Rice math major named Outstanding Male Undergrad

Rice
math major named Outstanding Male Undergrad
…………………………………………………………………

BY B.J. ALMOND
Rice News Staff

Third-year student
Adam Stubblefield has been chosen to receive the Outstanding
Male Undergraduate Award by the Computing Research Association
(CRA).

The award, which
includes a cash prize of $1,000, recognizes exceptional
potential in computing research and will be presented at
a national computing-research conference this year.

Stubblefield,
from Fairfax County, Va., is working toward a bachelor’s
degree in mathematics to be awarded in May. He specializes
in research in computer security and applied cryptography.
This past summer he demonstrated a major flaw in a common
wireless computing standard, the Wireless Equivalent Privacy
protocol. He also was part of the Rice/Princeton University
team that unscrambled the Secure Digital Music Initiative
codes — digital watermarks developed by the recording
industry to prevent and/or allow the playing and copying
of digital music.

“Adam has
done some really great work over the past two years,”
said his adviser, Dan Wallach, assistant professor of computer
science and in electrical and computer engineering. “I’m
very proud to see that he has gained this important and
well-deserved recognition from the research community.”

The CRA comprises
more than 190 North American academic departments of computer
science, computer engineering and related fields; laboratories
and centers in industry, government and academia involved
in basic computing research; and affiliated societies. The
association’s outstanding undergraduate awards for
2002 were sponsored by Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs.