Students, Faculty Return to Fall Classes with New Experiences from Summer Break 

As Georgia Tech buzzes to life for the start of another academic year, a common question asked across campus is, “What did you do over summer break?”  

We asked researchers in the School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) the same question. Many used the break to travel for research, internships, vacation, and service. Some also found time to visit loved ones back home.  

We interviewed three faculty and students to learn more about what people in the School of CSE do when classes are out of session.  

Image

Ph.D. student Ziyi (Francis) Yin worked at an internship to sustain research in exploration seismology. One potential application of this work is toward mitigating climate change.  

Yin spent his summer in Houston interning with Chevron, where he improved upon his research in geophysical imaging. He worked with the company to test a prototype workflow for use in monitoring underground carbon storage sites.  

“I established an accelerated and robust workflow for seismically monitoring geological carbon storage,” Yin explained. “This will help engineers mitigate risk, deepen understanding of subsurface geology, and promote more effective management of storage reservoirs.”  

School of CSE Professor and Associate Chair Edmond Chow expanded his teaching activities to the broader computing community during the summer.  

Image

Chow organized and taught a week-long course at Fort Valley State University (FVSU), one of Georgia’s historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU). Tech’s HBCU and Minority Serving Institutions Research Collaborative Initiative co-sponsored Chow’s course.   

Ph.D. student Shikhar Shah joined Chow in teaching Demystifying Machine Learning at FVSU. The duo employed resources from the South Big Data Innovation Hub to help develop new hands-on learning materials for the students.  

“It was very rewarding to get to know the FVSU students,” Chow said. “Their enthusiasm for learning new concepts made it really fun to work with them.”    

Ph.D. student Gaurav Verma took a break from the heat this summer, heading for the cooler climate in Montreal. There, he worked as an intern at Microsoft Research in the Fairness, Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics in Artificial Intelligence (FATE) group.   

While at FATE, Verma researched conversational search engines powered by large language models, like Bing Chat.     

The internship was a natural fit for Verma, who studies artificial intelligence (AI) models. He applies research toward robust AI approaches to improve human-AI interactions, focusing on ensuring safety, equity, and well-being.    

“It was a particularly rewarding experience. Not only did I develop an understanding of how these search systems operate, but I also learned about the broader impacts of users’ interactions with conversational search systems,” Verma said. 

Image

“Of course, being around some of the smartest people – who are also fun to work with – in one of the best cities in North America, made the whole experience even more wonderful.”  

Along with the rewarding experience attained at Microsoft Research, Verma was selected this summer as a J.P. Morgan AI Research Fellow. He joins a cohort of 12 other scholars from around the world in the fellowship.