Dr. Ruwen Qin's Ph.D. Students Mentor High School Students through the 2021 CSIRE Program

 

For summer 2021, the Department of Biomedical Informatics and Department of Computer Science at Stony Brook University jointly continued a program called the Computer Science and Informatics Summer Research Experience Program 2021 (CSIRE 2021). The aim of this program is to provide opportunities for high school students to participate in research and motivate the students to pursue a career in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Each high school student works with a Ph.D. student or a faculty member on a research project for a period of 6 weeks during the summer. Due to the ongoing pandemic, this year CSIRE was virtual.

Because Dr. Qin's primary research is in large data collection, her research group including Muhammad Monjurul Karim and Yu Li were able to participate in this program representing the Department of Civil Engineering. Both Ph.D. students each mentored a high school student. One student developed a computer vision based deep learning model for smart traffic control systems and safety systems. He integrated multiple deep networks for multi-object tracker, and accident and violence detection in the road using road traffic cameras. The other student developed a machine learning model to classify alcohol taking using Electroencephalogram (EEG). She achieved promising results using her developed model for EEG abnormality classification. 

To demonstrate the high school students' knowledge and growth in their respective research areas, they each developed posters and presented their work to an audience of other CSIRE participants.

Monjurul and Yu independently developed project syllabi for the students, met them twice per week and advised them on research and reporting. They not only helped the high school students, but also strengthened their mentorship skills, helping them to prepare for their future careers.

"I'm glad that our Ph.D. students had an opportunity to mentor high school students on summer research. Through CSIRE, my students practiced their professional skills, one being mentoring, which will help them in the future." - Dr. Qin

Thank you notes from the high school students:

“I wanted to thank you for working with me during this summer and I learned a lot and accomplished a lot more than I expected going into the program”-- RP

“I wanted to reach out and thank you both for all the support and help you offered during the CSIRE program. I really appreciate all of your time and dedication, I genuinely learned so much. The entire experience of working on a research project under Ms, Yu's guidance was incredibly valuable, and I cannot thank you both enough!” -- AP