Brown CS Blog

Undergraduates Share Unique Projects At Their Second Research Symposium

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    Brown CS undergraduates recently showcased their hard work at the second annual research symposium. A panel of judges viewed their research projects, and the top three were awarded prizes. “This symposium is extraordinary,” said one of the judges, Professor Sorin Istrail. “We are surrounded by a very unique group of students here. They have shown an amazing amount of growth and passion.”

    The research projects spanned a wide variety of interesting topics. Sam Kortchmar is a singer, but has trouble reading music. He created a solution to this problem by finding a way to learn music through visualization where you can essentially “fly through” the song in virtual reality. “Researching as an undergraduate is a great way to build relationships with professors,” says Sam. “They can become great role models.” Another one of the undergrads, Advik Iyer Guha, says, “It is one of the best ways to truly find out if you are passionate enough about a problem or if you want to do a PhD.” His research project focused on finding ways to improve human-robot collaboration with object placement.

    The three winning projects included Julia Romanski’s process for improving large-scale evacuations during natural disasters, Daniel Seidman’s method for time efficient determination of identical by descent tracts between unphased genotypes, and Emily Wu’s social feedback for robotic collaboration. “This was definitely the most fun and challenging thing I have done at Brown,” said Emily. “It gave me a great taste of self-directed study.”

    For more information, click the link that follows to contact Brown CS Communications Outreach Specialist Jesse C. Polhemus