Northwestern CS Announces Spring 2026 Outstanding Teaching Assistants and Peer Mentors

Northwestern Computer Science honors and recognizes students who demonstrate excellence in computer science mentoring and teaching with the quarterly Peter and Adrienne Barris Outstanding Teaching Assistant, Outstanding Peer Mentor, and Career Peer Mentor awards.

"As usual, we received many strong nominations for the best teaching assistants and peer mentors,” said Aleksandar Kuzmanovic, professor of computer science at Northwestern Engineering and chair of the awards committee.

Nominated by any member of the department for service to the CS community that goes beyond expectations, the teaching assistants and peer mentors work with faculty to deliver courses and support of the highest quality. Seven students were honored in spring 2026.

Spring 2026 Peter and Adrienne Barris Outstanding Teaching Assistants

Matthew vonAllmen
PhD student in computer science
Adviser: Jason Hartline
Course: COMP_SCI 212: Mathematical Foundations of CS Part 1: Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science

Nominator notes: “Matthew is incredibly patient and dedicated to teaching. He attends every class so that he knows exactly what the students know. And he is very prompt about writing up and posting detailed solutions.”

Xiling Li
PhD student in computer science
Adviser: Jennie Rogers
Course: COMP_SCI 213: Intro to Computer Systems

Nominator notes: “Xiling’s work is exemplary. I have known very few people so responsive and trustworthy professionally. Xiling has been a phenomenal teaching assistant and clearly stands out.”

Spring 2026 Career Peer Mentor Award

Career Peer Mentors have demonstrated exceptional service for at least three quarters.

Andrew Li
Fourth-year student earning a combined bachelor’s degree in computer science and integrated science and a master’s degree in computer science
Courses: COMP_SCI 211: Fundamentals of Computer Programming II, COMP_SCI 310: Scalable Software Architectures, and COMP_SCI 358: Intro to Parallel Computing

Nominator notes: “Andrew has served as a peer mentor for ten quarters. He works incredibly hard, has great suggestions for class improvements, volunteers for all sorts of tasks, and is a great pleasure to have on the peer mentor team of any class I teach.”

Spring 2026 Outstanding Peer Mentors

Paula Eyituoyo Fregene
Third-year student in computer science pursuing a minor in machine learning and data science
Course: COMP_SCI 380: Software Quality Engineering

Nominator notes: “Paula is always so joyous to work with and genuinely seems to love helping other people. She is patient and understanding and takes the time to figure out what topics you're struggling with and a unique way to walk you through it.”

Stefania Vasileiadou
Third-year student in computer engineering
Course: CS 213

Nominator notes: “Stefania’s diligence and attention to detail are exemplary, and her work ethic is rare. She is always among the fastest to respond to questions and the first to volunteer for everything from proctoring exams to checking a homework assignment or exam for bugs to helping students.”

Ata Güvendi
Fourth-year student earning a combined bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering and economics and a master’s degree in computer science
Courses: CS 211 and CS 310

Nominator notes: “Ata has been a peer mentor for nearly four years and has been indispensable. He has taught classes, created course projects over the summer, graded tirelessly, and served as a role model for other peer mentors.”

Daniela Chang
Second-year student earning a combined bachelor’s and master’s degree in computer science
Course: COMP_SCI 208: (214) Data Structures and Algorithms

Nominator notes: “Dani shows a lot of initiative. She contributed to multiple instructional course videos. She also took the lead on organizing an exam review session with other peer mentors to make sure students could get their questions answered ahead of our first exam.”