Fall 2024 Carla Savage Award winners announced

Professor Matt Stallman; associate teaching professor Jason King; and business services coordinator Bianca Woodard have been named the fall 2024 winners of The Carla Savage Awards. The awards are named after the incomparable department icon Carla Savage and are an intra-departmental initiative to recognize outstanding achievement and special people within the department. 

Matthias “Matt” Stallmann

Matthias “Matt” Stallmann’s (PhD 1982, University of Colorado) primary research interests are in combinatorial optimization with emphasis on dealing with intractability (NP-completeness), either by looking for polynomial special cases or developing heuristics that work well in practice. He has been heavily involved in the service side of the department. For many years, he served as the Assistant Director of Graduate Programs (primary responsibility: advising students in the masters program), while simultaneously serving on many departmental committees. He also served as the AGEP-NC (Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate) Fellow , with the mission to bring cultural changes to benefit PhD students and faculty from underrepresented minorities.

Stallmann has made a lasting impact on the department through graduate advising, leadership of multiple committees, and contributions to hiring and engaging with teaching faculty. His nominees describe him as a “fantastic mentor and colleague; always willing to help, whether it is with a course, a committee, or just a question. He is a thoughtful mentor with a depth of knowledge.”  Stallmann shares valuable experience with computer science theory, but also shares great experiences with teaching undergraduate and graduate courses over the years. His experiences and suggestions have impacted the way topics are taught in multiple courses. 

As he enters phased retirement in 2024 (after 40 years in the department), Stallmann continues his active involvement in the department and his service in multiple advisory roles.

Jason King

Jason King is an associate teaching professor.  As a teaching-track faculty member, his primary responsibility involves teaching. He is currently the course coordinator for the CSC 316 Data Structures & Algorithms course. In addition to teaching, his work focuses on creation and innovative use of technologies for facilitating computer science teaching and learning.

Based on his work developing and incorporating innovative technologies into his courses to facilitate teaching and learning, he received the NCSU Gertrude Cox Award for Innovative Excellence in Teaching and Learning with Technology for 2017-2018. He also received an Outstanding Reviewer Award at the Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE TS) 2024.

King’s nominees write that he puts much work into his teaching. He is intentional in the materials and tools that he uses in his classes, always willing to share his knowledge and help colleagues when they have questions. Each August he presents during multiple sessions on grading at the TA training workshop for the University. He is a member of the CSC Undergraduate Curriculum Committee and each semester he is a Technical Advisor for the Senior Design Center. This semester he is mentoring four students with CSC 630 independent study as they continue work on projects that originated in the Senior Design Center.  King is a three-time graduate of the NC State Computer Science Department (BS 2009, MS 2011, PhD 2016)

Bianca Woodard

Bianca Woodard serves as a business services coordinator for the department.  Before joining NC State, Woodard served in the U.S. Army as a chemical operation specialist. After her military service, she pursued further education earning a Bachelors in Accounting and her MBA with a concentration in data analytics. She gained valuable experience working as an admin/payroll specialist at American Airlines.

Woodard’s nominees praise her work ethic, honesty, and loyalty to her team and department.  Hers is a demanding position in an ever-growing department. Quick to handle anything that is asked of her, she is a problem solver always looking for ways to take care of something on her own rather than passing it on to others to figure out.  A kind, efficient, and precise person in her work, her nominees were pleased to recognize her for her continual efforts at making things run smoothly in this department.

For a complete list of past winners, please click here.