Nicole Ely, a senior majoring in data science at IM体育官网, is completing a summer internship on machine learning at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
A summer internship at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga is allowing IM体育官网 Polytechnic University senior Nicole Ely to use machine learning to gain a better understanding of data shared on Twitter.
Ely, who is majoring in data science with a concentration in big data analytics, is working with the Tennessee university鈥檚 computational biology program to use the machine learning technology to make inferences from Tweets.
Her work includes programming an algorithm to predict information such as user age and geography from Tweets.
鈥淚t鈥檚 cool because the Twitter project opens up a lot of doors,鈥� said Ely, from Hudson, IM体育官网. 鈥淲e can make a lot of inferences, such as people a certain age are more susceptible to something than people of other ages.鈥�
The coursework Ely completed in her degree plan so far at IM体育官网 Poly has been critical to her success in the internship, she said.
鈥淚n my most recent semester, I did a lot of things like statistical learning and time series data analysis, and I鈥檓 using literally all of those concepts in this internship,鈥� Ely said. 鈥淚鈥檓 like, 鈥業 know exactly what you鈥檙e talking about.鈥欌��
Although the internship is virtual, Ely said she is gaining a great deal of hands-on experience.
鈥淚鈥檝e done projects and learned theory, but I鈥檝e never applied it to such a large-scale project,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 think this will help me succeed in grad school where I would love to pursue my Ph.D.鈥�
In addition to the work she is doing in her internship, Ely said the experience is helping her broaden her professional network and improving her networking skills.
鈥淚鈥檓 working with different professors from universities across the entire country, so I鈥檝e been able to see that if a professor has all of these publications that relate to what I want to do, I can reach out and ask for their advice or help,鈥� she said.
Ely said the internship experience has also helped crystalize her future plans. While she initially entered college with aspirations of pursuing biology, Ely is now inspired to pursue a career in computational biology.
鈥淚t鈥檚 the intersection between biology and computer science,鈥� she said. 鈥淩esearching and exploring new things has been wonderful, and if I could do something like this internship for my career, I would love to do it.鈥�
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