Zhenyu Wu Wins Distinguished Dissertation Award
Dr. Zhenyu (Adam) Wu received the 2011-12 Distinguished Dissertation Award in the Natural and Computational Sciences for his dissertation, Discovering New Vulnerabilities in Computer Systems, under the direction of Professor Haining Wang. Each May, as part of the commencement ceremonies, the award is given to a single Ph.D. student in the College of Arts & Sciences at the College of William & Mary for their exemplary achievement in graduate student research as demonstrated by the content of their dissertation.
In addition to his dissertation, Adam has eleven papers in his areas of research interest which include resource management and security in cloud computing, mobile computing security, high performance networking, malware detection and evasion, as well as Linux kernel and systems programming. Upon graduation, Adam joins NEC Labs America, Inc. in Princeton, New Jersey as a Research Staff member.
The College's Distinguished Thesis & Dissertation Awards were established by the Arts & Sciences Graduate Studies Advisory Board to recognize exemplary achievement in graduate student research. To receive a Distinguished Dissertation Award, a doctoral student's dissertation must be based on original research and contribute significantly to the discipline. Individuals must be nominated by their dissertation advisor in their respective department/program. A panel of scholars then judges the merit of the work. Each May, one award is given in the Natural and Computational Sciences (Applied Science, Computer Science, and Physics). The award carries a prize of $500.
Adam is the fourth Computer Science doctoral student (Gianvecchio, 2009-10; Chernikov, 2007-08; McCombs, 2006-07) to receive the A&S Distinguished Dissertation Award in the Natural and Computational Sciences since its establishment in 2004-2005.
