2016 Outstanding CS Alumni
CS Honors Outstanding Alumni
03-15-2017
Writer(s): Kristyn Childres
Three exceptional computer science graduates were recognized as the department’s 2016 Outstanding Alumni. This award recognizes extraordinary professional achievements, distinctive innovations and diligence in advancing the field of computing.
Vicki Capadona
Vicki Capadona graduated in 1972 with one of the inaugural computer science undergraduate degrees earned at Purdue. She began her career in Chicago at Continental Illinois National Bank as an application programmer working on IBM’s largest computer at the time. She went on to work with Allstate Insurance Company and Blue Cross, and later became a full time-mom, working as a Girl Scout leader and American Field Service host mom. Vicki served her school board technology committee and church council, and served as a board member for a local museum and for her community foundation.
Craig Pfeifer
Craig Pfeifer has served the Dynamic Research Corporation as the technical architect for projects with the Department of Veteran’s Affairs and the Department of the Navy’s Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. He joined the MITRE Corporation, where he served as Principal Artificial Intelligence Engineer and published on the topics of author attribution, native language identification and minimally supervised multilingual relation extraction. Craig is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in natural language processing at the University of Maryland.
Ko-Yang Wang
Ko-Yang Wang has held various technical and business leadership roles at IBM during his career. He was elected IBM Distinguished Engineer in 2000 and is a member of the IBM Academy of Technology. He is the founder and CEO of Fusions360.com and has extensive experience in IT consulting and strategic business management, including serving as executive vice president and CTO at the Institute for Information Industry of Taiwan and leading the Cloud System Software Research Institute. Ko-Yang has co-authored eight patents and more than 50 publications.