Computer Science and Engineering Student Named Churchill Scholar
The Winston Churchill Foundation annually awards fourteen scholarships to graduating seniors and recent graduates who demonstrate exceptional academic talent, outstanding personal qualities, and a capacity to contribute to advancement in science, engineering, or mathematics. The scholarship supports one year of graduate study in a relevant field at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
Khoury began conducting research as a freshman under the guidance of Dr. Rephael Wenger, where he studied isosurface meshes, which is a tool for data visualization. In 2009, his work was published and he delivered a presentation at the leading conference in computer visualization.
Khoury's research and industry experience allow him to approach complex topics in computational geometry from a new angle. He has taken part in mathematics research at Ohio Wesleyan University, and this past summer, he completed an internship in with AT&T Labs in their information visualization group. He also spent fall quarter with Amazon.com as a software development intern in their fraud department.
Outside the laboratory, Khoury has participated in a variety of science-related outreach activities. He has served as a student advisor on the undergraduate engineering honors committee and on the department of computer science and engineering’s semester task force. In addition, he served as a peer contact for the undergraduate research office and as a tutor at Ohio State’s math and statistics learning center.
Khoury will pursue a master's of philosohpy in advanced computer science at Cambridge, where he will conduct research in geometric modeling under Dr. Neil Dodgson. In the coming years, he hopes to pursue a doctoral degree in computer Science at University of California, Berkeley or Stanford University. His ultimate goal is to become a computational science professor at a major university.
Khoury is the third Ohio State student ever to be named a Churchill Scholar. Engineering physics student Tyler Merz won the award in 2011 and physics student Lawrence Bigler, Jr. won the award in 1967. Faculty member Robin Wharton of the department of molecular genetics also won the award in 1978.
Students interested in learning more about the Churchill Scholarship should contact the Undergraduate Fellowship Office at fellowships@osu.edu or visit the Churchill Foundation’s website at winstonchurchillfoundation.org.