Senior design experience leads grad to be named ‘rockstar’ engineer

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Photo of Rachelle Tobkes FIU SCIS Alumni

Rachelle Tobkes graduated from FIU in 2016 and through Senior Design, she was hired to work for Citrix, a multinational software company providing workspace and cloud computing technologies. She was voted Citrix’s 2019 Rockstar Engineer for her innovation, deliverables, and collaboration. She played a vital role in prototyping the company’s main product, Citrix Workspace, which is a technology that enhances employee productivity in organizations by having all apps and files in one single location. Tobkes is mentoring a current senior design group who’s working on a two-factor authentication app using facial recognition to verify a user’s identity.

In order to graduate from the College of Engineering & Computing, seniors design innovative projects to create practical solutions for industry problems through a course called Senior Design Project. For her project, Rachelle Tobkes, now a computer science alumna, developed a web application for listing and renting office spaces.

The idea for the app, called HyperDesk, came from a Miami-based digital and interactive agency. It was one of the suggested projects offered through the Senior Design course. Tobkes wanted to convert the idea into a reality.

Read more and watch a video about Rachelle’s experience at Citrix at FIU News.