Past Student Research

Many students are involved in research work at ÌÒñ«ÉçÇø beyond the scope of usual coursework, through summer research projects, research assistance to faculty, independent studies, honors projects and more.

Past students have completed research projects in mathematics as well as computer science, investigating areas such as graph theory, sports analytics, virtual reality, machine learning, and bioinformatics (in conjunction with in genomics).

Past Student Research Projects

2018-19

Name Project Area: Topic, specific type or product Faculty Mentor
Megan Goodling '19 Artificial Intelligence: On the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence; Independent Study R. Ramanujan, D. Layman (Philosophy)
Team of around 70 students Cats Stats sports analytics: for ÌÒñ«ÉçÇø teams in men’s and women’s basketball, volleyball, swimming, football, women’s soccer and baseball. T. Chartier
Jacob D'Aurizio '19 Combinatorics: Explorations in lattice path enumeration; sponsored by FS&R grant  Y. Zhuang
Crossan Cooper '20, Will Jones '19 Combinatorics: Gamma-positivity in permutation enumeration; Independent Study; paper submitted. Y. Zhuang
Zach Nussbaum '19 Computer Systems and Networking: Byzantine Agreement; Independent Study.  H. Mendes
Blake Skelton '20 Computer Systems and Networking: Disaster Relief and Gap-Less Surveillance Using Drone Swarms, Kemp Scholars Program. H. Mendes
Mutian Chen '19 Computer Systems and Networking: Native Code Sandboxing on Web Browsers; Independent Study.  H. Mendes
John Dale '20, Mutian Chen '19 Computer Systems and Networking: Network Data Analysis. Partnership with the Hub.  H. Mendes
Harry Zhou '19, Matt Days '19 Computer Systems and Networking: Simulation of Distributed Systems. Independent Study.  H. Mendes
Sam Thomas '20 Computer Systems and Networking: Stacking Data Structures for Increased NUMA Locality, FS&R grant.  H. Mendes
Matthew LeBar '19 Computer Systems and Networking: The relationship Voting Theory and Distributed Computing; Independent Study.  H. Mendes
Aidan O'Neill '20 Computer Systems and Networking: Using remote memory in RDMA systems as if they were local; DRI fellowship.  H. Mendes
Altan Tutar '20 Computer Systems and Networking: Using Transactional Memory in Skip Graphs. Independent Study & Alvarez Fund.  H. Mendes
Team of 3 students Data Analytics and Statistical Modeling: of migraine headache data, in a collaboration sponsored through The Hurt Hub@ÌÒñ«ÉçÇø L. Heyer
Kenneth Martin '19 Data Analytics: Scalable Ranking Algorithms for big data; Independent Study T. Chartier
Savannah William '19 Graph Theory: Zero Forcing Polynomials: Mapping Spiders to Paths; Honors Thesis H. Smith, D. Molinek
Ryan Strauss '20 Machine Learning: classify experimental products in the AT-TPC experiment at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University; Independent Study R. Ramanujan, M. Kuchera (Physics)
Ryan Strauss '20 Machine Learning: Creating a universal Monte Carlo event generator for inelastic particle scattering experiments in nuclear physics at the Jefferson Lab, VA; Independent Study R. Ramanujan, M. Kuchera (Physics)
Andrew Hoyle '21, Jose Cruz, CPCC Machine Learning: for data formatting and analysis for the Hall B drift chamber; DRI and FS&R R. Ramanujan, M. Kuchera (Physics)
Evan Pritchard '22, Michael Robertson '20 Machine Learning: for event simulation for the electron-ion collider, supported by Jefferson Lab, VA R. Ramanujan, M. Kuchera (Physics)
Sarah Eisenach '19 Machine Learning: predict pharmacological properties of compounds from their structural descriptions; Independent Study R. Ramanujan, E. Stevens (Chemistry)
Ryan Strauss '20 Machine Learning: redirected walking in virtual environments; DRI R. Ramanujan, T. Peck
John Blue '21, Dulce Jarquin Pacheco, J.C. Smith U. Machine Learning: track reconstruction for the Mg-22 experiment in the AT-TPC at Michigan State University; DRI R. Ramanujan, M. Kuchera (Physics)
Abby Santiago '22, Ben Santiago '22 Machine Learning: understanding the success of AlphaZero and deep reinforcement learning in Chess; RISE Fellows R. Ramanujan
Meg Houck '20, Eleni Tsitinidi '21 Machine Learning: using a mixture density network to interface between experimental observables and QCD theory, supported by Jefferson Lab, VA R. Ramanujan, M. Kuchera (Physics)
Michael Robertson '20 Numerical Linear Algebra: On the non-symmetric tridiagonal polynomial eigenvalue problem. T. Cameron
Lawrence Guo ’20 Probability & Graph Theory: properties of sinks in random Greatest Increase Grid (GIG) digraphs; DRI followup L. Heyer
Huseyin Altisinik ’20 Project PRONTO Software: making improvements to the Faculty Workload Tracker L. Heyer
Savannah William '19 Real Analysis: Integration and Function Spaces; Independent Study R. Neidinger
Aidan O'Neill '20 Scientific Computation: On a compensated polishing technique for polynomial root solvers; submitted to SIAM J. Sci. Comput.  T. Cameron
Max Li '20 Sports Analytics: analysis of the hot hand phenomenon; DRI T. Chartier
George Baldini '19 Sports Analytics: Big Data in Sports, highlighted in ESPN Magazine article;  Independent Study T. Chartier
Team of 4 students Sports Analytics: for CBS during March Madness, supply game-time analytics to John Tobias. T. Chartier
Team of 3 students Sports Analytics: for Fox Sports. supplying game-time analytics to John Tobias during women’s World Cup. T. Chartier
Team of 3 students Sports Analytics: for the United States Olympic Committee, scraping data for their analytics team. T. Chartier
Michael Freeman  '20 Sports Analytics: rankability questions and predictive analytics for the Major League Baseball playoffs. T. Chartier
Haley Seligmann ’20 Synthetic Biology: analysis, 3D print design, and research comparisons for the interdisciplinary team L. Heyer
Team of 5 students Virtual Reality: DRIVE Lab (ÌÒñ«ÉçÇø research in immersive virtual environments) T. Peck
Niall Williams ’19 Virtual Reality: Estimation and Comparison of Rotation Gain Thresholds for Redirected Walking; Honors Thesis; version published by IEEE TVCG T. Peck
Katherina Seitz '20, Evan Blanpied '20 Virtual Reality: Investigating human behavior in VR T. Peck, J. Good (Psychology)
Altan Tutar '20 Virtual Reality: Investigating the impact of virtual and real hand placement in VR; Independent Study; Best Poster Award, IEEE Virtual Reality 2019, Osaka, Japan  T. Peck
Sarah Hancock '21 Virtual Reality: Investigating the participant demographics in VR experiments T. Peck, L. Sockol (Psychology)
Kern Qi '21, Niall Williams '19 Virtual Reality: Investigating the use of haptic devices to teach pre-service elementary educators physics concepts; NSF funded with NC State and UNC Chapel Hill  T. Peck
Team of 3 students Web App Development: Client, staff and student portals for the Gig-Hub micro-internship program at the Hurt Hub L. Heyer

Return to Top

2017-18

Student(s) Project Area: Topic Faculty Mentor
O'Neill, Aidan '20 Numerical Linear Algebra:  On error free transformations and applications to polynomial equations; MathFest 2018 presentation Cameron
Robertson, Michael '20 Numerical Linear Algebra:  Finding a needle in C; On initial estimates for the polynomial eigenvalue problem; MathFest 2018 presentation Cameron
Brosius, Tyler '20 Sports Analytics:  Research on rankability of data; DRI summer fellowship Chartier
Craig, Tucker '20

Cat Lori '21
Data Analytics:  Summer research in conjunction with Tresata Chartier
Keatley, Perry '18 Sports Analytics:  Basketball Analytics via Spatial Data; Independent Study Chartier
Stanek, Mitchell '21 Sports Analytics:  Online article "Majorly Expecting Luck in Baseball" with Chartier and Scott Teal, Senior Data Analyst for Tableau. Chartier
Team of 6 students Sports Biometrics: Working on impact data gathered from biometric devices placed in mouth guard; subcontract Chartier
Team of around 70 students Cats Stats sports analytics: Worked with coaches in men's and women's basketball, football, baseball and women's soccer; worked on projects for teams in the NBA and Minor League baseball, and national media outlets such as ESPN. Chartier
Wang, Matt '20 Sports Analytics: Development of scalable basketball analytics tool for NCAA; Championship Analytics subcontract Chartier
Guo, Lawrence '20 Probability Theory:  Properties of sinks in random Greatest Increase Grid (GIG) digraphs (implications for optimization algorithms); DRI summer fellowship  Heyer
Team of 5 students  Project PRONTO software:  Developed two web applications: Cat Select assigns projects to maximize satisfaction based on preferences from all participants; Cats REACT allows faculty to gather quick anonymous feedback from their classes. Heyer
Edman, Elise '20 Synthetic Biology: Built three web tools to help synthetic biologists optimize various processes, as part of the interdisciplinary team. Heyer

Campbell, M.
Maghini, Dylan '18 Bioinformatics: A Bioinformatics Pipeline for Analyzing MinION Sequencing of a Diverse Sequence Space; Interdisciplinary Major Thesis Heyer

Campbell, M.
Nussbaum, Zack '20

Dale, John '20
Computer Networking:  Distributed consensus algorithms that can be applied to blockchain technology, tolerating arbitrary failures of up to a third of the participating agents, and can be "federated Mendes
Thomas, Sam '20 Computer Networking:  High-performance multiprocessor programming, specifically focusing on priority queues and maps that respond well to the increase of the number of cores Mendes
Tenpas, Nathan '19 Real Analysis: Integration and Function Spaces; Independent Study Neidinger
Williams, Niall '19 Virtual Reality: Perception thresholds on  a real-walking virtual environment Peck
Blanpied, Evan '20 Virtual Reality & Psychology:  Experiment investigating human behavior and interaction with avatars in fully-immersive virtual environments Peck

Good
Team of 4 students Virtual Reality & Psychology:  virtual reality as a tool to mitigate stereotype threat for minorities in STEM fields. Peck

Good
Shook, Erica '18 Machine Learning:  Deep learning techniques to build models of the human auditory cortex, with robustness testing of these models Ramanujan
Wu, Andrew '18 Machine Learning:  methods to create a Boolean Satisfiability problem generator whose output better matches naturally occurring formulas Ramanujan
Taylor, Jack '18 Machine Learning & Physics: Machine learning models to sift through data generated in nuclear physics experiments; Honors in Physics Ramanujan

Kuchera, M.
Becker, Andrew '18 Machine Learning & Virtual Reality:  Deep reinforcement learning for learning steering policies in virtual worlds Ramanujan

Peck
Tenpas, Nathan '18 Graph Theory: Additive 3-choosability of Planar Graphs; Honors Thesis Yerger

Brandt

Return to Top

2016-17

Student(s) Project Type: Topic Faculty Mentor
Ashley Alexander-Lee '17, Jose Balcazar '19, Hermon Mulat '18, Anubhav Roy Battachurya '18, Katy Williams '17 Project PRONTO Heyer
Leslie Alvarado '17, Andrew Becker '18, My Doan '19, Stephanie Momot '17 Projects in Virtual Reality & Computer Graphics Peck
Dustin Atchley '17, Andy Baay '17, Nick Balanda '17 Center for Interdisciplinary Studies Majors in Research & Senior Theses Heyer

(co-mentored with Campbell, Snyder)
George Baldini '19 and Tyler Hickey '16 Sports Analytics for Tresata Chartier
George Baldini '19, Kendall Thomas '19, Kristen Koehler '17, Ross Kruse '17, Jacob D'Aurizio '20, Victoria Bonagura '18 Sports Analytics for Athlete Intelligence Chartier
Chris Cardwell '17, Alec Custer '17, Kristen Koehler '17, Ross Kruse '17, Grant McClure '17, Julian Casey '18, Jason Feldman '18, Graham Haines '18, Abhi Jain '18, Hannah Sinks '18, Nate Tenpas '18, George Baldini '19, Connor Bevan '19, William Botchway '19, Tanner Carlson '19, My Doan '19, Wes Kerr '19, Sam Lucas '19, Kenneth Martin '19, Josh Mitchell '19, Kendall Thomas '19, Tyler Brosius '20, David Bunson '20, Tucker Craig '20, Jacob D'Aurizio '20, David Lee '20, Andrew Roy '20, Bryan Stovicek '20, Altan Tutar '20, Matt Wang '20 Sports Analytics: Cats Stats Chartier
Kyle Chen '19 Efficient Data Structures for Big Data Analytics Mendes
Jiarui Chu '17 Applying Probability to Problems in Computational Geometry Heyer
Will Damron '17 Sports Analytics for Dunham's Sports Chartier
Ashley Finke '17, Audrey Moore '17, Santiago Navia '17 Independent Study on Tensegrity Structures Molinek
Manu Giamoukis '17, Jejun Kang '19, Matthew LeBar '19, Louise Zhao '18 Projects in Graph Theory & Sports Analytics Yerger
Jack Goffinet '16, Joseph Jamison '18, Andrew Wu '18 Projects in Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence Ramanujan
Ross Kruse '17, Grant McClure '17 Sports Analytics Independent Study Chartier
Dylan Maghini '18, Hannah Sinks '18, Altan Tutar '20 Projects in Synthetic Biology Heyer
Savannah Williams '19 Graph Coloring Problem Brandt

Return to Top

2015-16

Student(s) Project Type: Topic Faculty Mentor
Dustin Atchley '17 Independent Study: Virtual Reality for Biology Education Peck
George Baldini '19, Mike Blasey '19, Henry Duncan '17, Jason Feldman '18, Noah Furman '19, Abhi Jain '18, Athena Kalamaras '18, Wes Kerr '19, Ross Kruse '17, Grant McClure '17, Jack Lang '19, Max Schimanski '16, Nathan Tenpas '18 Sports Analytics for ÌÒñ«ÉçÇø Men's Basketball Chartier
Victoria Bonagura '18 Sports Analytics for ÌÒñ«ÉçÇø Women's Soccer Chartier
Chris Cardwell '17 & Harrison Manning '16 Algorithm Development for FantasyDraft.com Chartier
Jiarui Chu '17 Summer DRI: Random Visibility in Groups of Geometric Objects Heyer
Courtney Cochrane '16 Summer DRI: Disease Spread Modeling through Zero Forcing and Dynamical Systems Molinek
Courtney Cochrane '16 Independent Study: Virtual Reality and Scientific Visualization with Data from Dr. Lom in Biology Peck
Courtney Cochrane `16, Ross Kruse `17 & Grant McClure `17 Analytics for NBA League Office Chartier
Will Damron '18 Analytics for Dunham Sports Chartier
Megan Feichtel '16 Computer Graphics and Virtual Reality Research Peck
Jack Goffinet '16 Novel Algorithms for Solving the Maximum Satisfiability (MaxSAT) Problem Ramanujan
Graham Haines '18 & Wes Kerr '19 Sports Analytics for ÌÒñ«ÉçÇø Women's Basketball Chartier
Graham Haines '18 & Tyler Hickey '16 Sports Analytics for ÌÒñ«ÉçÇø Football Chartier
Kai Jia '16 Thesis Research: Matchings in Lex and Colex Graphs Yerger and Keough
Mason Lin '17 Summer DRI: Sports Analytics Applied to Finance Chartier
Lingbo Lu '15 Summer DRI: Rank Aggregation Chartier
Ricky Sosa '18 Summer RISE: Explorations in Graph Pebbling Yerger
Takuya Wakayama '17 Summer FS&R: Intermingled Ascending Wave M-Sets with Three Colors Yerger
Katy Williams '17 Project PRONTO Heyer
Erica Shook '17 NSF-funded Synthetic Biology Research: Programmed Evolution Heyer
Chenxiao (Simon) Xue '16 Thesis Research: Branching Heuristics for SAT Solving Ramanujan
Chenxiao (Simon) Xue '16 Summer DRI: Pebbling and Class 0 Graphs Yerger

Return to Top

2014-15

Student(s) Project Type: Topic Faculty Mentor
Miles Abbett '14 Summer research: Developed fantasy sports salary cap algorithm for Major League Fantasy Chartier
Nancy Brown '15 Independent study: Operations Research Heyer
Spencer Chadinha '15 Independent study: Bioinformatics research and web development Heyer
Erol Cromwell '15 Summer DRI: Machine learning and graph theoretic tools to explore the potential for computational creativity in the domain of salad recipes Ramanujan
Jason Feldman '18, Abhi Jain '18, Ross Kruse '17, Grant McClure '17 Sports analytics: for the ÌÒñ«ÉçÇø men's basketball team Chartier
Alex Feliciano '15, Eric Hart '15, Sarah Klett '15, Ross Kruse '17 Sports analytics: for ÌÒñ«ÉçÇø teams and developing related high school curriculum Chartier
Jack Goffinet '16 & Alden Hart '15 Independent study: Computer organization Ramanujan
Ross Kruse '17 Summer DRI: Deep learning techniques for automatic feature induction in the domain of Pacman Ramanujan
Ross Kruse '17, Grant McClure '17 Sports analytics: for the NBA Chartier
Andrew Liu '14 & Greg Macnamara ‘12 Summer sports analytics: Ranking methods for World Cup Mossinghoff Chartier
Shane Macnamara '16 Summer and fall research: Sports ranking research and web development Chartier
Nicolas Neitzel '14 Independent study: Data analytics in NASCAR racing Chartier
Thomas Reith '15 Motif-based clustering of directed networks Heyer
Kevin Roberts '15, Annie Tang '15 Sports analytics: for a national sports retail company Chartier
Morgan Spencer '16 Summer research: Synthetic biology team modeling and analysis Heyer
Elena Vasiou-Sivvipoulou '15 Summer research: Development and analysis for NASCAR simulation software Chartier
Tyler Williams '15 Honors Thesis: An introduction to the ideal class group, and a comparison of bounds on its size Thompson
Chenxiao (Simon) Xue '16 Summer DRI: Optimal pebbling on grid Yerger
Fangning (Richard) Yan '15 Honors thesis: Expected peak sidelobe level of random sequences Mossinghoff
Yuchen (Vincent) Zhu ‘15 Independent study & research: Automated animal recognition through machine learning Ramanujan

Return to Top

2013-14

Student(s) Project Type: Topic Faculty Mentor
Miles Abbett '14, James Bramlett '14, Seth Kindig '14, Andrew Liu '14, Noah Woodward '14 Independent study: Sports analytics - focusing on different projects in basketball, baseball, and golf Chartier
Miles Abbett '14, Bryan Kelly '14, Ford Higgins '14, Seth Kindig '14 Sports application: CatsStats micro-analysis and twitter feed Chartier
Micah Brown '16 Independent study: Mathematical modeling in biology - agent-based models to illustrate concepts in first-year biology course Heyer
Micah Brown '16, Jackson Spell '15  Summer applied math/CS/Genomics research: Agent-based models of cellular processes and online tool construction for automated DNA assembly Heyer
Sam Castle '15, Alden Hart '15, Jackson Spell '15 Independent study: Machine learning Ramanujan
Seth Kindig '14 Independent study: APBRmetrics and sports analytics Chartier
Seth Kindig '14 Summer applied math research: Predicting sports outcomes with similarity scores; springboarded Seth into a one month internship with sortable.com Chartier
Sarah Klett '15 Summer applied math research: Improving least-squares ranking methods with regression Chartier
Sarah Klett '15 Independent study: Data analytics - Big data and scoring Twitter, ranking restaurants via reviews posted on Twitter, in collaboration with Twizoo, Inc. Chartier
Emma Krause '14 Independent study: Programming neural networks in MATLAB, in support of Center major in neuroscience Heyer
Matt Mohorn '14 Honors thesis: An Introduction to Graph Pebbling Yerger
Thomas Reith '15 Applied math research: Mathematical modeling and cluster analysis of networks of neurons Heyer
Jackson Spell '15 Independent study: Data analytics - Twitter sentiment analysis, in collaboration with Twizoo, Inc., founded by ÌÒñ«ÉçÇø grad Madeline Parra '09 Ramanujan

Return to Top

2012-13

Student(s) Project Type: Topic Faculty Mentor
Daniel Bernstein '13 Honors thesis: Algorithmic Definitions of Singular Functions, a real analysis topic Neidinger
Jonah Galeota-Sprung '13 Applied math research: Algorithm to create salad recipes via existing recipes using artificial intelligence Chartier Ramanujan
David Heilbron '13, Kyle Snipes '13, Amy Tang '15 Applied math research: Development of bracketology algorithm based on producing odds via Colley and Massey methods Chartier
Seth Kindig '14 Applied math research: Linear programming formulation for scramble squares Chartier
Cyrus Lala '13 Applied math research: Adaptation of ranking method posed as linear programming problem Chartier
Robert Lorenzen '13 Independent study: Sports analytics with mentoring a high school student

Applied math research: Variation of PageRank algorithm for recognizing spam in web networks
Chartier
Jena Manilla '13 Independent study: Social network analysis including a network at ÌÒñ«ÉçÇø Chartier
Daniel Marchuk '13 Applied math research: Development of applets in sports ranking for uDemy course on bracketology Chartier
Brian McGue '13 Independent study: Analysis of NASCAR with sports analytics with Donour Sizemore (Michael Waltrip Racing) Chartier
Erin Osment '15 Applied math research: Adaptation of Laplace rule of succession within derivation of Colley method Chartier
Corey Poff '13 Honors thesis: Pathology in Upper Confidence Bounds Applied to Trees, an artificial intelligence topic Ramanujan
Colin Thompson '13 Honors thesis: A Hierarchy of Chaotic Topological Dynamics, a dynamical systems topic Molinek
Chang (Kyle) Yang '13 Honors thesis: The Bordeaux 3-color Conjecture and Near Coloring, a graph theory topic Yerger

Return to Top