Another Successful Student Capstone Conference at VMASC

Students from all over the country came to the Virginia Modeling, Analysis & Simulation Center to compete in the 2008 Student Capstone Conference. The conference is part of the weeklong celebration for VMASC's 10th anniversary.

Students participating in the Capstone gave presentations of their research in military and homeland security, discipline/body of knowledge, medical modeling, general science and modeling and simulation in engineering to some of the field's experts in government, academia and industry.

An evening banquet with awards capped off the day. The following students won in their respective categories:

Military and homeland security: first place, Saikou Diallo, Old Dominion University; second place, Derek Overby, Texas A&M; and third place, Anthony Devivi, Old Dominion University.
Discipline/body of knowledge: first place, Michael Spiegel and Ross Gore, University of Virginia; second place, Siakou Diallo, Old Dominion University: and third place, Charles Turnitsa, Old Dominion University.

Medical modeling: first place, Yufei Shen, Old Dominion University; second place, Miao Liu, Old Dominion University; and third place Elaine Blount, Old Dominion University. General science: first place, David Horres and Ross Gore University of Virginia; second place, Rachel Phillips, Old Dominion University; and third place, Trishal Khetia, Old Dominion University.

Modeling and simulation in engineering: first place, Kittisak Koombua, Virginia Commonwealth University; second place, Yang Xu, Old Dominion University; and third place, Mahmoud Khasawneh, Ahmed Marie, Jun Zhang and Tariq Zain El Abdein, Old Dominion University.

At the reception, Patrick Driscoll, a professor of operations research at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, spoke to all of the participants. He said the true beauty of this competition is the students get to have good, constructive discussions with some of the nation's leaders in modeling and simulation.

Compiled from the Suffolk News Herald