Seidenberg Junior wins the Northeast-10 Conference Women’s Swimming and Diving Sport Excellence Award for the second year in a row

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.”

https://paceuathletics.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=4224
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.

Student Spotlight: Rebecca D’Agostino attends TensorFlow Dev Summit 2019

Rebecca D’Agostino, a Graduate Assistant and student graduating in May with a Masters of Science degree in Computer Science, is a very accomplished student of the Seidenberg School. In early March, she traveled to California to attend the TensorFlow Dev Summit, a top machine learning conference.

Rebecca was able to attend the 3rd year of this annual summit thanks to a travel grant paid by Google’s Women Techmakers program. The event focused on the release of TensorFlow 2.0, the newest form of the machine learning library created by Google.

According to Rebecca, the two-day summit program consisted of “a lot of talks, programming on the fly, demos, and just meeting the community. Sitting and programming together with the TensorFlow team was pretty cool.”

Rebecca said that one of the best parts of the conference were the gifts attendees received: “we got a really cool gift box that included, among other things, an Edge TPU and a new microcontroller board.”

The gifts will allow Rebecca to extend her knowledge of TensorFlow and Machine Learning in general. While the gifts were a bonus, Rebecca gained a great deal of educational experience at the summit, and she noted that the two days she spent there was a great time.

“I think the whole thing was amazing,” she explained. “Just meeting the team and the community that uses TensorFlow overall, and learning new things I wouldn’t know that were out there [was amazing].”

Rebecca’s time at the summit gave her a chance to further her education and network with other technologists. Seidenberg students have some wonderful opportunities for education both in and out of the classroom. Scholarships are a great way to attend conferences, summits, and much more that lie beyond the classroom. You can check out more scholarships from our previous blog post to find opportunities for yourself!

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The Design Factory is the hub of innovation for students at Seidenberg

Pace University’s Design Factory students are always working on global problems that need innovative solutions. The students are teamed up, then have the opportunity to brainstorm and use “design thinking” methodology to take an idea from the drawing board to a working prototype. These students aren’t just dreaming of being the next wave of innovators, they already are.

Laina Posner—a Pace University junior majoring in computer science—has been a summer intern at UPS, a Grace Hopper Conference attendee, and a Pace University Nexus Maximus team member. She is also a design factory student who had the opportunity to go to Helsinki, Finland in October at the Aalto University Design Factory.

“I’ve been working with [the Design Factory] for the past two years, because that’s when [it] officially launched,” Laina states.

Of the Design Factory process overall, she explains: “It’s a big collaboration between different schools all over the country and also the world, but then also different majors as well. So each time I was assigned a project with a different team and I was always given a different task, so it was a great opportunity to become experienced in lots of different things.”

Last semester, Laina had the chance to start working on the PdP team with a start-up company. When she traveled to Finland, she had the opportunity to hear about what her team would be doing for the rest of her junior year.

“When I met them in September, we got a demo, met the team, and met the company. When we go back in May, we will be able to present our product. We’ll be able to see [the process] from start to finish. I’m working on the application part of it where I’ll be designing software to improve the already existing product that they have. Our other teammates will be working on the prototype,” she explains. “Right now I’m assigned on a permanent project where I’ll be working over the year, I’ll be working with a team from Finland with also NYC students. Our project is to work to create a prototype for a company. Our company is Pexray Tech, and they’re looking for a new innovation.”

Pexray Tech is a company that builds portable X-ray systems. The company is looking for a new project, so Laina and the rest of the team are at the forefront of that. The team has completed the beginning stages of the project where planning, research, and getting acquainted with one another is essential.

“It was really cool to have a connection with people that I had really never met over a product for a company that I was just introduced to. We’ve been able to work together since we met for the project, and building connections with other people was really cool,” she states.

Over the past few months, Laina and the rest of the team focused on using “design thinking” to build a working prototype for Pexray Tech. Currently, the team has two months left to create a product for Pexray Tech.

“We are current prototyping our project and in the developmental phase,” Laina explains.

Over the next two months, the team will finalize their product and have the chance to present it to the company. It will be a showcase of their hard work and innovation on a real-world solution.

Now, Laina just wants others to know about the opportunities one can gain through the Design Factory experience. While some students have been working with the Design Factory team for years, they’re always looking to recruit more students. They want more innovators and dreamers who can create solutions to real-world problems with real clients.

“It was very selective, so a lot of people didn’t know about it,” Laina stated of the application process. “I think a lot of students after I told them about it are very interested in it. I wish more people knew about it and more people could experience it, too.  It is an amazing experience. Students are able to use their own personal knowledge of the field and implement their work into a project that they have worked on from start to finish.”

We’re hoping to get the word out about  Pace University’s Design Factory and to get more students aware of this opportunity to innovate! If you’re interested in applying to be a design factory student, sign up for the mailing list!

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The new and improved Pace Computing Society

The largest computing organization on Pace University’s NYC campus has its home in the heart of the Seidenberg lounge. The Pace Computing Society (PCS) is a club for all, but especially for those within the Seidenberg School of Computer Science & Information Systems. The president of the organization, Allan Krasner, spilled some details on what he’s doing to make the society a better place for students.

Allan, who was elected as president of PCS at the end of his freshman year, has led the society for the past two years. He believes he is president because of his efforts to better the club. His record of achievement agrees with him.

“I tried to take the club from what it was at the time and tried to amp it up. I wanted to make it a little bit more special and unique,” Allan states.He did indeed make it more special and unique. Instead of just gathering during the club’s meeting times for discussions and lectures, Allan added workshops. By offering tutorials in numerous programming languages, hosting technical workshops, and inviting all students to join in, he made the club an inclusive space that others wanted to join. He also worked towards being able to “introduce people to new things they may not have seen before or even worked with.”

The club only continues to grow under Allan’s presidency. With introductory activities that challenge members to grow their skills, PCS is teaching its members that hard work never goes unnoticed.

“This year we’re trying to restructure it so that [there are] more consecutive events,” starts Allan. “[It’s] more hands-on, and a lot more fun for people. I think so far we’re getting better results.”

Allan continues to advocate for the club, going above and beyond in his duties to ensure that club members enjoy themselves. He’s even planning to bring new workshops on Raspberry Pi next semester—something that many PCS members are ecstatic about.

If you’re interested in checking out the group, stop by the lounge on a Wednesday during the noon common hour. Head on up to 163 William Street for some interesting discussions, workshops, and free pizza!

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Pace University Seidenberg students visit IBM for artificial intelligence insights

On October 24th, students from Pace University’s Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems visited the IBM TJ Watson Research Center for an eye-opening field trip into the world of research and tech.

The audience in attendance included faculty, undergraduate and graduate students. One of these students attending was Charlotte Coffin, a senior majoring in computer science, who is currently working on her honors thesis titled, “An Introduction to Quantum Computing using the Number Guessing Game on QISKit.” QISKit is IBM’s open source platform for quantum computing, so the trip was particularly useful for Charlotte!

Student, Charlotte Coffin.

During the trip, students learned about the types of research taking place at IBM and identified potential research collaboration opportunities. IBM’s researchers discussed technological topics including quantum computing, blockchain, IoT wearables, artificial intelligence, and big data analytics.

Students spent the day in Thinklabs, research rooms, and with IBM professionals who introduced them to the real-world version of what they are studying at Pace University. For many students, getting an inside look at a company like IBM was a glimpse at the future.

Tianyu Wang, a PhD Computer Science student nearing graduation, noted that the trip was “a really great experience.” 

“The researchers at the Research Center work on speech recognition, machine learning, natural language understanding, and information retrieval products, among others,” said Tianyu. “I particularly appreciated witnessing the collaborative working environment. The company supports various researchers that work in both small and large teams. I can see the researchers had a great time doing their work; most [of] them were absolutely top-notch and super-accessible and friendly.” 

Tianyu, along with the rest of the group in attendance, also had the chance to see an innovative project in the works by IBM: artificial intelligence generating movie trailers.

“An example of a recent artificial intelligence research project is generating movie trailers automatically using machine learning algorithms,” Tianyu explained. “After training a couple of movies with label data, the program can generate a trailer automatically, within one day. This approach saves the cost of producing a trailer. Through this example, I could certainly see the real implementation of supervised learning solutions, and how artificial intelligence can impact the business.”  

Andreea Cotoranu, Assistant Dean of Academic Innovation at Pace University, highlighted how grateful she and her students were for the field trip opportunity.

 “The Seidenberg School is grateful for its dedicated adjunct faculty, especially Professor Stephan Barabasi, as well as for the passionate and generous team at the IBM Research Center for continuing to facilitate collaboration and discussion on key research topics and promote continued learning within the Seidenberg faculty and student body,” she said.

The IBM trip was another fantastic learning experience provided by the Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems. Keep your eyes peeled for future events with major technology companies!

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ICYMI: The Seidenberg Tech Leadership Series Fall 2018

There was an exciting lineup at Pace University’s Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems on both the New York City and Westchester campuses during Fall 2018: the Tech Leadership Series! The speakers at the events ranged from the Seidenberg School’s benefactor himself – Ivan Seidenberg – to the chief information officer at Cadillac, Lesley Ma. Students had the opportunity to hear from industry professionals over the duration of the semester. Here’s a recap ICYMI:

Jeff Coffin, “Embedded Linux: What the Heck is it?”

On Oct. 25, Jeff Coffin spoke at the New York City campus at 163 William Street. The Software and Systems Engineer at AJA Video Systems, Inc. appeared in conversation with his daughter, Seidenberg student Charlotte Coffin, to chat about embedded linux (and what the heck it is). Students had the opportunity to speak with Jeff about his many years of experience in the technology industry and network with him as well.

Ivan Seidenberg, “Verizon Untethered: An Insider’s Story of Innovation and Disruption”

The next event took place at the New York City campus on Nov. 8, and this was an exclusive event for all Seidenberg students. Mr. Ivan Seidenberg himself was at the Seidenberg Lounge for a discussion on his book detailing his tenure at Verizon. The former Chairman and CEO of the telecommunications company spoke on the topic titled, “Verizon Untethered: An Insider’s Story of Innovation and Disruption.” The first students at the event had the opportunity to receive a copy of his book.
Peggy Yao, Tech Collective Lunch & Learn: Mindfulness for Professional & Personal Success

On Wednesday, November 14, the Westchester campus hosted the third segment of the leadership series at Goldstein Academic Center. Special guest, Peggy Yao, spoke about mindfulness at the Seidenberg Tech Collective meeting. Mindfulness is a topic not often associated with the technology industry. Students were able to learn tips for a more mindful outlook, network with Peggy, and – as always – enjoy lunch on us.

Lesley Ma, Global Chief Information Officer for Cadillac

On Tuesday, November 27, the Global Chief Information Officer (CIO) for Cadillac at General Motors, Lesley Ma, spoke at the New York City campus. Lesley shared her experiences as a leader at a global firm and fielded questions from students about her career so far. Students received plenty of tips and advice about marketing themselves for cool opportunities and got to network with an industry superstar. We were so excited to present our students with this great opportunity to network and learn from an industry leader.

Merin Joseph, WESTMED Practice Partners and WESTMED Medical Group

The next event in the series was on November 28 at the Westchester campus. Series speaker, Merin Joseph, gave insider experience from her position as Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer at WESTMED Practice Partners and WESTMED Medical Group. Students joined in on this event to get networking experience and tips on how to succeed in their chosen fields. Merin shared a wealth of knowledge earned throughout an exciting career.

Daniel Barchi, Chief Information Officer for New York-Presbyterian Hospital

On Wednesday, December 12, the Chief Information Officer of NewYork-Presbyterian, Daniel Barchi, spoke on the New York City campus for a discussion and networking session with students. We were happy to present our students with this great opportunity to network and learn from an industry leader in the medical and technological fields. Daniel gave a frank and fascinating recounting of his experience as a leader in a dynamic industry, including some exciting stories about narrowly avoided crises.
Did you attend any of our events? We’d love to hear what you thought – and if you have any suggestions on who to invite next, give us a shout in the comments or on social media!

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