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Kathryn Yurechko Named 2024 Omicron Delta Kappa National Leader of the Year - Academics and Research

by Jamie Bouldin

Lexington, VA (05/07/2024) — Kathryn (Katie) Yurechko of Havre de Grace, Maryland, has been named the 2024 Omicron Delta Kappa National Leader of the Year for Academics and Research. This award is one of the highest honors presented to an undergraduate member of the Society each year.

Yurechko is a 2023 initiate of the Alpha Circle at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. In May 2024, she will graduate with a 4.0 GPA, receiving a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Philosophy and a minor in Poverty and Human Capability Studies.

"I am thrilled to recognize Katie, who has demonstrated exceptional leadership as the National Leader of the Year for Academics and Research," Jennifer Waller, ODK president and CEO, said. "This award celebrates an individual achievement that impacts and influences across our world."

Yurechko was recently awarded the Marshall Scholarship and will attend the University of Oxford to pursue a Master of Science in Social Science of the Internet, followed by a Master of Science in Computer Science at University College London. She is the first student from Washington and Lee to be named a Marshall Scholar. She was also a finalist for the Rhodes Scholarship and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Sigma Tau, and Phi Eta Sigma.

"When I heard that I had been named ODK's National Leader of the Year in the Academics and Research pillar, I was overwhelmed with gratitude for my community of supporters and interdisciplinary educators at Washington and Lee," Yurechko said. "They have consistently encouraged me to apply my liberal arts skillset to research at the intersection of computer science and social justice, which has been both personally stimulating and societally meaningful."

As a summer research intern at Carnegie Mellon University, she researched "algospeak" in relation to content moderation and marginalized communities on TikTok. She participated in the Computer Science Research Mentorship Program at Google, and works with the University of Washington's Social Futures Lab, researching methods of addressing hate and harassment on social media platforms, piloting an interactive machine learning tool that offers ChatGPT assistance to support users in moderating their feeds.

"Katie's commitment to the issue of algorithmic injustice speaks to her investment in leveraging her academic background and research experience to come up with solutions for the benefit of all, which is one of the qualities that marks her out as such an exceptional leader," Matthew Loar, circle coordinator for the Washington and Lee Circle, said. "This recognition from ODK is a deserving honor, one that further underscores something that all of us at Washington and Lee already know: Katie Yurechko is a force, and the sky's the limit for her."

She has delivered nine presentations for venues including Google and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Web Conference, and co-authored two publications with citations from Vox, MSN, and other outlets.

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