Google summer of code

For Google Summer of Code, NESCent had 11 project ideas, 31 applicants, and just 5 slots. Paul McMillan, an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley, was one of the applicants and proposed working on the WebDot navigation of databases project (though he might end up using GraphViz directly, rather than WebDot). His application was detailed and showed good background knowledge; more impressive were his conversations (over IRC) regarding the problem, where it became evident that he had given it a lot of thought and certainly had the background to do this. This project should help with TreeTapper navigation (looking at coauthor networks, for example) and become an easy-to-use solution for other website developers. Congrats to Paul. 

This was my first year with Google Summer of Code. I was impressed by the quality of the applications NESCent-affiliated projects received and how passionate the students are about them (several whose projects didn't get funding have volunteered to work on them anyway, which is amazing (since they'll have to do something else for money, and  so will have less time)).