Eight computer science majors are among two dozen undergraduates in the 2021 Vanderbilt Data Science Institute summer research program.
The undergraduate fellows will engage in 10 weeks of research with their faculty mentor and enhance their data science skills through online workshops led by the data science team with a goal of becoming articulate leaders through weekly demonstrations.
The 2021 fellows from the School of Engineering will work on projects across a wide range of disciplines. A few examples: Katharine Cella, a rising senior majoring in computer science and physics double, is pursuing research in gravitational-wave astrophysics; and Rohit Khurana, a rising junior in computer science and molecular and cellular biology, is researching the expression profiles and spatial arrangement of brain tumor cells; and Zheyu Zhu, a rising senior in computer science and math, is applying deep learning skills in medical imaging processing.
Other DSI summer fellows from the School of Engineering:
- Andrew Gothard, a rising junior in computer science and math;
- Jiaxin He, a rising junior in computer science and math;
- Hangling Liu, a rising junior in computer science and economics;
- Benjamin Van Sleen, a rising junior in computer science and economics; and
- Qianhui Zheng, a rising junior in computer science and biochemistry.
New this summer is the addition of four partner sponsors from across campus to support a number of fellows. These partnerships allow students to work in labs affiliated with their sponsor on projects using data science techniques while simultaneously taking advantage of workshops, demo sessions and curated feedback from the DSI team.
The partner sponsors are as follows:
- Vanderbilt Microbiome Initiative
- Evolutionary Studies Initiative at Vanderbilt
- Vanderbilt Brain Institute
- Frist Center for Autism and Innovation
This is the third year of DSI’s undergraduate summer research program. The program engages students who are interested in carrying out data science-related research with a Vanderbilt faculty member and integrates them into the institute’s community of data science scholars.