Academic Year 2014

Mikael Perrin

Mikael is from Saint Marcel d’Urfé, a small French town of only 300 inhabitants. His mother being an accountant and his father a mechanic, he naturally grew up loving math and engineering. While he was in middle school, Mikael’s parents got a computer and he got very curious on how it works and how to fix it. By 16, he had taught himself how to program in C and became a Science major in high school. He discovered Computer Science while studying System Engineering in an Institut Universitaire Technologique (a mix between computer and robotics) and then specialized in Software Engineering and Computer Systems at ISIMA. 

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Xiaodi Yu

Xiaodi is from the Henan province in the center of China, considered the birthplace of the Chinese civilization. He has always been interested in engineering and geography. Xiaodi earned a B.S. in Survey and Mapping Engineering from Shanghai University. His first experience in Computer Science was during this program when he took a class on Visual Basic and Imaging Processing. After completing his B.S., Xiaodi was not ready to be out of school and wanted to experience a different lifestyle so he applied to American M.S. programs in Geographic Information Systems.

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Lauren Wells 

Lauren grew up in Celina, TX, just north of Frisco. She has always been self-driven, ambitious, and dedicated. These traits have been on display with her involvement in OU cheerleading and in her studies. She has always loved and succeeded in mathematics and was interested in engineering. Lauren first declared pre-physical therapy as a major before switching to computer science with a minor in math.

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Paige Riley 

Paige is from Mansfield, TX near the DFW metroplex. Her father is an autodidact when it comes to coding and software engineering and his switch from a career in ministries to one as a successful software engineer made quite an impression on young Paige who used to watch him code. In high school she joined the Computer Applications Team and participated in the University Interscholastic League where she won the district and regional competition.

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Ali Hajimirza

Ali was born in Tehran, Iran where he lived until moving to Tulsa where he attended Tulsa Union High School. He has always loved playing with electronics and engineering devices since he was four years old. In middle school he joined the Robotics and Electronic Club. In high school Ali went on to join the First Robotics Club which won the Dallas Regional and led him to programming.

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Joseph Asante

Joseph is from Weatherford, Oklahoma but was born in Ghana where he lived until coming to the U.S. at age nine when his father got the opportunity to pursue a Ph.D. at Syracuse, NY. His background is very multicultural as his father is from Ghana and his mother from Russia. Both his parents have a background in engineering and stressed the importance of education to Joseph. As a young child, Joseph loved going to Internet cafés with his brother and became fascinated by computers.

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Mamta Yadav

Mamta is from the Indian province of Rajasthan, a hill station in the north-west part of the country. When she was a little girl, Mamta dreamt of becoming a medical doctor. She inherited a love for mathematics from her dad and was so talented in computer science that after solving many problems for her teachers, they encouraged her to pursue engineering.

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