Seton Hall Computer Science Students Present Research Across the Globe

Four Computer Science undergraduates—Andrés Maldonato, Brysen Pfingsten, David Anthony Fields and Sophia Turano—recently showcased their research at two international conferences: one in Singapore and another in Montevideo, Uruguay. Their presentations spanned topics in programming languages, visualization tools, and formal verification, highlighting the department’s emphasis on research-driven learning and global collaboration. Andrés, David and Sophia are research assistants supervised by Marco T. Morazán, Ph.D., while Brysen works under Jason Hemann.

Innovation on Display in Singapore

At the International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP) in Singapore, students participated in both the Student Research Competition and specialized workshops, including SPLASHE-E 2025 and Scheme 2025.

Andrés Maldonato presented work on visualizing how computers process programming languages. His presentations—a talk at SPLASHE-E, a poster at the ACM Student Research Competition at ICFP 2025 and a joint talk with fellow SHU student David Anthony K. Fields at Scheme 2025—underscored his growing confidence in public speaking and collaboration.

“Every conference teaches you something new,” Andrés reflected. “You walk away with fresh ideas and new techniques. There’s a world of information out there you wouldn’t even know otherwise.”

Brysen Pfingsten presented a paper on logic programming, earning second place in the ACM Student Research Competition at ICFP 2025. His work formalized language behavior through small-step semantics and contributed to the revival of logic programming discussions at the miniKanren Workshop.

“It’s surreal to meet people whose names you’ve only seen on papers,” Brysen said. “The workshop was a reminder that even niche areas of computer science are making a comeback.”

David Anthony K. Fields gave a joint talk at the Scheme Workshop with Andrés Maldonado. In addition, he presented his research poster, “Validation and Verification for Finite State Automata,” at the ACM Student Research Competition at SPLASH 2025, where he advanced to the finals. His visualization tool shows students all possible computations a finite state machine can perform, bridging theoretical concepts with interactive learning.

Reflecting on the experience, he shared: “It was an incredible opportunity to meet academics from other areas. I even received an offer to collaborate and receive advice from a professor abroad.”

Cutting-Edge Research in Montevideo

Meanwhile in Montevideo, Andrés Maldonado, David Anthony K. Fields, and Sophia Turano represented Seton Hall at the 2025 Implementation and Application of Functional Languages (IFL 2025) conference.

Sophia Turano presented her first conference paper on invariant testing for finite state machines, a tool designed to improve accuracy and efficiency in student programming assessments. Though initially nervous, she found the event empowering:

“I thought it was really nice that people were giving feedback. It was great practice for public speaking, and for building confidence.”

Andrés presented his work on implementing domain-specific languages for the expression of unit tests. This research addresses the fundamental need to test solutions expressed as programs, improving quality of life for everyone who uses software-based systems.

David presented his work on recipe-based errors, which casts errors caught in a program in terms of design, specifically design steps that are not successfully completed. In this way, his research helps reduce the huge search space programmers must navigate in order to fix software bugs.

Expanding Horizons Through Research

From Singapore to South America, these students demonstrated the breadth of Seton Hall’s Computer Science program—melding technical innovation with academic exploration. Each returned not only with feedback and inspiration, but also with new professional connections and a deeper understanding of their field.

As David put it, “You come out knowing just a little bit more every time.”

Categories: Nation and World, Science and Technology