CI Compass Fellowship: Empowering Undergraduates Through Hands-On Experience with OOI

By Amber Stronk | August 26, 2024 |

The CI Compass Fellowship Program (CICF), funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), is a key initiative for NSF CI Compass to provide undergraduate students with hands-on experience in cyberinfrastructure and data-intensive research.

CICF hosts a 12-week virtual Spring Program where students are taught skills they would utilize in a cyberinfrastructure career at an NSF Major of Mid-scale Facility. Students can then apply for the Summer Program, which places a limited number of students in hands-on cyberinfrastructure projects at collaborating NSF Major Facilities.

CI Compass Fellows Cailin, Connor, and Palina, earned internships at the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) this summer.

Nicole Virdone, Project Manager and Director of Outreach for CI Compass, emphasizes that the program’s goal is to offer real-world experience by placing students in internships with major scientific projects like the OOI. “It’s crucial for students to gain practical skills that prepare them for the complexities of professional research environments,” she says.

Through the CI Compass Fellowship, students work directly on projects that support the OOI’s mission, applying their academic knowledge to real-world challenges.

Summer Internships with OOI Included:

Cailin, a Computer Science major at Villanova University, worked to create a professional dashboard using WordPress, HTML, CSS, and Beaver Builder. The project involved developing a centralized hub where users could access a calendar and view key datasets. By integrating data from Google Sheets via an API, Cailin ensured real-time updates were displayed in tables and charts. The result was a clean, responsive, and functional tool that enhanced the user experience, combining web development with effective data integration.
Palina, a Computer Science major at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, worked on two projects with OOI. In the first project, she gathered and organized data from various programs, including OOI, NEON, ONC, and AOOS and complied it in Jupyter Notebooks, aligning the data by matching sampling rates and timestamps. In the second project, Palina analyzed how data trends over time related to El Niño and La Niña events allowing her to apply her research and data analysis skills while gaining a deeper understanding of environmental events.
Connor, a Computer Science major at Ball State University, worked primarily on computer vision projects. One of his main tasks was automating the summarization of over 46,000 videos captured by OOI’s cameras. He developed a method to select 9 key frames from each video to represent its overall content. He created a pipeline to identify blank frames for annotation, helping to streamline and organize the data.

Virdone highlights the program’s success in attracting a diverse group of students, “We’ve seen incredible growth and interest in the program, particularly from underrepresented students in computer science,” she explains. “The impact on these students is clear – they’re gaining experiences that will shape their careers in STEM.”

The CI Compass Fellowship Program not only enriches students’ education but also brings fresh perspectives and technical skills to the OOI. “Mentorship and matching students with the right projects based on their interests and skill levels are key priorities for us,” said Virdone.

Jeffrey Glatstein, Senior Manager of Cyberinfrastructure at OOI emphasizes the impact of the student’s contributions, “The students’ innovative approaches and fresh perspectives have led to tangible impacts in our data management and workflows. It’s a win-win; they gain hands-on experience, and we benefit from their enthusiasm and skill.”

As the CI Compass Fellowship Program continues to grow, it remains an important experience for developing the next generation of scientists and researchers.

Learn more about the CI Compass Fellowship Program by visiting the CI Compass website.

For those interested in the application process of the program, please visit the CI Compass Fellowship Program’s Application process webpage.

CI Compass Fellow Cailin stands with Matthew Palanza (L), OOI Lead Systems Engineer and Jeffrey Glatstein (R), Senior Manager of Cyberinfrastructure at OOI.