Skills Used

  • Bash
  • C++
  • Libsvm
  • Linux
  • Machine Learning
  • Parallel Computing
  • Python
  • R
  • Weka
Jun 2018 to May 2019 at Cincinnati Childrens Hospital Medical Center

I worked at CCHMC as a researched with Frazier Baker and Dr. Alexey Porollo. While working here I worked on a variety of projects mostly focusing on one project in particular. We hope to have the paper published soon and, as of February 2019, we are working on finalizing our results. The research I am completing is related to the ISCB Poster that my colleagues presented earlier this year. The date of this coop are so wide because I worked part time in the summer 2018 along with classes, full time as a coop in fall 2018, and again part time in spring 2019 along with classes.

I worked as part of the lab to develop and test a machine learning system for our project. I mainly focused on improving the process and making it efficient enough to work with our very large datasets. This consisted of working with the tools and options provided by Weka, Libsvm and other systems. As part of our research, we had access to a computational cluster. This allowed us to test and run permutations of our program much more efficiently. This involved getting quite familiar with how parallel computing works and how to use the bsub suite. I wrote many shell, python, perl and other scripts to handle this kind of data and distributed computing. Along with my operating systems and computer networking courses, I finally understand and appreciate how these different processes interact and work together.

Unfortunately, this coop rotation came with quite a few difficulties. I injured my knee yet again and had to have another surgery to repair a torn meniscus during my coop rotation. This came with another 6 week period with a non-weight bearing left leg and a 6-8 month recovery time. I was still able to do work but it was quite a challenge managing recovery along with working. I am very happy that I was working close to home so I didn’t have to fly back with an injury and completely cancel my work. It kept me closer to a 25-30 hour week for about half of the coop but I still able to learn quite a bit and apply myself throughout the experience.

While working during summer 2018 and spring 2018, I had to work towards managing my own time between classes and work. During summer, extra curriculars were lessened so managing my time was quite easy. Although, in spring 2019, I had just finished my second knee surgery and jaw surgery from Fall/Winter 2018. This was quite the extra amount of effort especially since many extra curricular activities happen during the school year such as RevolutionUC. I definitely have overcommitted myself for what I have been able to do so I need to be careful about managing my time. I am not perfect at this task but this experience has provided me with good practice about how long I can work without a break and remembering to say no to requests when I do not have enough time or energy (say recovering from surgery).

I am quite happy with my progress and work and hope to have the final research published soon. I will be wrapping up my work with CCHMC to go off for another internship at the end of my classes spring semester 2019 which should make for another interesting article.