Press & Recognition

A selection of features, interviews, and awards from across the research, design, and technology press.

Award2026

Early Career Impact Award

ECE created the Early Career Impact Award to recognize young alumni who have emerged as early leaders in their respective professional or civic endeavors. Alumni who receive this award have shown themselves to be great role models and innovators, while contributing significantly to their industry, specialization, or community.

Virginia Tech ECERead the feature →

Interview2025

Wants To Be The Champion For The Underdog As AI Advances

An interview on the next decade in AI, teaching at NYU Tandon, and a personal call to action for technologists who care about the margins.

AfroTechRead the feature →

Documentary2024

Expert Guest: Building Stuff: Change It!

Featured engineer in the three-part documentary marking NOVA's 50th anniversary year, exploring how engineering amplifies natural human ability.

PBS NOVARead the feature →

Award2022

MIT Technology Review: Innovators Under 35

Recognized at 27 for the “Z” method, bringing hospital-grade stroke therapy into the home through semi-automated human-computer interaction.

MIT Technology ReviewRead the feature →

Feature2022

Youngest Ghanaian to receive a User Experience PhD

Awarded his PhD at 26 from Virginia Tech, building on years of HCI x ML Research inspired by his father's stroke recovery.

Virginia Tech · WDBJ7Read the feature →

Award2022

Computer Science PhD Researcher of the Year

Honored for the dissertation HCI for Complex Machine Learning, a framework for human-centric supervision of ML systems.

Virginia Tech

Fellowship2021

Dr. Richard E. Nance Graduate Fellowship

First-ever recipient of the fellowship, funding research for his doctoral dissertation.

Virginia Tech CSRead the feature →

Award2020

Outstanding Thesis of the Year Award in STEM

Zilevu received the William Preston Society Master's Thesis Award for original STEM research with the potential to benefit all people. A faculty committee selected his thesis, Interactive Interfaces for Capturing and Annotating Videos of Human Movement Performance, for its originality and impact.

Virginia Tech