Rasha Elhesha, a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Florida’s Department of Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE), received the Outstanding International Student Award for her exemplary academic achievement and involvement at UF. Elhesha, an international student from Egypt, was one of 15 students from the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering to receive the award.
After graduating with her bachelor’s in computer and systems engineering from Alexandria University in Egypt, Elhesha worked as a software engineer for about a year. She then decided to further her education and narrowed in on UF’s CISE department. In August 2014, she enrolled at UF with a focus in bioinformatics, a discipline that analyzes large amounts of complex biological data.
Elhesha said winning UF’s Outstanding International Student award means that she is on the right track and that her work with bioinformatics professor Tamer Kahveci is appreciated. She said she is grateful for Kahveci’s support as she moves through her Ph.D. program.
“I am eternally grateful for his tireless efforts to teach me everything and guide me through my research,” she said. “He inspired me to ask the right questions and seek answers. He is really a wonderful, kind, understanding and caring supervisor and person.”
Elhesha and other researchers at CISE’s Bioinformatics Lab have published several publications and conference papers on motifs – or patterns – in biological networks and continue to develop efficient algorithms and software for computational analysis of bioinformatics data.
Allison Logan
Marketing & Communications Specialist
Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering