In total, 63 teams from universities and colleges across the Northeast participated in the conference. Associate Professor of Computer Science Brian O’Neill, Assistant Professor of Computer Science Soumyashree Sahoo and Associate Professor and Associate Chair of Computer Science Chetan Jaiswal advised the students.

Quinnipiac earned a clean sweep of the computing applications category, winning first-, second-, and third-place honors. In addition, Quinnipiac earned third place in the computing research category.

Morgan Montz ’26, MS ’27, earned a first-place honor for her work on an app called wRIST, or Robotic Intermediate Sign Translator.

To make it work, users simply talk to the robot, and it will actively translate your words to sign language.

“In the future, I hope to be working in cybersecurity or potentially some sort of career in robotics,” Montz said. “I have been fascinated by robots since I was young, so having the opportunity to work with them was inspiring and encouraging.”

Cybersecurity is such an expansive and pressing field that always has the potential to learn something new and help people, Montz said.

“It is hard to put into words how proud I am of our students for what they accomplished at CCSC Northeast Region 2026,” Jaiswal said. “We had the privilege of seeing firsthand the talent, determination and countless hours of hard work they poured into these projects, and it was incredibly moving to watch them present with such professionalism and confidence, and earn these well-deserved recognitions. Moments like this stay with you as a mentor because you know how much effort, growth and perseverance stand behind that success. Their achievement reflects not only who they are as students, but also the deep commitment of our School of Computing & Engineering faculty to mentorship, hands-on learning and helping every student reach their full potential.”

Jaiswal also presented a lightning talk about latest research on countering ransomware attacks and developing layered solutions that also work the live attack breach model at the conference.

The following students presented their research:

1st Prize: Computing App Development

Project Title: wRIST: Robotic Intermediate Sign Translator

Team: Evan Vastakis, Morgan Montz, Eric May and Shawn Acheampong

Finalist for the 2026 Elevator Pitch competition to be held on April 16

2nd Prize – Computing App Development

Project Title: I Know You: AR Facial Recognition Glasses

Team: Andrew McCleary, Brady Galligan, Aislin Hayes and Jacob Levin

3rd Prize – Computing App Development

Project Title: Remind — at Home Solution to TBI Rehabilitation

Team: Billy Godoy, Michael Alvarado and Joshua Molin

Project Title: PathFinder

Team: Daniel Vitashkevich, Grant Foody, Zakaria Merzougui and Fahim Kalange

Project Title: ScrapDish: A Food Waste Minimizer Application 

Team: Reeya Patel, Megan Mohr and Adelina Chocho

Project Title: Tempo.AI

Team: Chris Anzilotti, Alex Powers, Sebastian Salazar and Ryan Fennelly

Project Title: QChat: An AI-Driven Conversational Assistant for Enhancing Information Access in University Portals

Team: Samantha Woodburn, Tuana Turhan and Thomas Rua

This project is under works with the IT and Lynn Byers, it is an AI chatbot created for Quinnipiac students and is undergoing testing to hopefully going live soon

Project Title: Compile Quest

Team: Ellie Macdonald, Diego Matayoshi, Lehan Dharmatilake, Mark Pfister

Project Title: InterQu: AI Enhanced Practice Interview Software

Team: Aidan Armelino, Lucas Jenkins, Hayden Lacy and Connor Ryan

Finalist for the 2026 Elevator Pitch competition to be held on April 16

3rd Prize – Computing Research

Project Title: Evaluating Privacy–Utility Trade-offs in Federated Learning for Heart Disease Prediction  

Team: Jessica Theodore

Project Title: C.A.R.E.: A Governance Framework for Robust and Equitable AI in Oncology Imaging

Team: Brooks Jackson

Project Title: Examining AI's Impact On Student Web Design Developers

Team: Matthew Jones

Project Title: GenMark: A New Testing Ground for Procedurally Generated Game Content

Team: Maximus Riat

Project Title: SmartFocus - A Novel Study on Stress Facilitated by a Smartphone Application

Team: Hunter Pageau, Wilson Chen, Luis Gilbuena and Fayed Bin Salim