Student Enrichment Last Week
On Monday, MIT scientist Dr. Mikhail Shalaginov taught the students the basics of quantum computing.
On Tuesday, the AI students had one-on-one meetings with their supervisors to check-in about their projects.
On Wednesday, our nanotechnology students attended a Harvard CNS Imaging Summer School: Intro to EELS class, taught by Harvard Senior Scientist Jules A. Gardener at the Science and Engineering Complex.
On Thursday, guest speaker Anya Leonenko joined us for an enriching afternoon. Read more on that event below.
On Friday, our AI students gave their weekly progress presentations. Dr. Shalaginov and Anya Leonenko sat in to provide thoughtful advice to students, bringing their expert perspectives to projects.
Student Spotlight: Ella Lee
Ella Lee, a rising senior in high school from Kentucky, has finished the lab work for her project, Utilizing Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy to Early Diagnose Alzheimer’s Disease with Amyloid-β(1-40) Peptides Coated in Silver Nanoparticles. She has submitted an abstract to the MRS conference in early December.
“Getting to see and interact with other students who are also motivated to do their research has been very valuable,” says Ella. “I have learned to be adaptable, approachable, and organized while doing my research.” When asked how the AARD/Innobridge program is different from other programs, Ella noted, “We actually get to be in the lab, at the Harvard Center for Nanoscale Systems, and we have really good supervisors and attend conferences in the city.” We will miss seeing Ella in-person everyday, but she will continue working to finish her data analysis and paper at home in Kentucky.
Anya Leonenko Reveals the Power of AI in Finance
Last Thursday, Anya Leonenko, a VP of the Generative AI Team at Citibank, discussed the applications of AI in finance and banking. With her interactive lecture style, she quickly captured students’ attention. Students further used random forest classifiers in Python to detect credit card fraud using a Jupyter Notebook that Anya had prepared.
Brandon Li, an AI intern, comments, “It was specifically cool to see the use cases of undersampling and oversampling in affecting model accuracy in the financial context.” Even nano students, who mostly do not have computer science backgrounds, were able to learn something new. We sincerely thank Anya for her comprehensive lecture and efforts to educate our students.