Salutatorian Storey fuses computer science, classics

At Commencement on Tuesday, June 6, Storey will get hold of a B.S.E. In computer science and a certificate in Roman language and way of life and could follow the University lifestyle of handing over a Latin speech as salutatorian of the Class of 2017. Storey, from Berkeley, California, became awarded the Shapiro Prize for Academic Excellence his freshman and sophomore years and became elected to Phi Beta Kappa last fall. He acquired a Best Poster Award for his junior independent mission and is a Tau Beta Pi member, the engineering honor society.

From “Introduction the to Indo-European,” a historical and comparative study of the Indo-European language circle of relatives, with Joshua Katz, the Cotsen Professor in the Humanities and professor of classics, to “Mapping the Universe,” which considers projections for mapping the moon, Mars, Jupiter, and the sky, with J. Richard Gott, professor of astrophysical sciences, emeritus, Storey has taken full gain of Princeton’s liberal arts curriculum. Every term, he has browsed the University’s path services to pick out extra than a dozen courses that piqued his interest, understanding full well it’s now not possible to take all of them, even though he wanted he could. “This has been one of my goals because I came to Princeton — to discover all my numerous pastimes and spot where they lead me,” he stated.

Christiane Fellbaum, a senior studies student and lecturer in PC science and a lecturer within the Humanities Council and linguistics who has known Storey because he took her freshman seminar, “Evolution of Human Language,” said: “[He] contributed equally to magnificence discussions on genetics, paleontology, neuroanatomy, and human physical evolution. Grant displayed a brilliant hunger for studying and embraced every topic with equal enthusiasm.”

Focusing on two disparate disciplines has allowed Storey to sharpen his critical-wondering abilities and his studies instincts. “It’s simply important in addressing a hassle to take a step returned and see if there may be any other way to think about it,” he said. “Having two one-of-a-kind regions gives me practice in switching between one-of-a-kind models of thinking, and I’m learning to use this ‘code-switching’ to the whole lot I do so that I’m considering things from masses. Of different instructions.” Fellbaum, who supervised Storey’s junior venture and senior thesis, praised his adulthood as a scholar.

“In our weekly conferences, Grant would excitedly take hold of a pen, go to the whiteboard and provide me a lesson in historical Greek dialects, illustrated with records and the state-of-the-art code that he had evolved,” she stated. She recalled Storey’s paintings on his junior mission. He wrote the software program that allowed him to categorize Attic and Doric dialect bureaucracy in the Greek tragedian plays, Euripides. Those conferences endured as Storey pursued his senior thesis targeted on prosodic styles in the one’s texts.

“Grant glaringly possesses a natural talent now not handiest for scholarship and exploration, but additionally for speaking his questioning to others,” Fellbaum said. This academic year, Storey also worked with Arvind Narayanan, an assistant professor of laptop technological know-how, on research in internet privateness that brought about a paper on the destiny of advert blocking off. “Grant was noticeably productive at studies in his senior year,” said Narayanan. “His thesis was on reading classical texts. However, he did a totally separate challenge on computer safety, particularly reading the ‘ad blocking fingers race’ and growing novel advert blockading techniques. This has led now not only to a working paper, however additionally a prototype device with tens of thousands of users.”

Storey, a member of Rockefeller College, serves as a tour guide for the engineering faculty. Last spring, he performed the King Aegeus in manufacturing Euripides’ “Medea,” within the authentic Greek, as a part of a fellow pupil’s junior paper. As a Colonial Club officer, he is at the rate of “member contentment,” He works hard to engage and entertain his fellow eating membership contributors with funny emails and informative podcasts, he said. After he graduates, Storey will pursue a grasp’s degree in laptop technological know-how at Cornell University. The -year software will allow Storey to deepen his understanding of herbal-language processing and help him decide whether he desires to pursue a Ph.D. Inside the concern. “I want to fulfill greater students and construct extra relationships,” he said. “I’ve found it very precious at Princeton to paintings with specific human beings and get one-of-a-kind thoughts. I want lots of various reviews as I do my very own issue.”

On the other aspect of the coin, computers have opened a whole new global of possibilities. It is now less complicated to advantage records on world activities; you can even find a job within the net; you can spread advocacies to a large variety of human beings all over the world, and most significantly, it’s far now less difficult to be connected even in case you are on the alternative side of the globe. Computer generation, much like any other fabric on this planet, has been created with a common exact in mind. Like a knife, it’s been made to cut and slice food to speed up cooking time for humans; however, it can also be used to kill people, and you can not ban the use of knives so that it will stop killing. And so that you can’t blame computers for the problems it could have induced for it’s far the people who use them who brought about the problem. It has hazards and benefits that have to be considered. But the trouble isn’t the computer era itself; the trouble is living on the people who use it. Computer technology is generally top for it may deliver in loads of good if used well, but can do tremendous harm if used unwisely.