东北大学Khoury计算机与信息科学学院博士赢得著名的NSF奖学金！-新东方前途出国

　　The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) – the oldest graduate fellowship of its kind – recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees. Notable recipients include numerous Nobel Prize winners as well as Google founder Sergey Brin and the U.S. Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu. Added to the list of recent fellows is Laura South, a Ph.D. candidate studying data visualization at the Khoury College of Computer Sciences. 

　　NSF研究生奖学金计划（GRFP）是最古老的研究生奖学金，它承认并支持NSF的优秀研究生，支持科学、技术、工程和数学学科，以追求研究为主的硕士和博士学位。著名的获奖者包括众多诺贝尔奖得主以及谷歌创始人Sergey Brin和美国能源部长Steven Chu。在最近的研究员名单中，Laura South 一位博士研究生，他在东北大学Khoury计算机与信息科学学院学习数据可视化。

 

　　Professor Michelle Borkin, South’s advisor, played a significant role in encouraging South to apply for the fellowship. “She also helped me revise my application and consider the logistics of my proposed research plan,” South explains. “It was very helpful to have a more experienced researcher on hand to answer my questions and give feedback on my work.” 

　　South的顾问 Michelle Borkin教授在鼓励South申请奖学金方面发挥了重要作用。“她还帮助我修改了我的申请，并考虑了我提出的研究计划的后勤安排，”South解释说。“有一位更有经验的研究人员来回答我的问题，并对我的工作给予反馈，这非常有帮助。”

 

　　South received her notification email on the fellowship early in the morning; it was the first thing she saw when she woke up. She went straight to a scheduled meeting with Borkin who “was thrilled” by the news. South describes the moment: “Everyone in my lab was so kind and congratulated me on receiving the fellowship.” 

　　一大早，South就收到了一封关于奖学金的通知邮件；这是她醒来后第一眼看到的东西。她直接去了一个预定的会议与博尔金谁“兴奋”的消息。South描述了这一刻：“我实验室里的每个人都很友好，祝贺我获得了奖学金。”

 

　　South works in data visualization, specifically studying computer science and data science’s effects on how humans share information, as well as artificial intelligence’s effects on society, especially in marginalized communities. She plans to use the fellowship to further her study of computer vision, helping to make computers view things the way humans view them. 

　　South致力于数据可视化，特别是研究计算机科学和数据科学对人类共享信息的影响，以及人工智能对社会的影响，特别是在边缘化社区。她计划利用这个奖学金来进一步研究计算机视觉，帮助计算机以人类的方式看待事物。

 

　　One focus is identifying media that could pose harm to photo-sensitive conditions including epilepsy, such as a set of patterns in a video that could be a risk for a seizure. She came up with the idea when she heard about someone being sent a GIF by a Twitter direct message to deliberately trigger a photo-sensitive seizure. She likes the idea that her research “could directly help real people, something that can be hard to find in the deeply technical field.” 

　　其中一个重点是识别可能对包括癫痫在内的光敏感条件造成损害的媒体，例如视频中可能有癫痫发作风险的一组模式。当她听说有人通过twitter直接发送gif信息故意引发照片敏感型癫痫发作时，她想到了这个主意。她喜欢这样一种观点，即她的研究“可以直接帮助真实的人，这在深入的技术领域是很难找到的。”

 

　　Originally from Arvada, Colorado, South graduated from Colorado State University (CS and Statistics) in 2018 and began her Ph.D. program at Northeastern the same year. “Coming from a small town,” she says of Boston, “there’s just so much going on – universities in the area with cool speakers, workshops and activities. I go and sit in on lectures in the music department and law school for example. It’s wild that I can walk down the street and be in a different world class university.” 

　　South来自科罗拉多Arvada，毕业于科罗拉多州立大学（CS和统计）2018，并于同年东北部开始博士研究生课程。“来自一个小镇，”她在谈到波士顿时说，“那里正在进行很多事情——大学里有很酷的演讲者、研讨会和活动。我去听音乐系和法学院的讲座。我可以走在街上，在一所不同的世界一流大学里，真是太疯狂了。”

 

　　As an undergrad at CSU, South began her work by identifying photosensitive risk factors for her undergraduate honors thesis. She wrote a Python program that took in GIFs frame by frame, and detected flashes, stripes, as well as reviewing a bunch of medical papers that touched on what factors cause a photo-sensitive harm. Her NSF-funded work will build on this initial work, specifically involving “automatically detecting photosensitive risk factors in online media and taking steps to protect users with photosensitivity from those hazardous elements so they don’t suffer from seizures or other symptoms.” 

　　作为CSU的本科生，South 开始了她的工作，为她的本科荣誉论文确定了光敏危险因素。她编写了一个python程序，一帧接一帧地接收gifs，并检测到闪光、条纹，还查看了一堆涉及哪些因素会导致对照片敏感的伤害的医学论文。她的NSF资助的工作将建立在这项初步工作的基础上，具体包括“自动检测在线媒体中的光敏危险因素，并采取措施保护光敏用户免受这些危险因素的影响，使他们不会出现癫痫发作或其他症状。”

 

　　Since she has just finished the first year of her Ph.D. program, South isn’t entirely sure what her dissertation topic will be, but she stresses that she “would love to incorporate my NSF fellowship work with photosensitive epilepsy in online environments into my dissertation in some way.” 

　　由于她刚完成博士学位的第一年，South并不完全确定她的论文主题是什么，但她强调她“很愿意以某种方式将我的NSF在线环境中与光敏性癫痫相关的研究工作纳入我的论文中。”

 

　　She continues, “I will be starting the machine learning approach in the fall when I begin the fellowship.” In the past, she took a rule-based approach, but “now I will use machine learning which has the potential to be far more effective.” 

　　她继续说，“我将在秋季开始奖学金时开始机器学习方法。”过去，她采取基于规则的方法，但“现在我将使用机器学习，它有可能更有效。”

 

　　She is currently working on a way to visualize political debates. Debates, she says, “affect everyone and the way power is achieved in debates, but the way we expose ourselves to them is watching them live. That’s not something everyone has the time and ability to watch. I use technology to make debates more accessible and highlight the issues interesting to people who are affected by the outcomes of political debates but might not have the time to really delve deep to understand debates.” 

　　她目前正在研究一种将政治辩论形象化的方法。她说，辩论“影响着每个人，影响着辩论中权力的实现方式，但我们让自己暴露在辩论中的方式就是观看他们的现场直播。不是每个人都有时间和能力去看的。我使用技术使辩论更容易进行，并强调那些受政治辩论结果影响但可能没有时间深入研究了解辩论的人感兴趣的问题。”

 

　　Since she loves interacting with students, South hopes to continue in academia after receiving her Ph.D., with her ideal position offering a balance between research and teaching responsibilities. “If anything,” she says, “the fellowship has strengthened my desire to continue with my research in an academic setting! 

　　由于她喜欢与学生互动，South希望在获得博士学位后继续在学术界学习，她的理想职位在研究和教学责任之间提供平衡。“如果说有什么，”她说，“奖学金加强了我在学术环境下继续研究的愿望！

 

　　如需进一步了解，或有任何相关疑问，欢迎在线咨询留学专家。如果您对自己是否适合留学还有疑虑，欢迎参与前途出国免费评估，以便给您进行准确定位。