Ryan Bahous-Boldi '25
About
Graduation year: 2025
Major and Minor: Computer Science, Minor: Psychology and Philosophy
Commonwealth Honors College
Name of the Scholarship: Goldwater Scholarship
Period of the Scholarship: Senior Year (1 Year)
Country: United States
My project involved taking ideas from evolution to optimize computer programs. I worked on an algorithm known as Lexicase selection, that can pick promising candidates from a pool of individuals. It turns out that this method is very effective for picking individuals to become parents in an evolutionary framework, as it can maintain diversity and specialists in the population. We then can use this principle to evolve computer programs to help us solve real world problems that were previously otherwise unsolvable! The Goldwater Scholarship directly supports my efforts at conducting this kind of research while also balancing other academic commitments.