Brianna Adkins is a sophomore Communication Studies major at Pace University. She's currently a Content Writer for the Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems and the Editor-in-chief of Pretty Smart magazine. Her passion is writing and highlighting people who have stories that need to be heard.
Yaodong Du, a Ph.D. candidate, was chosen by Juan Shan, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science, to attend the CHASE2018 Conference from Sept. 26 to 28.
“[At] the conference, we [presented] our recent work on using [a] machine learning method to analyze 3D MRI images for knee osteoarthritis prediction,” explained Du.
Osteoarthritis, described by the Arthritis Foundation as “the most common chronic condition of the joints,” is currently affecting close to 27 million Americans.
The work presented at the conference by Du and Shan is dedicated to diagnosing this degenerative joint disease. Their machine learning method specializes in analyzing 3-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images to detect osteoarthritis of the knee. This means that their research can help doctors detect the disease before patients experience permanent joint damage.
Along with presenting their own work, Du and Shan had the opportunity to network and listen to other top industry professionals speak about their areas of expertise.
Du says that one of the best parts of the conference was when “many researchers from different institutions stopped by, [asked] questions and discussed.”
“[CHASE2018] widened my sight, and deepened my cognition on the research and my knowledge,” Du explained, highlighting the impact the conference had on him.
Our Seidenberg students are accessing and working with technology that has the ability to innovate and to heal. With brilliant minds and abundant opportunities, Seidenberg students make worthwhile change.
As for the future of their work, Du said, “we will continue our work on exploring useful information to help [in the field of] predicting diseases.”
Du and Shan’s work will continue to carve out a path in the Pace community for other Seidenberg students to follow.
Ian Carvalho, a Seidenberg student in the process of obtaining an MS in Computer Science, is a student to watch. The award-winning individual spends his time volunteering and creating apps dedicated to assisting others when he has a free moment. His most recent success came from the Pace AirBnB Pricing Challenge where he won first place!
As an undergraduate student, Ian was fortunate enough to be the recipient of the Brazilian government-funded scholarship, Science Without Borders, which helped him study in the United States for a year. The scholarship led him to Pace University to pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees. After obtaining his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science in 2016, Ian scored a Research Internship with IBM over the summer. When fall rolled around, he decided to stick around at Seidenberg for his graduate education, choosing to pursue a Masters in Computer Science.
So far, Ian has called his time at Seidenberg, “very intense.” As a Graduate student, Graduate Assistant for Dr. Juan Shan, and PIP Design Factory team member, it’s safe to say that his time has been exactly that—but he’s not done yet.
During his time as a Seidenberg student, he’s gone above and beyond in his extracurricular activities. Ian taught a workshop on iOS development in partnership with PCS, won first place in the App Design Contest with the Entrepreneurship Lab for his application Helpteer, and participated at a Humanitarian Hackathon hosted by Google to assist the non-profit, Techo, which seeks to overcome poverty in slums.
Most recently, Ian identifies himself as a volunteer, Agile NYC participant, and a Java tutor. Beyond those activities, he’s a freelance iOS and Game Developer and Senior Software Developer at BRQ Digital Solutions. Plus, he is working on his master’s thesis.
“Currently, I am writing my thesis on applying deep learning to assist medical imaging problems [such] as Breast Cancer detecting and Knee bone segmentation,” he explains.
All of Ian’s successes are considered a win for all of the Seidenberg community, but his first place win for the Pace AirBnB Pricing Challenge is definitely something to recognize.
A group photo of the students who participated in the Airbnb Challenge.
The challenge was created by Professor Lala and sponsored by INFORMSon the Westchester campus. The goal of the competition, which was held through the platform Kaggle, was to create a machine learning program with the capability to predict the current price of a listing using the given Airbnb data. Students were encouraged to actively participate in order to make their entry the best possible.
“I participated very actively during the last week of the challenge,” Ian explains.
Ian developed an artificial intelligence model to predict rental pricings for Airbnb listings, and his role of actively participating during the last week led to his ultimate victory. But his triumph did not come easily. Ian detailed the process of testing different models to see which achieved the highest performance. In the end, he combined the results of several models to predict the closest result.
“The challenge consisted in analyzing a dataset with more than [just] variables as a number of beds, reviews, amenities, etc. from [an] Airbnb listing. Part of the dataset ([which was] used for training) had the pricing, which the model used to learn patterns,” he explains.
These analyses were not a one and done deal. Ian explains that he had to rework the model many times.
“After learning, the model would try to predict the prices in the testing dataset,” he explains. “Results would then be submitted to Kaggle, that would compare to the real results and assign a score. It sounds simple, in theory, but the work involved many steps and especially because I was working solo, it got very intense at first I would have to clean the data, remove useless columns, fill missing values and encode some of the data in a way that’s understandable to the model.”
The process was long, especially since Ian spent most of the last week of the challenge really cramming to achieve the best result. When he received that win in the end, all of his hard work and maximum effort worth it. When asked about how he felt about winning, Ian summed it up with one word: “amazing.”
“I knew I had a good result because of the way that the competition works. They show a public partial leaderboard and when the competition finishes they disclose the complete result,” Ian explained. “So it could be possible that someone at the first place in the public leaderboard would be placed in second in the final score. So until the last minute, I was trying to improve my model to make sure I would win.”
As for his overall experience, Ian would recommend it to anyone.
“It’s very rewarding. When I first started, I wasn’t expecting to win, as this was my first challenge of the kind, but I got good results and they kept improving with every submission. I learned a lot and it was very fun,” he notes.
Seidenberg students have numerous opportunities throughout the school year to compete in tech challenges, Hackathons, and much more! Make sure you check in with our social media to see what challenges are coming up next.
Tianyu Wang, a Ph.D. Candidate studying Data Science at Pace University, is a cybersecurity specialist and financial professional in the making. The Seidenberg student has obtained not one, but two Masters of Science in Computer Science and Financial Management as well as a Ph.D. in Philosophy. Now he’s on the path of getting his next Ph.D. in Data Science. His extensive education has brought him numerous roles tailored to his professional career, but his latest role might just be his most impressive: Data Scientist Intern at IBM.
The Westchester campus student worked his way up from the position of Coach for National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC) at Pace University to Lab Course Instructor, Teaching Assistant, Research Lab Network Administrator, and finally to where he is now: Graduate Research Assistant. Tianyu has held positions at Mount Sinai Health System as a Data Security Intern and at Human Rights Watch as an Intern in the Department of Finance Operations. Now an internship at IBM is adding to his extensive resume of knowledge and experience. Tianyu had a lot to say about the opportunities he scored through this dream job.
First, it’s important to note what data science is all about. According to Tianyu, the career route consists of three things: math/statistics, coding, and research. While at IBM, he notes that his day-to-day job tasks included “obtaining data, cleaning it, analyzing it and communicating actionable insights for decision making.”
“My impression from data science is that the work is highly intellectually satisfying and the results of your work are highly tangible,” he explains. “It means that there is faster feedback and a highly tangible connection between your work and outcomes.”
Tianyu explains that there are differences between coding for school and coding for work. He notes that “framework should not only solve the problem for a current project but also provide a potential capability to address a similar problem for other teams in the future. For example, codes should easily be extended and adapted for the new functionalities. It should be able to maintain reliability, safety, or security of the new application for the whole team.”
Tianyu explains that being proactive is important, and that “opportunities always come with risks, but it is worthwhile for young people. Continue learning something new [and it] will absolutely lower the risks.”
He also recommends that students should look into the Career Services system: “students would learn a lot from [their] career counselors. Then, get a job and start the path with what you learn from it. Keep refreshed with latest technologies, and keep researching the market requirements. It will help a student stay off [their] comfort zone.”
So stay proactive, learn from your internships and classes, and stay refreshed with the latest technologies and research. There’s a lot that one can do to score that coveted internship with a top tech company. Tianyu’s advice is useful for anyone looking to dive into a high-end technological or financial career. We’re happy to share Tianyu’s story and helpful advice to further your story as well!
While finals can be a stressful time for students each time they come around, they can also be the perfect time to work with classmates on projects they feel passionate about. The season for cramming and test taking can also be an opportunity for collaborative innovation. When the Software Engineering (CS389) class presented their final projects in the Seidenberg Lounge on May 15th, it seemed as though that innovative energy was thriving.
The leading professor for the class, Dr. Shahed Mustafa, reviewed the team projects with assistance from Professor Avery Leider and Dr. Christelle Scharff. The eight groups of undergraduate students presented software applications they created to tackle real-world problems and generate an environment of positivity.
The students worked with Android Studio, Photoshop, Firebase, GitHub, and numerous other applications to bring their ideas to life. The teams created apps in a Scrum framework starting from an idea. Their ideas ranged from a game featuring adorable bartending kittens to a chat room app that helps groups of friends and coworkers find the perfect meeting location. After their ideas were solidified, student groups identified their backlog (the load of work to be completed in the future) and completed a series of three sprints.
The application created by Jacob Hiban, Vivian Ng, and Stephanie Okereke titled, ClassGo, is a buying and selling platform tailored to Pace students. Users can buy or sell used classroom supplies like textbooks, lab materials, and more. The application features a homepage, search bar, selling and buying pages, and a capability to “favorite” the items the user likes best. Future improvements for the application include an updated user interface, homepage, chat, commenting section, and notification settings. These computer science mavens hope that their app can one day be a service that Pace students will choose to use over eBay, Mercari, or even Poshmark.
The makers behind Kitten Klub ask, “kittens and alcohol!? Who knew?” Well, they did! The application is a time management game set in the world of cats which was created by Samuel Gellar, Nicholas Vallarelli, Sammy Chen Li, and Anna Marinina. Targeted users play the game by creating drinks for the kittens they are bartending for. The game, which is only available for Apple devices at the moment, has nine levels that increase in difficulty.
The goal of EzAttend is to simplify the attendance taking process. Contributors, Edward Gervis, Raami Sharif, and Ian Groombridge worked together to make a one tap attendance app using Bluetooth. The application allows the teacher to create a class and take attendance, while also allowing students to see their attendance record.
Royal Closet is tailored to the user. The fashion application captures user information, user market recycler view, avatar choice, and measurement comparisons to show the user what a chosen item of clothing could look like on their body by placing a version on their tailored avatar. Krutika Wadha, Tiara Hammond, and Yunting Yin designed this app to help individuals make fashion choices. They hope in the future to make it an inclusive e-commerce app with customizable avatars.
Lumattica is all about “putting color back into the world,” according to creators Austin Halper, Justin Sciglimpaglia, and Aayan Jalal. The app targets people who suffer from color blindness. The app works for both yellow-blue and red-green color confusion. Features include a field view, self-diagnosis, camera, and color quiz.
Lovescope: The Astrology Dating App is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a dating app specialized to each astrology sign. Creators Margarita Dominguez, Nick Krawczeniuk, Jennifer Rhau, and Minying He created the application to give users explanations of all planets, houses, and signs. The app integrates user profiles so users can create their own birth chart (gender options include non-binary) and uses a compatibility algorithm to see which users match together best!
Yuliya Daroshka, Ivan Tang, Brandon DeLuca, and Jeffrey Cruz are the minds behind translatAR: an app that has the potential to be a direct competitor to Google lens. Its target audience is English speakers who travel abroad each year. The straight forward visual translator app is capable of helping users find the correct word for any object they take a picture of in 26 languages!
“Meeting up with friends just got a whole lot easier,” according to the minds behind Fuse. The app helps groups meet up at a central and convenient location for all users. Creators Stephan Reyes, Manan Thakkar, Stephanie Philip, Kito Beriens, and Vincent Ajodhia created this app with multiple APIs to incorporate map and group-chat features. Whether a group wants to meet at a restaurant, bar, or park, this app helps them find the best option. This app solves all of those “where should we meet” problems by giving a solution that fits everyone’s needs.
These projects are all products of hard work and collaboration. Make sure to check out each app to fully experience how they function overall by scanning the QR codes on each poster. We’re proud of these software engineering students and what they created in just one semester.
Swimming and computer science don’t have much in common, but when a Seidenberg student wins an award for academic and athletic success, they intersect quite well. Jana Ciric is a junior Computer Science major and Division II Swim Team member on the Westchester campus. She just earned the Northeast-10 Conference Women’s Swimming and Diving Sport Excellence Award for the second year in a row.
The third-year student explains that she started swimming when she was in the third grade; “when I was a little kid, my parents would take me to Greece every year and all I wanted to do was play in the water. They helped me make the right choice and choose swimming when I was ready to take on a sport.”
Growing up, Jana was on Serbia’s National Swimming Team for four years. During that time, she participated in European regional meets, like the Balkan Junior Championship, where she won the silver medal in the 50-meter freestyle. She was also the captain of the “Sveti Nikola” swimming club in Serbia for six years, helping to coach and organize a team of ten swimmers for practices and swim meets.
She notes that her time swimming for Pace has been excellent, but it definitely differs from her experience in Europe: “at Pace, we have dual meets every week, but very little championship meets (one or two per year), whereas in Europe we have championships more often but have no dual meets.”
Jana Ciric from Pace U Athletics website
The amount of time she spends with the Pace Swimming and Diving team has allowed her to form close friendships that she considers the most important part of her experience.
“I consider my team to be the closest thing I have to home since I am really far from home,” she explains.
Even with the homesickness that she endures, Jana found time to rack up quite a list of accomplishments. She holds six (out of over 20) of Pace University’s swimming records, earned Dean’s List First Honors for Fall 2018, completed a spring internship as a Junior Programmer/Analyst at Central National Gottesman, and lined up an exciting internship at AQR Capital Management for this summer. She also did all of this while working as a Tutor the Pleasantville Tutoring Center and a Student Assistant for the Athletic Department! Maintaining those records, grades, and workload is not easy.
“I have always had a really good work ethic and determination. Once I set my mind on something, I work really hard until I get it,” Jana notes. “I have unconditional support from my family which has been pushing me to do better every day. Even though they are almost 5,000 miles away they are always with me, helping me to achieve my dreams.”
How does it feel to earn her second straight NE10 Swimming and Diving Sport Excellence Award? Jana says that it “feels amazing,” and rightfully so.
“I am really proud to have won that award again since I put a lot of emphasis on my education. I am a student first and an athlete second. I wouldn’t have even come to the U.S. if it weren’t for my passion for academics and education (as well as swimming). This is why I think this award is so important to me – it really celebrates why all of us are here at college: to get a better education.”
Jana’s success is a success for all of Seidenberg. Her hard work showcases just how possible it is to obtain friendship, accomplishments, and a degree while being a student-athlete, intern, and employee. We’re proud to show off all that Jana does within the Pace community!
Jana would like to note that she really appreciates that Dean Hill and Andreea attend her swim meets and cheer her on. You can always check the swim team schedule to see when Jana will be competing. We’re sure that she’d love to have a crowd there cheering her on.
The Seidenberg School of CSIS held its last event for the Tech Leadership series of the spring semester on April 24 during common hour. The speaking event, moderated by Dean Dr. Jonathan Hill, featured Mike Capone, CEO of Qlik. The event took place at 1 Pace Plaza in the new Student Center.
The talk centered around privacy, data analytics, and more. Dr. Hill took time to highlight what he called Mike’s “groundbreaking journey from CIO to CEO.”
Mike obtained his MBA in Finance from Pace University after earning his undergraduate degree in Computer Science at Dickinson College. His career started at ADP where he spent 26 years moving up from the role of VP to CIO. After ADP, he moved on to the role of COO at Medidata Solutions, before landing his current position as CEO of Qlik.
Mike told us that he originally wanted to pursue a major in history, it was his Dad who inspired him to focus on technology.
“My father was one of the first CIO’s ever,” he stated. “He wanted me to study something that would make me employable.”
Mike decided on a major in computer science with a minor in history, allowing him to study the best of both worlds. After obtaining his undergraduate and graduate degrees, he went on to work at ADP.
“That first job is important, but you have to remember it’s just your first job,” he explained. “You’re going to learn and evolve at your first job.”
While working at ADP, Mike gained skills crucial to the rest of his career. It was during his first years of employment that he learned the key to becoming CEO material: getting out of your comfort zone.
“You’ve got to take risks, you got to do different stuff,” he said. “Every time something new came up I would grab it. I was never really good at programming. The important thing was that I recognized it. Taking tech and applying it to real business problems was super interesting to me.”
Mike relayed these key words of advice and offered up numerous others:
“Learn statistics.”
“Data is changing the world … [and] everybody needs to be aware.”
“Get into a global company.”
“Networking is super, super important.”
“When you change jobs make sure it’s not just a financial thing.”
“Expand [your] portfolio, and follow your interests.”
As for motivation? Mike explained that his way of staying focused is to always keep his eyes on the prize. While his interests initially lay in history, he learned to adapt his education to include a major that would make him more employable. This choice led him to become a CIO and eventually a CEO.
“I didn’t wake up saying ‘oh my gosh I want to be CIO,” Mike explained. “You can be whatever you want to be. In tomorrow’s world, you need to be super well-rounded.”
Mike gave Seidenberg students motivation and advice to give them the confidence to make future career choices. His leadership series talk was chock full of advice and inspiration for students who are just starting their own careers. We are grateful for the time Mike spent with us and are honored to have had him finish the series for the year.
