2020 Frias Scholarship Winner
By Jen Potter
Vaithyanathan Narayanan, an MSE candidate, is the recipient of the 2020 Eduardo and Norma Frias Scholarship in Software Engineering. The award, established in 2016, supports students who demonstrate academic excellence and leadership potential, and have financial need. To date a total of 3 students in the Master of Software Engineering Professional Programs have received this scholarship.
Prospective awardees are identified by the Program Director and Academic Program Manager after the completion of the second semester of study. A committee of faculty members and project mentors evaluate the pool of prospective awardees and select one or more winners.
Travis Breaux, Program Director, notes “Vaithy’s hard work to help build community within the MSE program, and his contributions to his team’s award-winning work in the annual architecture competition, are recognized by the competitive Frias scholarship.” Moreover, Vaithy’s project teammates acknowledge that he “consistently demonstrates a tremendous work ethic combined with careful attention to detail,” and he has been “a key pillar to the great success of the MSE Moonshot project.”
It is our sincere pleasure to congratulate Vaithy and thank him for his effort and dedication to the MSE programs!
Vaithyanathan Narayanan | MSE ‘20
Vaithy holds a bachelor of engineering degree in computer science from Anna University. Prior to joining the MSE, he was a Member of the Technical Staff at athenahealth in the greater Chennai area.
Vaithy was selected as a recipient of this award based upon his commitment to academic excellence, engagement in the classroom and his embodiment of a desire to improve the state of the practice through application opportunities outside of the classroom such as his excellent work on the Studio Project thus far and as evidenced in his efforts as part of the winning team at the Student IT Architecture Competition this past spring. Vaithy demonstrated leadership potential by serving as the vice president of the Master of Software Engineering Leadership Initiative (MSELi).
