This summer, CS sophomore Leah Kazenmayer completed a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program at the University of Central Florida.
Leah shared her experience with the CS Department:
“This summer, I participated in the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program for the University of Central Florida (UCF). This program incorporated Internet of Things (IoT) devices, the programming language Python, and machine/deep learning. Specifically for the project I worked on with my partner Gabriela Ford, we were given datasets from the Automated Traffic Signal Performance Measures (ATSPM) database that detailed events that occurred on roadways in Seminole County, Florida, such as vehicle volume at intersections, timestamps of traffic light changes, timestamps of pedestrian sign flashes, and so forth. We particularly focused on obtaining hourly vehicle volume within a specific corridor in Seminole County, and utilized machine/deep learning to predict the next hour based on the previous 6 hours of traffic volume.
This 8-week REU was an invaluable experience where I met new people, networked with faculty members and graduate students, and was exposed to the everyday routine of graduate school. It taught me more about Python and machine/deep learning, subjects I was completely inexperienced with; after those 8 work-intensive weeks, I can now say that I have an abundance of knowledge in both fields.
I will take all of this knowledge I have gained from this experience and use it as a resource for all future endeavors related to the computer science field, whether it be in academia or in the industry.”
Leah has also received a scholarship to attend the virtual Grace Hopper Celebration, which begins next week.
Congratulations again to Leah and thank you for sharing your summer REU experience at UCF!