Justin Cheng '12 is a 2012 winner of the Computing Research Association's (CRA) Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award. He will receive a cash prize of $1,000 and financial assistance to attend a major computing research conference.

Cheng, a computer science major, has been lead author on three recent papers examining the social behavior of humans interacting with computers, including, for example, the amount of reciprocity in online messaging (celebrities seldom answer your tweets) and how to encourage people to participate in online tasks. Working with Dan Cosley, assistant professor of information science, Cheng created Kultagg (Swedish for fun tag), a Web application that uses color to encourage people to tag online images with search terms and comments.

Alec Story '12 and Eunsol Choi '12 received honorable mention in the CRA competition -- no small achievement, according to CRA. "All nominees whose work is considered to be exemplary are recognized with honorable mentions," they say.

Cornell has had four winners of the CRA undergraduate award since 2000 -- a record matched only by Princeton -- and leads in the numbers of runners-up and honorable mentions.