Getting Involved in Undergraduate Research

Katherine Sittig-Boyd Data Analyst

Former DREU and CREU participant

•  Who am I?

Professional  database  wrangler  and  data  analyst  

Graduated  from  Simmons  College  in  May  2016  

Currently  living  in  Boston  

•  How I got involved in undergraduate research

My  mentor,  Nane@e  Veilleux  

WanDng  to  go  beyond  coursework  

 

WHO AM I?

TOPICS

 

•  Past research experience and how I got involved

•  How to seek out undergraduate research opportunities

•  Beyond undergrad: research in the real world

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

CREU EXPERIENCE 2013-14: Gesture Analysis Team: Sarah Elmore, Hillary Fundin, Laura Haenchen, Katherine Sittig-Boyd; Mentor: Nanette Veilleux

•  Human gestures are difficult to quantify and analyze

•  Implemented a gesture categorization system

•  Developed an experiment to identify which gesture categories are used in accordance with verbal communication tasks

Presented at Grace Hopper 2014 poster session!

CREU EXPERIENCE 2014-15: Conversational Context Team: Jillianna Farietta, Patcharaporn Israsena, Maria Romero, Katherine Sittig-Boyd; Mentor: Nanette Veilleux

•  Investigated pitch contours in verbal communication settings

•  Speech recognition, speech synthesis

•  67% of our prompts produced the intended result

CREU EXPERIENCE 2015-16: Clinical Narratives Team: Rebecca Haralson, Katherine Sittig-Boyd, Stephanie Worobey; Mentor: Amber Stubbs

•  Used real medical records for a text/data mining project

•  Investigated discrepancies in clinical narratives

For  instance,  only  67%  of  the  narraDves  menDon  that  the  paDent  in  quesDon  is  diabeDc  

•  Discrepancies between program-based predictions and actual gender; 24 records made no mention of gender

•  320 records did not mention age; 36 had age disagreements

Presented at 2016 Tapia Celebration!

DREU EXPERIENCE 2015 School: University of Southern California

Mentor: Maja Matarić

•  Got to combine language AND robotics

•  Created a speech detection node for the Robot Operating System (ROS) at the University of Southern California

•  Identified who was speaking in a multi-party interaction

Featured as a short paper at IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN '16).

Authors: Elaine Short, Katherine Sittig-Boyd and Maja J. Matarić.

CHALLENGES AND SUCCESSES

•  Data sets - gathering, designing, analyzing

Also  challenging:  Working  with  data  sets  that  weren’t  my  own!  

•  Translating real-world phenomena into computational ideas Speech,  gesture,  group  conversaDon  dynamics,  human  language  

•  Working with robotics, which was not available at my college •  Contributing to the quantification of gesture and speech

WHY PARTICIPATE IN UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH?

GRADUATE SCHOOL

•  Graduate programs love to see that you have research experience

•  “Trial run” before a longer commitment

•  Gain a sense of what YOU like to study

INDUSTRY/DEVELOPMENT JOBS

•  Creative, flexible approach to unsolved problems

•  Data analysis skills, new programming techniques

•  Comfort with uncertainty

PERSONAL REASONS

•  Getting to know professors beyond the classroom

•  Gauging interest in various research fields

•  Skill set building

•  Contributions to computer science - NOT problem sets!

•  Chance at conference attendance, publication

HOW DO I GET INVOLVED?

CREU - ASK YOUR PROFESSORS

•  Ask around: who is studying what?

•  Find peers who are also interested in the topic

Important:  interdisciplinary  projects  are  legiDmate!    

ComputaDonal  _________________  can  be  a  great  way  to  start  brainstorming  projects  

Deadlines: usually the spring. Check cra-w.org/creu for more details!

 

DREU - WHAT DO YOU WANT TO RESEARCH?

•  Are you particularly interested in genomics? High-performance computing? Population dynamics?

•  DREU is a great way to explore beyond your own undergraduate institution

•  Personal statement should focus on research interest

Applications are open and can be found at cra-w.org/dreu

For mentor and student applications

 

cra-w.org/DREU

BEYOND CRA-W

•  NSF-funded REUs

•  All over the U.S., HUGE variety in topics

•  I have also participated in an NSF REU

...and  ended  up  with  a  year-­‐long  paid  internship,  which  I  was  able  to  conDnue  remotely  while  in  college!  

Deadlines usually in February, March

https://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/reu_search.jsp

 

CONQUER – Computer Science Undergraduate Research

•  Conquer is an online resource provided by CRA-E for students and faculty interested or currently participating in undergraduate research.

– Resources – Research Opportunities – Exercises

Go to: conquer.cra.org Check out: cra.org/crae

Resources    

Visit  CRA-­‐W.org  for  more  resources  for  all  levels  of  your  career    Join  our  CRA-­‐W  mailing  list,  CRA-­‐W  Updates,  by  going  to  bit.ly/1McQCDd    Follow  @CRAWomen  to  find  out  about  upcoming  events  or  programs    Don’t  forget  to  take  the  feedback  survey!