CSC News

Apilli Selected to Participate in Prestigious Off-Campus Programs

Bellanov Apilli, a junior in the department of computer science at NC State University, has been selected to participate in the Distributed Research Experiences for Undergraduates (DREU) program this summer.  This program is administered by the Coalition to Diversity Computing (CDC)/Computing Research Associates Committee on the Status of Women in Computer Research (CRA-W).

Formerly known as the Distributed Mentor Project (DMP), the objective of the DREU is to increase the number of women and underrepresented groups (women, Hispanics, African Americans, and American Indians) entering graduate studies in the fields of computer science and engineering. This highly selective program matches promising undergraduate women and underrepresented groups with a faculty mentor for a summer research experience at the faculty member's home institution. Students are directly involved in a research project and interact with graduate students and professors on a daily basis. This experience is invaluable for students who are considering graduate school, providing them with a close-up view of what graduate school is really like and also increasing their competitiveness as an applicant for graduate admissions and fellowships.

This summer, via the DREU program, Apilli will be mentored by NC State Alumna, Kera Watkins, assistant professor at Georgia Southern University on software testing research.

Earlier this spring, Apilli was selected to participate in the Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM) Student Research Competition at the 2009 Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference (Tapia 2009) in Portland, Oregon.  Apillia received a travel scholarship to attend the conference, and won fourth place for his research on “Combinatorial Testing of Access Control Policies.”  He was advised by JeeHyun Hwang, NC State computer science PhD student, and Dr. Tao Xie, NC State assistant professor of computer science.

Apilli’s research has been supported in part by Dr. Xie’s REU supplement of the National Science Foundation’s Cyber Trust Award, and an Undergraduate Research Grant provided by the College of Engineering and the computer science department.

For more information on CDC/CRA-W, click here.

For more information on the Tapia 2009 Conference, click here.

~coates~