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George Stark (left) discusses his project, “Image Compression.”
George Stark (left) discusses his project, “Image Compression.”

George Stark (left) discusses his project, “Image Compression.”

  • April 20, 2023
  • Roger Coda

Four students – all with majors or minors in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences – participated in the 27th annual conference of the Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges Northeast Region (CCSCNE) hosted by Ithaca College on April 14 and 15.

George Stark, a senior majoring in Computer Science, with a concentration in systems Software and a minor in Web Programming, from Chenango Forks, presented his work, “Image Compression”. Henry Zelenak, a senior majoring in Sound Recording Technology with a concentration in Piano and a minor in Computer Science from Berne, presented his work, “Visualizing Music Preferences: Using Physical Features to Construct Preference Models.”

The students were mentored by Department of Computer and Information Sciences Professor Ziya Arnavut, who also attended the conference.

The team of Chris Bacon, a junior majoring in Computer Science and Mathematics from Cassadaga; Ian Cioppa, a sophomore, Computer Science, Grand Island; and Mr. Zelenak, also computed at the Student Programming Contest.

Henry Zelenak (right) discusses his project, “Visualizing Music Preferences: Using Physical Features to Construct Preference Models.”
Henry Zelenak (right) discusses his project, “Visualizing Music Preferences: Using Physical Features to Construct Preference Models.”

All students completed their projects while enrolled in CSIT 499: Senior Project. Since 2022, except for the COVID-19 pandemic, SUNY Fredonia students have participated in a programming contest organized by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the world’s largest scientific and educational computing society, founded in 1947, in fall semesters and at the CCSCNE conference each spring.

“Presenting in conferences gives students a chance to improve their presentation and communication skills,” Dr. Arnavut said. “It helps them to increase networking and learn about current research in their areas and become inspired by new ideas.”

The conference brings together faculty, staff, and students from academic institutions throughout the Northeast to exchange ideas and information concerning undergraduate computing curricula. It invites proposals for papers, panels, tutorials, workshops, short lightning talks, and faculty and graduate and undergraduate student posters. All submissions are reviewed, and paper reviews are double-blind.

Proceedings of the conference are published in an issue of the Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges and indexed in the ACM Digital Library.

Fredonia was one of five SUNY schools participating in the event. There were 61 poster presentations.

Platinum-level conference sponsors were Google Cloud, GitHub, and the National Science Foundation.