This April, the Department launched the inaugural Computer Science Undergraduate Research Fellows Poster Day, a forum for undergraduates to present research projects to the Department community.

The Research Fellows Poster Day showcases the work of C-SURF students and other undergraduates who have completed independent studies with CS faculty, projects pursued over several semesters or even years. Students who successfully complete a research project and oral defense are qualified to graduate with distinction.

"The goal is to encourage undergrad research by exposing students to what research is all about, and encouraging them to consider going on to graduate school," says Professor Richard Lucic, Associate Chair of the Department.

"Duke as a whole really wants students to engage in research," adds Professor Jeff Forbes, a co-coordinator of the C-SURF program. "And in CS, we've often struggled with that. That's why we're doing this, and we're seeing good results."

Four budding researchers presented their work on Wednesday, April 20th, as professors, graduate students, and undergraduates turned out to support them. The presenters were peppered with questions and compliments as they stood at their posters describing their work:

Liz Liang

--Liz Liang, a C-SURF participant who worked with Professor Susan Rodger, conducted research in data visualization tools utilizing the Alice programming language. Alice facilitates the teaching of interactive data visualization methods for middle and high school teachers. This allows them to add animation components to their lessons. "Every year, teachers want to add more Alice into their lesson plans," says Liang. "I have the knowledge to help them do that." One of Liang's creations presents a fun graphic to learn about gene regulation in biology; another emphasizes data visualization using fish populations. After graduation, Liang will take up a job as a software engineer with Applied Predictive Technologies in Washington, D.C., where she will apply her newfound talents developing tools to visualize data, this time in the finance world.

Alex Beutel

--Working with Professor Pankaj Agarwal, Alex Beutel developed a simple yet fast algorithm for constructing digital 3D terrain models from large amounts of topographic data. In November, the research netted Beutel a best paper award at the 18th annual ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems, the first research conference he had ever attended. Since then, Beutel has been optimizing the algorithm, making it as fast as possible and incorporating temporal data to produce models showing changes in terrains over time. Beutel's research experience at Duke prepared him to begin a PhD in theoretical computer science at Carnegie Mellon University this fall. "It absolutely helped me get there," says Beutel. "I've always wanted to do research, but finding out what area to pursue was a long process."

Nancy Chen

--Nancy Chen veered into research thanks to her iPad. Interested in doing an independent study, Chen approached Professor Rachael Brady, who pointed Chen to Professor Richard Lucic, co-instructor of a course on mobile app development, including the iPad. With Lucic, Chen researched the rise of gaming to enhance the education process. She built and tested an iPad app to teach vocabulary. Designed for middle and high school students, the app, called Lexifrog, combines a simple interface with game-like actions to make vocabulary memorization enjoyable. "It was fun designing a game completely from scratch and constantly incorporating new learning techniques during the process," says Chen. After graduation, the young programmer will take a job with NetApp in California, working in development and design as a member of the company's user experience team.

Cheney Tsai

--Cheney Tsai decided that a long-term project was exactly what he wanted out of school. With Professor Alvin Lebeck, Tsai became immersed in the world of nanotechnology and began to explore the possibility of creating electric circuits from DNA-based self-organizing networks, a potentially easier way of creating nanocircuits than trying to build them piece-by-piece. "I wanted to see if it worked well," says Tsai. Using various parameters, Tsai designed algorithms to identify circuits in his random conglomerations, and identified several obstacles within the process. Next year, Tsai will join Deloitte Financial Advisory Services as a Forensic and Analytic Technology Consultant. "I’m interested in practical implementations of what's done in academia," he says. "I'm glad I got to experience research before I graduated."

In addition to making a poster, each student prepared a written report and presented their research to a committee of three professors. "I enjoyed doing my defense," says Liang. "It felt like a conversation, and I liked answering their questions." Beutel agrees, "I was kind of excited," he says. "It was a new challenge."

The event was a successful start for what will soon become an annual tradition at Duke. "These students have made a real commitment to see this research through," says Forbes. "We are proud of their accomplishments."

Learn more about C-SURF: cs.duke.edu/csurf