Efosa Omorogieva, a third-year computer science and engineering major at UC Merced, spent her summer using data to help transform items such as stalks and husks leftover after harvest into usable products for rural communities.
Omorogieva interned at technology startup Takachar as a member of the third cohort of the CITRIS Workforce Innovation Program, a workforce development effort funded by the state of California and led by the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society and the Banatao Institute (CITRIS).
Her goal was to detect and remove irregularities in the output data of various machines used for processing biomass.
Although her career goals lie in machine learning and artificial intelligence, she was excited to grapple with intense data analysis this summer instead.
"To me, engineering is all about solving a problem that you don't understand 100%, and I like the challenge of figuring it out and the reward of finding an answer," she said.
Facing many unfamiliar concepts, Omorogieva found it important to speak up to her supervisor on the difficulties she experienced and her areas of strength, especially as the project became increasingly complex.
"This internship helped me grow both professionally and personally," she said. "I've learned the importance of putting yourself out there, whether you're scared or excited."
Other students in the cohort tackled challenges such as adjusting a machine learning algorithm to better detect diseases in biological samples, writing a program that can make sense of diverse data sources and strategies for dealing with a regional shortage of an important chemical needed for experiments.
Read about the summer internship program here.
