College of Engineering Honors Lynn Reedy as Distinguished Alumnus; Felipe Arias Wins Transfer Award

Lynn Reedy (BS Math & CS, ’77) was one of seven college alumni recognized this year with the Distinguished Service Award at an April 12 dinner. Reedy was honored “For her outstanding leadership and innovative technical contributions to the e-commerce industry in a period of high growt

h.”

Reedy is a former Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at eBay and now owns Lencioni Vineyards and Mia Nipote Winery in Livermore Valley, Calif.

At eBay she was responsible for initiatives related to the company’s product features, user interface design, usability testing, architecture, product development, release management, and 24/7 site operations.

Reedy led a complete redesign of the eBay’s website without disrupting the auction site’s ongoing operations, and oversaw the product development process for what was at the time world’s No. 1 consumer e-commerce site.

Prior to joining eBay, Reedy was chief information officer at Miller Freeman, which was a trade-show producer and publisher of technical and industry-specific magazines. She implemented strategic business systems across the company and developed its internet strategy for more than 200 websites.

Reedy also worked for Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) and Amdahl Corporation in a variety of both technical and business management roles, including divisional finance director.

Since leaving eBay, she has served on a number of boards, assisting companies such as Salesforce.com, CafePress, and Hookit.

In 2015, she won a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Department of Computer Science.

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Felipe Arias, who will graduate in May with a BS in Computer Science, was honored with the  C.S. Larson Transfer Student Award.

The award, established in 2010, was created in honor of Carl S. Larson, a long-time professor who was also an assistant dean and an Illinois alumnus.

Arias came to the United States at age 12 from Bolivia without knowing English and has thrived as a student, earning a spot on the Dean’s List and acceptance into the University of Illinois’ computer science Ph.D. program. He transferred to Illinois CS from the College of DuPage.

Arias has had a number of research opportunities:

• Serving as a research assistant for Professor David Culler at the University of California-Berkeley’s AMP (Algorithms. Machine. People) Lab, which is creating Big Data analytics platforms.
• Working as a researcher for Richard Sowers, a professor of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, at the Illinois Geometry Lab. Arias developed a graphical model that uses existing video object-detection systems to understand the context and risk associated with the urban environment surrounding roadways.
• Serving as a research fellow in Stanford University Computer Science Professor Christopher Ré's group, where Arias develops applications for Snorkel, a system for fast training-data creation.

Arias was inducted into Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society, has participated in groups such as the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, and has earned a number of scholarships.