We have a great team of assistant coaches who will be helping you in office hours, as well as helping out with the course in other ways. They are: Ivan Alagenchev, Jonathan Burket, Peter Chapman, Jiamin Chen, Joseph Featherston, Valerie Sapp, and Kristina Shichanin.
The first help hours will be in Thorton Stacks, 4:30-6pm Thursday (tomorrow), with Jonathan Burket and Jiamen Chen. There will also be help hours scheduled Sunday from 3-5:00pm.
The assistants will be introducing themselves soon in the comments below.
I’m Peter Chapman. I’m a 4th year in the College of Arts and Sciences and majoring in CS (BA) and Cognitive Science.
My research at UVa has been in web security and secure mobile applications. I’ve spent this last summer at Microsoft Research working on data mining in Windows Azure.
I’m an appointed officer in the ACM and participate in the ACM ICPC. Both of which you should consider joining.
When I’m not sitting in front of a computer, I’m probably sitting on the couch satisfying my passion for film and television. I also enjoy friendly games of soccer and unfriendly games of poker.
If you come visit my desk in Rice 442, I’d love to talk about my research, general undergraduate research, courses here in the CS (or Psychology) department, this course, or anything else because I like distractions.
Hello All,
I’m Joseph Featherston, 3rd year Comp. Sci. BA and hopefully soon to be Math double major and East Asian studies minor. As you can probably tell I have no yet narrowed down my studies to a specific field, so who knows what I’ll be doing next year.
This summer I learned Defense Against the Dark Arts and spent some time programming for the Material Sciences department here at UVa. I’m an active member of the UVa Community Garden and the treasurer of CHÜVA(Cooperative Housing at UVa). If you like growing plants or are looking for an interesting and friendly group of people to live with next year feel free to ask me about it.
In my free time I enjoy making bread and playing around in the kitchen as well as just being a lazy bum.
Lastly here is a picture of me from my trip to Florida this summer:
Hey!

I’m Jonathan Burket, a third year Computer Science BA and Physics major. My research currently focuses on improving security for web applications. In particular, I helped develop GuardRails, a tool that automatically enforces security policies for sites written with Ruby on Rails. I am also interested in computer modeling and simulation.
While not doing work in computing or physics, I love watching and playing soccer (I am a big Bayern Munich fan). I also enjoy watching competitive cooking shows and playing piano. In my first year, I was in two shows with First Year Players (FYP), a great organization for any first years (or upper-classmen) interested in music, acting, or technical theater.
Please feel free to talk to me about web security, soccer, FYP, giraffes, or really anything else. I am looking forward to meeting everyone!
Hi everyone,
My name is Valerie Sapp and I am a 4th year Biology(BS) and Cognitive Science double major. Here at UVA I’m involved in research in olfactory processing in the psychology department. Over the summer I did research at Drexel University in their neonatology department. I’ll be happy to talk to any of you about my research and about how to get involved in research at UVA, or how to find summer research opportunities elsewhere.
When I’m not studying I enjoy taking fitness classes and cooking food and baking goodies for my friends and roommates.
I look forward to talking to all of you at office hours!
Hello everyone,
My name is Ivan Alagenchev. I have a bachelor’s degree from UT Arlington and I am a first year graduate student.
My primary research interests are in systems and application security, but I am also interested in robotics too. I have done different projects related to computer vision and path planning for the intelligent ground vehicle competition.
When I am not around computers, I like snow skiing, traveling, hiking, sky diving, grilling and cooking.
Here is a picture of me near the petroglyph state park in Albuquerque, NM:
Hi Everyone!
My name is Jiamin Chen, and you can call me Jamie if you have difficulty pronouncing Chinese names. I am currently a fourth year Computer Science(BA) and Psychology double major.
During the past summer, I worked as a research assistant and developed applications using Secure Computation framework.
If I have free time(hardly any during regular semesters), I enjoy reading fantasy novels, Role-play games and some Japanese anime.
Feel free to talk with me and ask me questions about anything!
Hello everyone!
My name is Kristina Shichanin and I am a second year, going to be double majoring in Computer Science and Mathematics.
I am also a Resident Adviser for the Russian Language House, so feel free to come by when we are hosting events!
During my free time I love to cook, travel, paint, and go hiking with friends.
I can’t wait to meet everyone!