Georgetown Computer Science Team Named DC State Champion at 2025 ICPC Mid-Atlantic Regional Contest

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A Georgetown University student team was recently named the DC state champion at the 2025 ICPC North America Mid-Atlantic Regional Contest, marking the university’s return to the International Collegiate Programming Contest after several years of inactivity. The annual contest—considered the most prestigious college-level programming competition—brings students together to work collaboratively under pressure to solve algorithmically-challenging problems.

This year’s Georgetown team—first-year student Victor Wang and master’s students Zejun Xu and Yiding Zhu—was coached by Professor Jeremy Fineman and PhD student Karthik Gajulapalli. 

For Gajulapalli, helping revive Georgetown’s ICPC involvement was as much about community as competition. “I took part in this competition as an undergrad and found that it was one of the best ways to meet some of the most interesting students in the CS department,” he said. “As an added bonus, it helps you practice your problem solving skills which turns out to be very useful in even non-CS facets of life.”

To rebuild that sense of community, the coaches hosted a kickoff event this fall, followed by weekly two-hour practice sessions. Students worked through problem sets of varying difficulty, discussing approaches together before walking through solutions and implementations.

Xu shared that the experience helped strengthen both theoretical and practical problem-solving: “By reviewing and attempting to solve a large number of contest problems, I effectively consolidated the core knowledge from my algorithms coursework. This experience not only systematically reviewed my theoretical foundations but also significantly enhanced my practical LeetCode skills, laying a solid groundwork for facing future programming challenges.”

Gajulapalli hopes this year’s renewed participation restarts a tradition that continues for many years to come, with students taking the lead in shaping a vibrant, problem-solving CS community. “While not only giving a wonderful opportunity to interact with the CS community at Georgetown, it also turns out to be extremely beneficial later on when applying for jobs,” he added. 

Congratulations to the team!