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Getting Involved in Undergraduate Research
Katherine Sittig-Boyd Data Analyst
Former DREU and CREU participant
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• 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?
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TOPICS
• Past research experience and how I got involved
• How to seek out undergraduate research opportunities
• Beyond undergrad: research in the real world
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PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
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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!
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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
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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!
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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.
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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
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WHY PARTICIPATE IN UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH?
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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
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INDUSTRY/DEVELOPMENT JOBS
• Creative, flexible approach to unsolved problems
• Data analysis skills, new programming techniques
• Comfort with uncertainty
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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
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HOW DO I GET INVOLVED?
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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!
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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
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cra-w.org/DREU
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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
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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
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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!