Making the most of the virtual REU program
Claire Weissman’s experience in the CS&E REU program improved her research skills and led to her first published poster and recognition at VIS 2020.
The circumstances of 2020 caused many students to modify their summer plans. Claire Weissman, a sophomore from Whitman College, a liberal arts school in Walla Walla, Washington, was hoping to spend the summer in Minneapolis, doing research as part of the summer REU program at the University of Minnesota.
Weissman fell in love with computer science by taking an AP course during high school, and was excited at the chance to be a student researcher in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering’s Interactive Visualization Lab with associate professor Dan Keefe over the summer.
“I really wanted to get a look into what grad school would be like, in order to determine if it was something I want to pursue,” said Claire. “I was also born and raised in Saint Paul, so I wanted to work with the University of Minnesota. I read the project descriptions on the REU website and was immediately drawn in by the research going on in Professor Keefe's lab and wanted to learn more.”
When the summer REU program was adapted to a remote experience, she was able to virtually conduct research with the IV/Lab. Weissman spent the first few weeks getting acquainted and reading recent research publications from the lab. Then, Bridger Herman, a Ph.D. student, shared some things the team had been wanting to implement in their artifact based rendering (ABR) system, and allowed Claire to choose her own direction.
“I really liked the idea of creating legends for the visualizations the ABR software can create, since I am a scientist AND an artist, and I understand how important a legend can be to understanding a map or visualization,” Weissman shared.
She continued to work with and be mentored by Herman, and grow her skills as a programmer and researcher. “We were able to get so much farther over the summer because of Claire’s eagerness to attack both high-level and detailed facets of the project,” said Herman.
In fact, as a result of her enthusiasm and superior work, Professor Keefe talked to Claire about submitting her work for the IEEE VIS 2020 Poster Program, and they decided to go for it.
For Weissman, the process of writing the extended abstract and designing her first research poster ended up being the highlight of the summer. The poster for her project, “Automatic Generation of Data Legends for 3D Multi-Variate Artist Driven Visualizations”, was accepted for VIS 2020 and during the conference, won the SciVis Best Poster Research Award.
“To see the student research that came out of the summer REU program receive this recognition from our top international conference is just fantastic,” shared associate professor Daniel F. Keefe, the director of the I/V Lab. “This is a wonderful recognition of Claire's work, the mentoring from Bridger and the rest of our students, and the department's commitment to providing student research opportunities, even when the going gets tough.”
The REU experience solidified her desire to attend graduate school and continue with the research track.
<“After I finish my degree at Whitman, I fully intend to get my Ph.D. in computer science. After that, all I know is that I want to do something that uses computer science as a tool to spread creativity and make people's lives easier.”
She would encourage any other student considering the REU program to go ahead and apply.
“It is a fantastic way to spend a summer and it is really fun!” Claire lauded. “It was amazing to work with so many brilliant minds and to see what people can produce when multiple different disciplines are coming together. I loved learning from people who were well versed in their field and passionate about what they were doing.”