Goldsby named to receive the Fitch Beach Outstanding Graduate Research Award

The MSU Engineering Graduate Studies Committee has named Heather Goldsby as the 2010 Outstanding Graduate Research Award Winner for the College of Engineering. Awards were determined on the basis of a technical presentation and outstanding research in a PhD program in the MSU College of Engineering.

Heather Goldsby is a doctoral student progressing toward a dual-degree in Computer Science and Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, & Behavior, under the guidance of Charles Ofria. She is using computational techniques to address open questions in biology about how efficient division of labor evolves in groups of natural organisms such as ants, wolves, or even humans. She is then harnessing these evolutionary pressures to solve problems in computer science, developing new methods of "automatic problem decomposition". Since joining the PhD program in 2006, Heather has published 18 peer-reviewed papers (including two best-paper awards) and given 10 external presentations. Through this time she was only a part-time graduate student, holding down an unrelated full-time job as an information technologist. Heather is also committed to teaching; this summer, she plans to take on the role of lead instructor in CSE 410: Operating Systems.

(Date Posted: 2010-03-03)