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Computer Science

Student Research Projects

Many students complete independent research projects in computer science under the supervision of a facultuy member. Often these are undertaken over the summer, or they may be completed during the academic year as a special studies or honors thesis. Funding for these projects comes from a variety of sources. If you are a student interested in working on a research project, it is best to speak as soon as possible to the faculty member you wish to work with.

Below is a list of some recent student projects. Since 2008 students have also documented their research project on the departmental Wiki pages. Click on the links (where available) to find more information on each project, or write to the student or advisor.

Name Year Topic
Tiffany Liu Fall 2011 Circuit Design on FPGA using VHDL
Jennie Sadler Fall 2011 Distance Transfor on a GPU
Emma Dalton 2010-11 Writer Identification for Syriac Scribes
Julia Burns Summer 2011 Syriac Handwriting Recognition
Bismita Sahu Summer 2011 Exploring the Kinect
Andrea Bancila Summer 2011 Syriac Document Database Project
Katie Park, Julia Patterson Spring 2011 3D Animation
Betsy Cowdery, Lindsey Gregor, Aigerim Karabekova Spring 2011 Smith Walks!
Julia Burch Spring 2011 Mobile and Locative Computing
Steph Annessi, Katie Lipow, Hiwot Kassaye, Morgan Augillard Spring 2011 Solid-Coloring Objects Built from 3D Bricks
Millie Walsh, Janet Guo, Julia Burch Fall 2010 General Programming on GPU
Katie Park, RB Axtell Fall 2010 3D Animation
Aliyah Bilal-Gore, Katherine Starer 2010-11 Socially Aware Computing and Intelligent Garments
Yang Li 2010-11 Fixing Gaps in Protein Data Using Inverse Kinematics
Angela Tosca 2010-11 Limits of Computation under the Turing Machine Model
Elizabeth Do 2010-11 Analytics and Art
Alex Cheng, Angela Zhu, Kaitlin Sumers, Gillian Riggs, Becca Mackley, RB Axgtell, Makana Hirose Spring 2010 The Sundial Project
Yonit Boursany, Leah Karker, Leona Sparaco Spring 2010 Sweeping Shapes
Nikki Maller Spring 2010 Speech Bubbles
Kelly Dwan Spring 2009 3D Visualization of 2D Brain Scans
Allie Bellew 2007-08 Wikipedia, the untold story
Clarissa Chan 2007-08 Transcribing Medieval Latin Manuscripts
Tessa Taylor 2007-08 Transcribing Medieval Latin Manuscripts
Sara Smith 2006-07 Science of Computer Games
Hallie Applebaum 2006-07 Human Motion Studies
Krystal Collier 2006-07 Evaluating Human Motion
Lauren Kvalheim Summer 2006 Motion capture
Stephanie Gibbons Summer 2006 Genetic Algorithms for Pose Optimization
Jordan Crouser Summer 2006 Genetic Algorithms for Pose Optimization
Constance Baltera Summer 2006 Bayes and HMM nets and Pd
Sara Smith Summer 2006 Pd's Gem and motion observation algorithms
Frances Bell 2005-06 A startup model for a campus textbook action Web-based business
Nadia Benbernou 2005-06 The MaxSpan of Fixed-Angle Polygonal Chains
Gillian Brunet 2005-06 Random Rhomboid Objects
Natalie Krumdieck 2005-06 Random Rhomboid Objects
Rebecca Tramel 2005-06 Random Rhomboid Objects
Jacob Last (UMass) Summer 2005 Reinforcement Learning and Granular Sound
Gillian Brunet Summer 2005 3D Printing and 3D Modelling
Samri Gebre Summer 2005 Protein Folding and 3D Printing
Stephanie Jakus Summer 2005 D-Forms and the Knight's Visor
Diana Larry Summer 2005 3D Printing and 3D Modelling
Duc Nguyen Summer 2005 D-Forms and the Knight's Visor
Nell O'Rourke Summer 2005 Pop-up Cards as a Vehicle to Teach Mathematics
Ana Spasova Summer 2005 Pop-up Cards as a Vehicle to Teach Mathematics
Faith Weller Summer 2005 Pop-up Cards as a Vehicle to Teach Mathematics
Meghan Irving 2004-05 3D Printing
Patricia Cahn 2004-05 Unfolding Dome Polyhedra
Gail Parsloe, UMass 2004-05 Pop-up card design
Meldoy Donoso Summer/Fall 2004 Reinforcement Learning and Rhythm Improvisation
Gretchen Miller Summer 2004 Genetic Algorithms for Beat Scheduling
Krystal Locke Summer 2004 Recurrent Neural Networks for Melody Prediction
Tam Le Summer 2004 Clustering Algorithms in Python
Bethany Andres-Beck Summer 2004 3D Appearance models of Human Subjects
Clarissa Padilla Summer 2004 Annotating Human Activity
Gail Parsloe Summer 2004 Web page design; Generating random brick objects.
Patricia Cahn Summer 2004 Unfolding smooth convex objects: cones & prismatoids.
Nadia Benbernou Summer 2004 Unfolding smooth convex objects: cones & prismatoids.
Molly Miller Summer 2004 Models of locked cylindrical links; vertex unfolding toy.
Meghan Irving Summer 2004 Models of locked cylindrical links; vertex unfolding toy.
Aye Thuzar Summer 2003 Interactive Java applet for polyhedron unfolding
Christina Ferreri Summer 2003 Java applets and Illustrator figures
Sasha Berkoff Summer 2003 Mathematica design of objects built from bricks
Kristin Baldassaro Summer 2003 Web page design with php and MySql
Asten Buckles Summer 2003 Javaview for objects built from bricks
Jinghau Fan Summer 2003 Interactive Java applet for polyhedron unfolding
Jessica McCartney Summer 2003 Pantographs to Pop-ups: The Engineering of Folding
Shawna King Summer 2003 Pantographs to Pop-ups: The Engineering of Folding
Megan Guberski Summer 2002 Back Propagation Neural Network Development
Melissa Utzinger Summer 2002 Efficient Architecture of Artificial Neural Networks
Liz Laverty Summer 2002 Hardware Interfaces and Software Tools for Computer Music
Heather Dyson Summer 2002 The Foldings of a Square to Convex Polyhedra
Emily Zaehring Summer 2002 Vertex-Unfolding: Virtual and Physical Implementation
Becky Alexander Summer 2002 The Foldings of a Square to Convex Polyhedra
Sonya Nikolova Summer 2002 Vertex-Unfolding: Virtual and Physical Implementation
Melody Donoso Summer 2002 Constructing Polyhedra from Restricted Faces
Beenish Chaudry Summer 2002 The Discrete Sliding Conjecture
Monta Lertpachin Summer 2002 3D Graphics Illustrating the Geometry of Polyhedra
Michiko Charley Summer 2002 3D Graphics Illustrating the Geometry of Polyhedra
Veronica Morales Summer 2001 RTcmix for Linux
Amanda Toop Summer 2001 Display of Vertex-Unfolding Algorithm
Allison Baird Summer 2001 Geodesic Center of Doubly-Covered Triangles
Dessislava Michaylova Summer 2001 Vertex-Unfolding, Etc.
Eleanor Farrington Summer 2001 Mathematica and Convexifying Polygons
Melody Donoso Summer 2001 Polymake Etc.
Veronica Morales Summer 2000 Cauchy's Arm Lemma
Katya Rykovanova Summer 2000 Translation of Aleksandrov from the Russian
Naomi Fox Summer 2000 Computing oriented matroid information from planar point sets
Victoria Manfredi Summer 2000 Duality Visualization Tool: I
Christine Rice Summer 2000 Duality Visualization Tool: II
Katherine Sinclair Summer 2000 Experiments with the Pioneer robot
Elif Tosun Summer 2000 Maxwell's Theorem on planar self-stressed graphs
Rosy Fynn Summer 2000 Programming Lego Robots in RSX, NQC and RoboLab: a comparative study
Shana Negin Summer 2000 Granular and Algorithmic Synthesis of Sound
Geetika Tewari Summer 2000 A Policy-aware shortest path algorithm for the Internet
Beenish Chaudry Summer 2000 On Inferring the Autonomous System Relationships in the Internet
Biliana Kaneva Summer 1999 Shortest paths on convex polytopes
Sorina Chircu Summer 1999 Locked Protein-Like Chains
Irena Pashchenko Summer 1999 Two-hand Dissections of Orthogonal Polygons
Geetika Tewari Summer 1999 A Java software tool for oriented matroids
Elif Tosun Summer 1999 Visualization of Oriented Matroids
Biliana Kaneva Summer 1998 Reconstructing polytopes via Cauchy rigidity: I
Octavia Petrovici Summer 1998 Reconstructing polytopes via Cauchy rigidity: II
Irena Pashchenko Summer 1998 On stabbing and visibility graphs
Alexandra Fedorova Summer 1998 Exploring Alternative Ways of Internet Routing: IP Multicast
Biliana Kaneva Summer 1997 Algorithm animation in Java
Biliana Kaneva Summer 1997 Generating a brain scan of the Pentium processor
Elizabeth Abram &
Chen Xiao
Summer 1996 Application of Grayson's Theorem to polygon morphing
Rene Landrum Summer 1996 System setup and geometry software installation on gargoyle
Chen Xiao Summer 1996 Some polyhedra are irreducible
Dianna Xu Summer 1996 Shortest paths on the surface of a polytope
Heather Alef Summer 1995 X-Windows visibility graph exploring tool
Jorjeta Jetcheva Summer 1995 Comput. geometry and C prog'ing for different environments
Chen Xiao Summer 1995 Reducing simple polygons in X-windows
Dianna Xu Summer 1995 Shortest paths on the surface of a polytope
Tamala Dirlam Summer 1994 When can a polygon be moved through a doorway?
Eszter Hargittai Summer 1994 Analysis of a database of female computer scientists
Amy Josefczyk Summer 1994 Unfolding polyhedra without overlap
Junheng Luo Summer 1994 Chaotic patterns in paging behavior in memory
Jessica Miller &
Amy Josefczyk
Summer 1994 Box visibility graphs
Dianna Xu Summer 1994 Polygon illumination with 90 deg floodlights
Rachel Beck Summer 1993 Graphic representations of chaotic memory access patterns with Mathematica
Alberta Hadaway Summer 1993 A measure of similarity between shapes
Amy Hoff Summer 1993 Cryptograms in the Chinese Room: taking on Searle, syntax, and semantics
Nandini Natarajan Summer 1993 Matching chaotic memory access patterns to computer performance
Susan Niemitz Summer 1993 Chalmers on consciousness
Jennifer Shattuck Summer 1993 A critique of Putnam's Theorem
Sharon Solms Summer 1993 Tracking geodesics on surfaces
Wendy Welsh Summer 1993 Reconstruction from slices
Carole Gitlin Summer 1992 Reconstruction of polyhedra from parallel slices
Sramana Mitra Summer 1992 A user-transparent debugging tool for transputer-based multiprocessor systems
Jennifer Rippel Summer 1992 Hamiltonian cycles in segment visibility graphs
Sharon Solms Summer 1992 Database searching of technical information via email and the Internet
Sharmilli Ghosh Summer 1991 Three-dimensional graphics in Mathematica
Jennifer Green Summer 1991 Computing shortest paths on a polytope
Jennifer Rippel Summer 1991 The structure of visibility graphs
Sharon Solms Summer 1991 Integrating text and graphics
Vinita Subramanian Summer 1991 Reconstruction from parallel slices
Mandira Virmani Summer 1991 Generating random polygons