Students Carry Out Research Projects at New York Tech’s Summer REU Program

New York Institute of Technology concluded the eighth year of its Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Program. The program, which is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), gives undergraduate students the opportunity to use state-of-the-art research facilities where they conduct research with a faculty mentor from the College of Engineering and Computing Sciences.

Fifteen students, known as REU fellows, from 12 colleges and universities conducted various research projects mentored remotely by faculty during the 10-week program, which ran from June 1 through August 6.

Through supplemental funding from the NSF, four New York Tech Financial and Academic Support to Retain and Advance Completion (FASTRAC) scholars were able to join the program. FASTRAC is an NSF-supported program at New York Tech that offers annual scholarships to eligible students from freshman year until graduation.

During the program, the REU fellows:

• Worked on their research projects with their New York Tech faculty mentors
• Attended technical writing workshops, a tutorial on machine learning, and various technical talks
• Attended an REU alumni panel, where New York Tech REU alumni shared their experiences and perspectives on career options and graduate school

At the end of the program, the fellows presented their projects at a final presentation attended by New York Tech faculty and staff, including Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Junius Gonzales, M.D., M.B.A.

“I enjoyed meeting and working with students from other universities,” said New York Tech computer science student Guang Too, an REU fellow and FASTRAC scholar. “Each provided a different set of perspectives and skills. It was a great experience. I recommend this to anyone.”

REU Fellow Research Projects:

Project: AdversarialDroid: A Deep Learning based Malware Detection Approach for Android System Against Adversarial Example Attacks
REU Fellow: Giuseppe Dambrosio (Adelphi University)
Faculty Mentor: Associate Professor Wenjia Li, Ph.D.

Project: Continuous Authentication in Mobile Devices
REU Fellow: Leila Sor (Bucknell University)
Volunteer: Alexis Wang (California Institute of Technology)
Faculty Mentor: Associate Professor Kiran Balagani, Ph.D.

Project: Platform for Comparative Study of Focus and Retention in Virtual Reality and Online Learning
REU Fellows: Michael Macesker (Southern Connecticut State), Rachel Morrow (Wesleyan University), Guang Too (New York Institute of Technology), and Luna Ferraro (New York Institute of Technolgy)
Faculty Mentors: Associate Professor N. Sertac Artan, Ph.D., Professor Ziqian (Cecilia Dong), Ph.D., and Professor Huanying Gu, Ph.D.

Project: Simulating Imaging Systems Based on FMCW mmWave Radar
REU Fellow: Oreva Omodior (Indiana University)
Faculty Mentor: Assistant Professor Reza Amineh, Ph.D.

Project: Speech Emotion Recognition (SER) with Different Masks
REU Fellow: Katherine Nayan (Rochester Institute of Technology)
Faculty Mentor: Assistant Professor Houwei Cao, Ph.D.

Project: Subtlety of Language in the Spread of Misinformation on Twitter
REU Fellow: Marcos Sivira (Florida State University)
Faculty Mentor: Assistant Professor Anand Santhanakrishnan, Ph.D.

Project: Toxic Comment Detection: Analyzing the Combination of Text and Emojis
REU Fellows: Michael Aquino (New York Institute of Technology), Yasiris Ortiz (City College of New York), Arif Rashid (New York Institute of Technology), and Anne Tumlin (University of Southern California)
Faculty Mentors: Associate Professor N. Sertac Artan, Ph.D., Associate Professor Ziqian (Cecilia Dong), Ph.D., and Professor Huanying Gu, Ph.D.

Project: Trust Model for Maximal Flow of Reliable Information in a Network
REU Fellow: Kelly Mae Allen (Meredith College)
Faculty Mentor: Assistant Professor Anand Santhanakrishnan, Ph.D.

This article was contributed by N. Sertac Artan.