The Department of Computational Applied Mathematics and Operations Research (CMOR) at Rice honored the achievements of seven seniors during its annual luncheon and awards ceremony on Dec. 7.
Winners of the 2023 Michael Ross Franco Award and their majors are Ruofeng “Charlie” Liu and Natasha Patnaik, operations research (OPRE), and Serena Wang, computational and applied mathematics (CAAM).
The Franco Award carries a prize of $1,000 and is named for Michael Ross Franco, who graduated from Rice with a B.A. in CAAM and mathematics in 2014. In his senior year, Franco was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. He underwent chemotherapy for eight months, completed his course work and graduated on time. The award was established by the Franco family to annually recognize exemplary senior undergraduate majors in CAAM/OPRE.
After graduation and for the remainder of his cancer treatment, Franco worked at BP’s Center for High-Performance Computing, focused on improving parallel methods for acoustic-wave propagation. He earned a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley, and works for Cadence Design Systems in Austin.
Receiving the CMOR-Chevron Prizes for majors are George Lyu (OPRE) and Orestis Tsatalmpasidis (CAAM). Each won $750.
Winners of the CMOR-Chevron Prizes for minors are Mac Cabello and Ivana Hsyung, both CAAM minors. Each won $250.