Julie Thornton (Runner-Up) is a senior at Kansas State University. She will receive Bachelor's degrees in Computer Science and in Mathematics in May 2003.

Julie has contributed to multiple fields in computer science. She has developed and implemented, and has worked on performance evaluation for, sampling algorithms for Bayesian networks. She has worked on computer-aided instruction, creating a critiquing module for a tutoring system for college algebra. And she is currently helping geology faculty by working on using the Fourier transform to rescale digital images to lower resolutions. In her work on designing and implementing sampling-based approximation algorithms for Bayesian networks, she implemented a system, augmented the system with a new adaptive importance sampling design, and instrumented a full suite of experimental tools. She has co-authored two AAAI 2002 student posters, a paper at the 2002 Genetic Evolutionary Computation Conference, and a journal article in preparation.

Julie has served as a lab instructor at Kansas State, teaching classes and training instructors in college algebra, intermediate algebra, and general chemistry. She was awarded research assistantships in both the Department of Mathematics and the Department of Computer Science at Kansas State. Julie co-advised two graduate-student project groups. She has received numerous academic honors and scholarships, including a 2002-03 CRA Collaborative Experience for Women (CREW) award. She has volunteered to help children in a number of programs.

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