{"id":58126,"date":"2012-04-10T08:09:29","date_gmt":"2012-04-10T12:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=58126"},"modified":"2023-06-27T13:14:18","modified_gmt":"2023-06-27T17:14:18","slug":"class-of-2012-alexander-velazquez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2012\/04\/class-of-2012-alexander-velazquez\/","title":{"rendered":"Class of 2012: Alexander Vel\u00e1zquez"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the University counts down to Commencement, UConn Today is featuring some of this year’s outstanding graduating students, nominated by their academic school or college or another University program in which they participated. For additional profiles of students in the Class of 2012, click here<\/a>.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Alexander<\/a>
Alexander Vel\u00e1zquez ’12 (CLAS), ’12 (ENG). (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Alexander Vel\u00e1zquez\u2019s passion for engineering first manifested itself when he was only 5 years old. \u201cI told my parents I wanted to be an inventor,\u201d he says. \u201cI’ve always been very technically-inclined.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vel\u00e1zquez, who is graduating in May from UConn\u2019s EuroTech program with a dual degree in computer science and engineering and German studies and a minor in mathematics, is fulfilling that childhood dream at an international level. During a four-month internship in Stuttgart, Germany in summer 2011, Vel\u00e1zquez contributed new code to the driving simulator, extending the traffic module that generates computer-controlled cars. His code incorporates pedestrian traffic into a virtual driving environment and helps emulate a real-life driving experience to further research in driver assistance systems. He developed this code at the High Performance Computing Center in Stuttgart, and it was also installed at Porsche AG.<\/p>\n

Vel\u00e1zquez is the winner of the Department of Career Services\u2019 Intern of the Year Award given to outstanding interns. Friedemann Weidauer, associate professor of German in the Department of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, nominated Alex for the award. \u201cIt is truly unique for students at this stage to be able to integrate their professional knowledge and skills with work that benefits their community, and Alexander has successfully done so more than once,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

A graduate of Hamden High School, Vel\u00e1zquez entered UConn as an honors student and a recipient of the Leadership Scholarship. He knew that UConn was a good option to pursue his undergraduate career in engineering. \u201cAs I got older, I became really interested in computers,\u201d says Vel\u00e1zquez, \u201cand when the time came for me to begin my college search, I was looking for good computer science engineering programs and UConn was very high on this list.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vel\u00e1zquez has also been active in community outreach, as a member of the Boy Scouts of America for the past 15 years and an apprentice, designer, and summer camp counselor at the Eli Whitney Museum in Hamden, Conn. since 2001. \u201cThat experience definitely fostered my creative and technical sides\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Vel\u00e1zquez belongs to the Upsilon Pi Epsilon and Tau Beta Pi honor societies and was an active member of UConn\u2019s Ultimate Frisbee Team before leaving for Germany. He has maintained a 3.9 GPA and has made the Dean\u2019s List every semester since coming to UConn.<\/p>\n

He is currently going through the interview process with potential employers, and hopes to begin working in software engineering by mid-summer. He has narrowed his choices down to Inncom in Niantic, Conn., Savant Systems in Cape Cod, Mass., or ITT Exelis in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

As he prepares to move on to the next stage of his career, Vel\u00e1zquez is glad he made the decision to come to UConn. \u201cI think I made the perfect choice. I love the sense of community here,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s never let me down.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alexander Vel\u00e1zquez is graduating with a dual degree in computer science and engineering and German studies. During an internship in Stuttgart, he contributed new code to a driving simulator.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":58140,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[117],"class_list":["post-58126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-29 10:21:43","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58126"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87181,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58126\/revisions\/87181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/58140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58126"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=58126"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=58126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}