Yuan Tian, doctoral student in Auburn University’s Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, has earned first place at the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Student Research Competition (SRC) Grand Finals for her research, “Smart-IO: System-Aware Two-Level Data Organization for Efficient Scientific Analytics.” Tian accepted her award at a banquet held in San Francisco on June 16.

Tian is studying high performance computing at Auburn while working for faculty member Weikuan Yu in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering. Tian and Yu’s work was recognized by ACM last year as one of 11 projects selected for the student research competition, earning a first place award. Tian earned her master’s degree in software engineering from Auburn in May 2009.

ACM is the world's largest educational and scientific computing society that brings educators, researchers and professionals together to share dialogue and resources to address the field’s challenges. The SRC is sponsored by Microsoft Research to encourage students to pursue careers in computer science.