窪蹋勛圖厙

 

Class of 2010

John Doucette, Bachelor of Computer Science

- May 26, 2010

John Doucette was an active participant in the CS Society. (Danny Abriel Photo)

While most kids were still figuring out high school, John Doucette got his first taste of 窪蹋勛圖厙computer science. Home-schooled, he had completed his classwork at the age of 15 and was planning to work for a couple of years before starting university. But his mom had other ideas.

She gave me the course calendar for Dal and said pick one, he recalls. I chose a CS class and was hooked.

Mr. Doucette, from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, started full-time studies at 17 and quickly became a familiar face in the Goldberg Computer Science Building. Hes served in six different roles on the CS Society executive including president and this past year was the Facultys representative on DSU council.

His contributions were recognized with the FCS Root Award for outstanding, prolonged leadership and contributions to the CS community hes only the third student to ever receive the honour.

Hes also a stellar honours student, with three NSERC undergraduate student research awards to his name. His thesis work concerns computational evolution computer programs that make new computer programs better over time and finding solutions that people wouldnt necessarily come up with.

Generally, you set up these systems so that the best programs get to reproduce, he explains. What Im studying is novelty, where instead of rewarding the fittest, you reward the most different. Its useful for figuring out when the criteria youre using to assess your programs is actually wrong.

His work has taken him to conferences in Montreal, Naples and Istanbul, and will next lead him to the University of Waterloo where hell be doing his masters degree in computer science.