Brazilian student in the ACM SRC Grand Finals

The research of Diego Tavares Cavalcanti, an undergraduate student in the Computer Science program at the Federal University of Campina Grande (UFCG), has qualified as one of the three undergraduate winners in the ACM Student Research Competition Grand Finals 2010. Mr Cavalcanti's work has been selected among 15 other award-winning entries. In June, Diego and his advisor - professor Rohit Gheyi, also from UFCG - will travel to San Francisco, USA, to represent Brazil and receive the prize during the prestigious ACM Awards Banquet.

The ACM competition

The ACM Student Research Competition (SRC) is aimed at both undergraduate and graduate students worldwide. SRC is sponsored by Microsoft Research and is held by the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery), the world’s largest and most influential computing society.

Under SRC, research results by undergraduate and graduate students compete. During the first phase, students compete in their specific research area. More than 200 competitors, were qualified to the semifinals. Then, at the SRC Grand Finals, the winning entries from each area compete against each other in the so-called Grand Finals. The awards are presented during the highly prestigious ACM Awards Banquet, in the presence of the most important and influential computer scientists in the world. It is during this event, that the Turing Award (known as the “Nobel Prize of computing”) winner is announced.

Brazil in the SRC Grand Finals

In 2009, Diego - under the supervision of professor Rohit - submitted the paper “Improving Safety when Refactoring Aspect-Oriented Programs” to compete in SRC's undergraduate category at OOPSLA (Orlando, USA). Their research work won first prize (see the video and plaque). That achievement classified their work to compete in the Grand Finals of the ACM SRC with 15 other entries from various computing areas and countries, namely, the USA, Ireland, Germany and Japan. Gratefully, their research has been classified as one of the three winners of the ACM SRC Grand Finals. This has been the best performance ever of a Brazilian student in the competition. The final results, however, will be announced at the ACM Awards Banquet.

The banquet and the announcement will occur on June 26th. Therefore, this year, we have more than the Soccer World cup to cheer for!

Congratulations and success to Diego and Rohit!!!