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Being a curious high school student, Siddharth was part of the Robotics Team at Gunn High School, which compelled him to study Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UC Berkeley. However, after getting introduced to Natural Language Processing, and being an avid reader, Sidd realized that he wanted to pursue both his interests – Computer Science and Literature together,… Continue reading A Perfect Balance of Two Distinct Passions

Computing has been a part of Kalina Petrova’s life since she first took part in a 5th grade extra-curricular programming class. Fascinated by the process of solving computational problems, Kalina had immersed herself in research by the time she reached high school, presenting research projects at national conferences around her home country of Bulgaria. She… Continue reading Programming and Paradigms, a Lifelong Pursuit of Research

In academia, research often leads individuals to conferences. For Nathaniel Yazdani, it was a conference that led him to research. In the summer before transferring to the University of Washington from a local community college, Nathaniel had just learned his first functional programming language. Curious as to why someone would design “such a strange language,”… Continue reading From Internet Searches to International Conferences

The field of medicine prides itself on being evidence-based, but where does that evidence come from? With aspirations for a career in medicine, this was one of the questions that fascinated Vinyas Harish, which would eventually lead him on a path from the engineering lab to the operating room. Although Vinyas’s research career began as… Continue reading Engineering Labs and Operating Rooms

Planning for the summer after his sophomore year, Louis Jenkins had focused his efforts on securing an industry internship. However, in what he describes as “sheer coincidence,” Louis was forwarded a departmental email that would alter not only his summer plans, but his overall career trajectory. The email highlighted the NSF summer Research Experience for… Continue reading Coincidence, Concurrence, and Careers

Originally a pre-med student at Loyola University, Laurynas Kalesinskas had envisioned his undergraduate degree as a stepping-stone to attend medical school. An interest in research and a passion to create change in healthcare led him to computational research. Fascinated by the projects he worked on, Laurynas shifted his focus. Graduating with a Bioinformatics and Biology… Continue reading From Pre-med to Ph.D. in Biomedical Informatics

Yisu Remy Wang was sophomore at Tufts University when he enrolled in Professor Kathleen Fisher’s programming languages course.  In that course, Professor Fisher exposed students to some areas of current research which sparked Yisu’s interest and curiosity.  Yisu spoke with Professor Fisher and she agreed to act as his research advisor.  This was the beginning… Continue reading Proofs, Privacy, and Programming

June Chen’s passion for learning was abundantly evident when she arrived as an undergraduate at Rice University. She pursued a triple major in electrical engineering (BSEE), mathematics (BA), and medieval and early modern studies (BA), and she sought additional opportunities to learn outside of her coursework. June realized that working on open-ended research problems was… Continue reading Texas to Tokyo: A Path to Graduate School

Alex Ozdemir is intensely curious about understanding how things work.  Perhaps this curiosity is what drove him to pursue a self-designed major in “Computational, Mathematical, and Physical Theory” at Harvey Mudd College.  After completing two summer internships in industry, Alex decided to try research.  He began seeking research opportunities around campus. He remembered enjoying the… Continue reading A Drive to Understand