CCI Students To Participate in New Eight-Week University Research Program
CHARLOTTE, NC – June 7, 2012 – Five undergrad students from the College of Computing and Informatics, are among 50 chosen campus wide to participate in the inaugural Charlotte Research Scholars (CRS) program. Participating students will have the opportunity to work on new and original research projects, in order to gain exposure to cutting-edge research topics in their discipline.
Guided by a faculty mentor, the scholars will work on projects ranging from automated video analysis to statistical modeling of gene duplication. “Doing research is a skill, and can be further developed by participation and mentoring,” says Dr. Srinivas Akella, Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science. “By exposing our undergraduates to the fun of doing research, we enhance our ability to recruit trained, top-notch students for our graduate programs. Undergraduate students often do amazing things because they don't know what cannot be done!”
In addition to research activities, scholars will participate in weekly professional development training in order to build skills critical to professional success. Sessions such as responsible conduct of research, developing a competitive research fellowship application, preparing an academic resume, professional communication tools, and an introduction to the graduate school application process, which includes tips and techniques for taking the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) have been scheduled. The program concludes July 25 at 9:00 am with a Research Symposia in the Student Union, where the scholars will present their research results. Each scholar will receive a $4,000 stipend.
Dr. Dennis Livesay, Associate Professor and Director of the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Ph.D. program, will serve as the Coordinator of the CRS program.
Those participating, or mentoring, from CCI:
Maybellin Burgos, Computer Science
Mentor: Jaime Payton, Computer Science
Project: Improving Data Contributions to Participatory Sensing Applications
Matthew Campbell, Software and Information Systems
Mentor: Srinivas Akella, Computer Science
Project: Optical Pattern Generation for Digital Microfluidic Devices
Anish Patel, Computer Science
Mentor: Min Shin, Computer Science
Project: Cell Tracking in Three Dimensions
John Thompson, Computer Science
Mentor: Richard Souvenir, Computer Science
Project: Evaluation of Data Annotation Approaches in Automated Video Analysis
John West, Computer Science
Mentor: Aidong Lu, Computer Science
Project: Concept Visualization
Tomas Galloway, Systems Engineering
Mentor: Shannon Schlueter, Bioinformatics and Genomics
Project: Exploring Neural Network Architecture and Training in Accelerated Computing Environments
Irma Stevens, Mathematics
Mentor: Jessica Schlueter, Bioinformatics and Genomics
Project: Statistical Modeling of Gene Duplication
About The College of Computing and Informatics
The College of Computing and Informatics provides academic programs in computer science, software and information systems, information technology, and bioinformatics. It is also the home to leading research centers and institutes, including the Cyber Defense and Network Assurability (CyberDNA) Center, the Bioinformatics Research Center, the Charlotte Visualization Center, the Complex Systems Institute, and the Diversity in Information Technology Institute. Active research awards currently total $35 Million. cci.uncc.edu
About the University of North Carolina at Charlotte
UNC Charlotte is North Carolina’s urban research university. It is the fourth largest campus among the 17 institutions of the University of North Carolina system and the largest institution of higher education in the Charlotte region. Fall 2011 enrollment exceeded 25,300 students, including 5,000 graduate students. Find UNC Charlotte on the Web at UNC Charlotte on the Web, Twitter, Facebook and follow the UNC CLT_News blog at unccltnews.blogspot.com.
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Media Contact:
Clark G. Curtis, 704-687-7983, clarkcurtis@uncc.edu
