Jeremy Kubica, who will graduate this spring from Cornell University with a degree in computer science, has received a graduate fellowship from the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation. The award pays tuition plus a generous stipend for living expenses for five years of graduate study. Kubica will pursue a Ph.D. in robotics at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Kubica grew up in Warwick, R.I., where he attended Toll Gate High School. His interest in computer science started in second grade when, he said, he began programming his own games on a Commodore 64 computer at his school.

He credits Chickee Souther, his freshman biology teacher at Toll Gate High School, with helping him choose his career path. "She gave me huge amounts of support and encouragement and really got me into science," he recalled. As a member of the top 1 percent of graduating seniors at Cornell chosen by the dean of his college, Kubica is a Merrill Presidential Scholar. Students in this program select one of their high school teachers and one of their college teachers for a special recognition. Souther, now retired, was invited to come to Ithaca for ceremonies on May 22 and 23 honoring the teachers chosen by Cornell's Merrill Scholars. A $4,000 Cornell scholarship will be created in Souther's name for future Cornell students from her school or region.

"I also hugely credit my parents for their role in helping me choose my career path," he added. Kubica's father, Anthony Kubica, is a health-care consultant. His mother, Edith Kubica, is a junior high school science teacher.

The fellowship comes as an especially pleasant surprise to Kubica, who has been working two part-time jobs during his junior and senior years.

As a computer science major at Cornell, he conducted independent research under Bart Selman, Cornell associate professor of computer science. His research dealt with genetic algorithms, a branch of the field of artificial intelligence in which computer programs continually modify themselves to find better ways of solving problems. "He is a stellar student, and I had no hesitation about recommending him for this award," Selman said. "He is outstanding both in academic records but also in other activities. Give him something to do and he comes up with interesting research directions."

Kubica was a member of Cornell's BRAIN (Big Red Artificial Intelligence Navigator) team, which won second place last year in a national competition to design and build a self-navigating model submarine. In his freshman and sophomore years, he ran track and was a member of the Cornell Aikido club. During his senior year, he worked part time at the mathematics library and assisted in grading papers for the second-semester freshman course in computer science.

During the summer of 2000, Kubica worked at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), where he conducted research on modular robotics, which deals with robots that can rearrange their own components to perform different tasks. A paper reporting his research has been accepted for delivery at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence to be held in Seattle in August. This summer he will continue that work at the Fuji-Xerox Palo Alto Laboratory (FXPAL).