CSE Students Prepare to Stand and Deliver at Undergraduate Research Conference

Apr 23, 2015
Jordan Yoshihara

The 28th Annual Undergraduate Research Conference takes places this Saturday, April 25. It will run from 8am to 4pm at the Faculty Club. Many of the CSE students set to speak at the conference were 2014-15 participants in the department's Early Research Scholars Program.

Among the CSE students set to present their research during the 2015 conference is Jordan Yoshihara (at right), who was nominated by CSE Prof. Mia Minnes. Yoshihara will talk about "Fostering Improved Learning in Math: A Case Study in an Elementary Classroom." Yoshihara did her undergraduate research project (CSE 199) in the winter quarter. She used the educational technology tool ALEKS to explore which technologies work, and which don't, in the elementary classroom of her case study. Her goal is to use the findings of her study in a future effort to develop new educational software.

One of the most popular panels for CSE undergraduates this year is "Computer Networks", with CSE Prof. Christine Alvarado and faculty-affiliate Kimberly Claffy nominating all of the speakers between them. Huayin Zhou and Luis Sanchez will talk about "Characterizing the Performance of Cloud Computing Services." Other two-person teams include Tiffany Allen and Aaron Hurtado as well as Andrew Jabasa and Kelsey Ma, with both teams presenting a two-part study on "Network Traffic Analysis." Their faculty advisors were Geoffrey Voelker and Stefan Savage.  Edgar Lopez-Garcia and Mingshan Wang team to talk about their joint research on the optical circuit switching-based "REACToR Network." 

Two individual student researchers will also present their research findings. They include Ilse Tse (advised by CSE Prof. Ryan Kastner), on "Making Structure from Motion More Efficient," and Jennifer Tran (at left), who was advised by CSE Prof. Steven Swanson while undertaking her project on "Automating the Process of Synthesizing Electronic Gadgets."

Evidence of the growing role that computer science plays in the development of health and medical innovations is evident in the number of CSE speakers participating in the Technology & Medicine panel (#18). CSE's Alvarado nominated three of the four teams that will be speaking on Saturday afternoon. Mayrani Abajian, Rachel Lee and Emma Roth have worked on "Research in Heart Rate Variability," while two other teams split the work on "Adapting the Top Trading Cycles Algorithm for Live Kidney Exchange": Rachel Kelrouz and Steven Stone for part one of the project, and Raina Ahuja with Asha Camper Singh for part two. The latter four students were advised by CSE Prof. Mohan Paturi.

Panel #19 (Space & Applied Computer Science) will include two solo presentations. Antonella Wilby worked on a "Stereo Camera Rig for Nautical Cyber-Archaeology," which grew out of her involvement with the Engineers for Exploration program (whose co-director, CSE Prof. Ryan Kastner, nominated Wilby to speak at the conference). Kastner also nominated Zachary Blair, who will talk about "Mapping Powerful Graphics Processing Algorithms to Low-Power Embedded Devices."

The Undergraduate Research Conference is presented by Academic Enrichment Programs, in association with the Office of Student Affairs and the Office of Research Affairs. The goal of the conference is to recognize the excellent undergraduate research at UCSD, encourage students to pursue post-graduate degrees or careers in research, and to provide a supportive environment in which students may share their research with one another as well as with faculty.

Read the complete program for the  2015 Undergraduate Research Conference.