My name is Christine Jones. I am a third-year Management Information Systems major at RIT, Saunders College of Business. I am part of the Phi Class of Delta Sigma Pi - Epsilon Lambda Chapter.
At the beginning of the summer, I went to a week-long computing conference in Washington, D.C. that was hosted by the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC). During this conference, all of the participants were able to improve their data analysis skills and visualization techniques. We got to choose a topic that interested us, find/manipulate datasets related to that topic, and share our findings and what they mean.
Two weeks later, I got to begin my first co-op as an undergraduate researcher with TACC in Austin, TX. I was placed in a group that focused on machine learning and computational medicine. The conference I'd attended prior to this gave me an introduction to the work I'd be doing for the majority of the summer. During my co-op, I looked at maternal-infant datasets and created predictive models. The models we made were mainly used to show the determining factors for a baby being admitted into the NICU or being stillborn, and to show the likelihood of either occurrence.
I had a great time learning foundational skills for data analysis and machine learning. The experience definitely helped me gain confidence in my programming and interpretation skills. I'm currently taking Business Intelligence in Saunders and I feel like the class and this co-op really go hand in hand. From each one, I've learned things that can be applied to the other.
