SSU Students Accept Positions with Microsoft

SALISBURY, MD---Two Salisbury State University students, Daniel K. Winter, 21, of New Windsor, MD, and Brian Guaracci, 28, of Cambridge, MD, recently accepted positions with Microsoft. "This is an amazing opportunity for both individuals and indirectly for Salisbury State University," said Associate Professor Tom Horseman of the University’s Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. Microsoft recently chose SSU as a target school in its new recruiting initiative.

Winter, son of Mary Jo and John Mack Winter, Jr., recently graduated from the Department and he has begun full-time employment with Microsoft at its Irving, TX, facility. At Salisbury Winter participated in the Henson School Undergraduate Research Symposium (HURS) in 1999 and 2000, and in the National Conference on Undergraduate Research 2000 (NCUR) held in Montana. Guaracci, husband of Meredith Guaracci, and son of Debra Clickner of Preston, MD, will graduate with a degree in mathematics with a concentration in computer science in December. Following graduation, he will begin employment with Microsoft in January at their Redman, WA, facility. "Guaracci has had much of his work published in ‘Building LINUX Clusters’, a prestigious technical book," said Horseman. Guaracci has also been published in the NCUR 1999 and in Autonomous Agents 1999 proceedings. "SSU can’t take all the credit for the success of Dan and Brian," said Horseman, department internship coordinator. "They are both nontraditional students and learned a lot in the workplace. What our department did do was provide internship and independent study opportunities so that Dan and Brian could pursue some of their special interests. They were also selected as project leaders in several of their upper-level classes where they could demonstrate their leadership abilities. Both Brian and Dan were a pleasure to have in classes because they had so much to share with the other students. The partnership between The Department of Mathematics and Computer Science and Dan and Brian was a very productive one for everyone."

The Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at SSU offers degrees in mathematics with several concentrations and in computer science with an engineering emphasis. Cooperative learning experiences, internships and undergraduate research projects are integrated into the program to prepare students for post-graduation career plans. Additional information can be obtained from the department’s web page at http://henson2.salisbury.edu/~mathcosc/