising two of the four labs in the course. For the SETI/parallelism lab, Karl developed a Slurm-based queuing system and seamlessly interfaced the rest of the lab with his system.”
PhD student in the Northwestern CS Theory Group
Adviser: Professor Julia Gaudio
Course: COMP_SCI 336: Design & Analysis of Algorithms
Nominator notes: “Phawin is super efficient. You ask him to do something, and he does it perfectly on the first try. He did a lot for this course, including homework preparation and grading, exam grading, office hours, and discussion sessions — and all his work was great.”
Fall 2024 Career Peer Mentor Award
Fourth-year student pursuing a combined BS/MS degree in computer science
Courses: COMP_SCI 211: Fundamentals of Computer Programming II and COMP_SCI 343: Operating Systems
Nominator notes: “Emily has been a consistent and reliable presence as a PM for the past several years in CS211 and CS343. She's helpful and very willing to step up and help with class tasks.”
Fall 2024 Outstanding Peer Mentors
Third-year undergraduate student in integrated sciences, mathematics, and computer science
Course: COMP_SCI 212: Mathematical Foundations of CS Part 1: Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science
Nominator notes: “Kevin consistently goes beyond expectations. He frequently volunteers for extra responsibilities, including leading exam review sessions, co-organizing a "How to Succeed in CS 212" panel, and creating a LaTeX template for homework submissions used by more than half the class.”
Third-year student pursuing a combined BS/MS degree in computer science
Course: COMP_SCI 343: Operating Systems
Nominator notes: “Kevin is super knowledgeable about how the Nautilus OS works and has helped me resolve bugs in labs. He’s also very kind and empathetic in office hours.”
Third-year student in computer science with a joint major in mathematical methods in the social sciences
Course: COMP_SCI 212: Mathematical Foundations of CS Part 1: Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science
Nominator notes: “Sophia’s leadership has had a significant impact on both students and her fellow PMs. In fall 2024, she stepped into the role of ‘Head PM’ for CS 212. She coordinated office hours, managed logistics, and launched several new course initiatives, including a weekly discussion with other PMs on solving homework problems. She also co-organized the ‘How to Succeed in CS 212’ panel.”
Sean Rhee
Fourth-year student in computer science
Course: COMP_SCI 213: Intro to Computer Systems
Nominator notes: “While the main part of the pack lab involves writing unpack commands for a relatively complex pedagogical binary file format, Sean developed a new extra credit option involving writing pack for a version of a real world audio container and basic stream format. When successful, the students can record raw audio, pack it into the format, and play back the result on any commodity media player.”
Winter 2025 Career Peer Mentor Award
Master’s degree student in computer science
Course: COMP_SCI 111: Fundamentals of Computer Programming I
Nominator notes: “Anya is incredibly professional, hardworking, kind, passionate, knowledgeable, inviting, warm, resourceful. Anya is quite amazing at her job as a PM for CS 111. I honestly can’t express how much effort she puts in her role, truly going above and beyond!”
Winter 2025 Outstanding Peer Mentors
Third-year student pursuing a dual degree in computer science and industrial engineering and management sciences
Course: COMP_SCI 349: Machine Learning
Nominator notes: “Eugenia gave me clarity on assignments when I would overcomplicate things.”
Third-year student in computer science pursuing a minor in Spanish
Course: COMP_SCI 110: Intro to Computer Programming
Nominator notes: “Sarah does a truly outstanding job of not only helping students in the course but also being willing to help other peer mentors as well. Sarah offered to organize, prepare, and host the exam review sessions and she did a great job. Her incredible enthusiasm for helping people learn how to program is truly outstanding.”
Aryaman Chawla
Fourth-year student in computer science
Course: COMP_SCI 212: Mathematical Foundations of CS Part 1: Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science
Nominator notes: “Aryaman explains concepts simply. He makes sure we understand the material. He stays with you through the problem, even if it takes a few explanations.”
Joanna Soltys
Third-year BS/MS student in computer science
Course: COMP_SCI 214: Data Structures and Algorithms
Nominator notes: “Joanna is an excellent PM who communicates well and is very reliable. She volunteered to improve our testing resources by outlining, iterating, and recording a new testing video.”