Dustin Richmond (center with redish shirt) along with the other PhD award winners.

The Department of Computer Science and Engineering gave Dustin Richmond one of its annual awards for “Excellence in Service/Leadership”. Dustin has been a key leader in departmental activities since the day that he arrived N years ago. He has been an active community leader in our department, interacting with staff, students, and faculty to improve our community by organizing and motivating others to do the same. For example, he was the student chair of the department Graduate Community Council. As part of this, he proposed, designed, and oversaw the remodel of Chez Bob. These changes have transformed the lounge into a common meeting area. For several years he also managed the Graduate Student Association budget, allocating money to ideas and projects that improve the quality of life, evaluating and funding ideas that clearly benefit a broad swath of the department, and helping students make their ideas a reality. Dustin also organized an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Panel, where current applicants can ask questions, and receive feedback about their essay writing service. He has mentored and encouraged other students in the community and recruited faculty with past NSF application experience to participate. This provides a valuable benefit to incoming graduate students and outgoing undergraduate students in our department. These are just some of the highlights; he has done so much more!

Thanks for all your efforts Dustin. Very often these sorts of things go unnoticed. I’m glad that was not the case here.

-Ryan