Jessie Finocchiaro named 2017 Honor Walk Recipient

This past Friday marked the 132nd Founders Day Convocation and recognized numerous awards won by alumni, faculty and students.

The prestigious Honor Walk award was one of those given. This award is given to an outstanding senior who exemplifies Florida Southern’s ideals of academic excellence and character.

Jessie Finocchiaro, class of 2017, is a double major in mathematics and computer science. She was chosen out of 31 finalists.

“It was very surreal, I definitely was not expecting to get honor walk,” Finocchiaro said. “My parents surprised me at convo and they were so excited for me. It was a very fun weekend.”

Finocchiaro is from Tarpon Springs, Fla., and is the younger sister to alumnus Stephen Finocchiaro ‘15, who studied religion.

“It was an absolute honor to be nominated next to Jessie,” senior Elise Pullen said. “Ever since I knew her freshman year she was always a hard-working and driven individual. Jessie is very deserving of this award.”

Throughout her four years, Finocchiaro was heavily involved around campus while maintaining her perfect grade point average and her president’s scholarship.

She has been president of multiple clubs such as Order of Omega, an honor society for sororities and fraternities, Women’s Bible Study, the Florida Southern Math Club and Alpha Chi Omega sorority.

Finocchiaro has also been involved with Omicron Delta Kappa, a national leadership honor society for the top juniors and seniors of a college/university, the mathematics honor society Kappa Mu Epsilon, a member of the Computer Club and acted as the Head Resident Advisor.

Her research projects in computer vision led to her being selected for undergraduate research that was sponsored by the National Science Foundation. She also has had numerous presentations across the nation.

She plans on attending the University of Colorado-Boulder to pursue at Ph.D. in computer science.

“Ultimately I want to become a professor,” Finocchiaro said.