Moncrief Undergraduate Interns Present and Reflect at Poster Session

After 10 weeks of diving into the new frontier of computational sciences and engineering at the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, undergraduate interns from across the country had the opportunity to present the results of their research at the Moncrief Undergraduate Internship Program’s poster session. 

The poster session on August 10, provided interns with an opportunity to communicate their research to both their faculty mentors and peers, as well as Institute postdoctoral researchers. Following the culmination of a summer of hard work, the session was followed by a reception to celebrate and reflect on their accomplishments.

Caroline Brutocao, a psychobiology major at UCLA, worked under Michael Sacks, Toni West, and Robin Tuscher at the Willerson Center for Cardiovascular Modelling and Simulation to develop a “numerical method to calculate the volume of deposited collagen in aortic heart valve cells.” She hopes that her algorithms can be applied to a range of aortic valve cells in future studies, expanding the understanding of heart function. After presenting her work, Caroline noted that the summer had been intellectually stimulating, yet unforgettable. "I'm encouraged to have faith in, and push myself harder than I thought I could.”

While Caroline’s work applied computational science to human biology, Kevin Han, a computational physics and math major supervised by Robert Moser, Deputy Direcotor at the Institute, used machine learning to enhance our understanding of fluid turbulence. He presented his poster, titled “Neural Networks in Solving the Reynolds Stress Transport Equations for Anisotropic Turbulence,” at the session. "It was a fullfilling experience to learn about computational science in other disciplines from my colleagues at the Oden Institute," he reflected.

Meanwhile, Akhil Sadam, a computational engineering major here at UT Austin, delved into creating “memory based deep-learning architectures for global weather forecasting.” Supervised by Institute core faculy Tan Bui-Thanh, Akhil sought to improve the accuracy and cost-effectiveness of weather forecasting while braving an intense Texas summer. 

While the 2023 Moncrief Interns explored a wide variety of fields, Akhil found a throughline uniting all of their projects. “All of the interns worked on some sort of machine learning, despite the varied projects and disciplines,” he noted. 

These common threads make the Moncrief Intern experience at the Oden Institute unique, creating an intertwined yet interdisciplinary research environment that allows students to grow and learn together while simultaneously specializing in their fields. 

The Moncrief Undergraduate Summer Internship Program is organized to provide summer support for qualified undergraduate students of mathematics, science, and engineering to work within the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences during the summer months. Students seeking more information about the program or how to apply can follow this link.