Victor Mateevitsi, a PhD student in the Computer Science Department and a Research Assistant in the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), is a recipient of the Dean’s Scholar Award, presented by the Dean of the UIC Graduate College in recognition of a student’s scholarly achievement.

This award, given to UIC’s most distinguished doctoral students, provides a one-year fellowship stipend and tuition and fee waivers, to enable these students to dedicate their time to complete their dissertation work.

Mateevits’s chosen research is in Human Augmentics and Sensory Augmentation; that is, he is studying how wearable technologies and body sensors affect people’s perception of the world around them and, more specifically, how these devices can improve one’s awareness in complex environments. Immediate applications that have broad impact vary from protecting soldiers, firemen and policemen in hostile environments, to providing better quality of life to the visually and hearing impaired.

Though wearable technologies are his focus, Mateevitsi has also been involved with a variety of EVL research projects, from high-performance visualization system development to translational research with the UIC Pathology department and the City of Chicago. He has had summer internships at two Hollywood animation studios and this summer, will have an internship at Microsoft Research. He also volunteers his time to mentor underserved youth in an after-school programs, assists with EVL tours and demos, and gives numerous presentations and interviews to educate the general public on technology.

In 2013, Mateevitsi was named one of the “Fifty for the Future” by the Illinois Technology Foundation and in 2014, he was selected as one of the “20 in their 20sr” by Crain’s Business magazine.

Winners of this year’s Dean’s Scholar Award