Six Shepherd University students and three faculty members attended the 2016 Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges (CCSCE) annual Eastern Region conference October 28-29 in Frostburg, Maryland. 
“It was the first time for Shepherd students to participate, and both Shepherd teams did a great job as they were decently ranked,” said Dr. Weidong Liao, associate professor of computer and information sciences.
The participating students in the conference were math major Yitian Yao, Kearneysville; and computer information technology majors Robert Chhoeut, Inwood; Peter Hopkins, Berkeley Springs; Vasile Stadnitchii, Hagerstown, Maryland; Christian Burns, Manassas, Virginia; and Parker Anthony, Barnesville, Maryland.
Faculty members who participated were Liao; Reza Mirdamadi, associate professor of engineering and chair, Department of Computer Science, Mathematics, and Engineering; and Dr. Osman Guzide, associate professor of computer and information sciences.
Shepherd students and faculty made four poster presentations at the conference. Burns and Parker demonstrated robots and presented a robotics project designed to enhance computing education. All six Shepherd students also participated in a programming contest, forming two teams to compete with 29 other teams from colleges and universities in the region.
In addition, six Shepherd students competed in an IEEEXtreme Student Programming Contest Ocotber 21-22. The 24-hour competition pitted Shepherd students against thousands of teams worldwide working to solve as many programming problems as possible online in the shortest period of time.
Liao said students felt participating in the competition was a great experience. Students who participated were computer engineering majors Lisa Butler, Charles Town; Christiana Pontier, Nitro; and Charlynn Stubbert, Winchester, Virginia. Computer information technology majors Keisha Burns, Hedgesville, and Michael Pittell, Mt. Airy, Maryland, and math major Hannah McDonald, Morgantown, also competed.
Mirdamadi and Liao are official proctors for the IEEE programming contest. Guzide also helped proctor. This is the third time Shepherd student teams have competed in the IEEEXtreme Competition. They also competed in 2013 and 2014.