Montverde Academy is proud to announce and congratulate Hans Hanley (Class of 2014) as he graduates from Princeton, high honor Summa Cum Laude, with his degree in electrical engineering with a concentration in information security and a minor in the applications of computing and robotics and intelligent systems. At Princeton’s Engineering Class Day, he received the James Hayes-Edgar Palmer Prize in Engineering and the Charles Ira Young Memorial Tablet and Medal. He also received the Shapiro Prize for Academic Excellence, the George B. Woods Legacy Sophomore Prize, and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi.
Princeton reports that Hans’ senior thesis with Prateek Mittal, an assistant professor of electrical engineering, demonstrated a method to improve security in Tor, a web browser designed to protect users’ anonymity. The work, according to Mittal is, “a seminal breakthrough in the field of anonymous communication.”
While at Princeton, Hans led the student chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers and served as a tutor and teaching assistant in the McGraw Center and the electrical engineering department. Earlier this year, he was named a finalist for the 2018 Hertz Fellowship in applied science, math and engineering. The prestigious Fellowship awards up to five years of academic fiscal support, valued at $250,000, and provides research freedom at a participating graduate institution in the United States.
Before heading to Worcester College in Oxford, England, as the recipient of the Daniel M. Sachs ’60 Scholarship, he will be working for Microsoft. He will then pursue graduate study at Stanford University in Stanford, California, with a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.
Hans’ parents believe that the four years of high school at MVA were highly beneficial. “Our son enjoyed working with computers, but it was a computer club at Montverde Academy that truly ignited his passion for computers, improved his math skills and helped hone his critical thinking capabilities that have propelled him to achieve all that he has,” said Dr. Alison Hanley, Hans’ father. “He has surpassed all that we could have wished for him and we credit the education he received at MVA as a critical key he used to unlock his potential and turn a hobby into a tremendously enriching and fulfilling aspect of his life and career. We feel blessed and privileged to have had our son educated there.”
The south Lake Community as well as the entire Montverde Academy community are proud of this brilliant young man as he continues his pursuit of excellence.
