Student Conference Participation

HRUMC / Festival of Science / CCSCNE

The majority of our students present research at conferences. We take a large contingent of students every year to the Hudson River Undergraduate Mathematics Conference in April.  Many individuals also present their work at the Festival of Science. Our computer science students regularly attend programming competitions as well as the annual CCSCNE Conference.  A sample of recent student participation in additional conferences appears below. Of course, our faculty regularly make professional presentations at conferences all over the world. Consult the faculty directory and faculty web pages for more information on faculty conference participation.

Recent Student Conference Participation:

Statistics Students, Faculty and Alums Attend Sports Analytics Conference November 11.  In attendance were Hope Donoghue ’24 a Data Science major and captain of the SLU women’s soccer team, Shane Hauck ’23 a Data Science graduate and former captain of the SLU men’s soccer team who is enrolled in the Applied Data Science Master’s program at CMU, AJ Dykstra ’22 who is currently the Assistant Director of the Peterson Quantitative Resource Center at SLU, Professor of Statistics Robin Lock, and Professor of Statistics Michael Schuckers.

Five past and current members of the St. Lawrence University (SLU) Mathematics, Computer Science and Statistics Department attended the 2023 Carnegie Mellon Sports Analytics Conference in Pittsburgh, PA on November 11th.  The conference “is an annual event dedicated to highlighting the latest sports research from the statistics and data science community.“  The SLU attendees were there to attend the conference as well as to collaborate with colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and other institutions on the SCORE Network which is a National Science Foundation funded project.
 

Three St. Lawrence University students attended the annual International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC), which took place on Oct. 29 at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Sponsored by IBM, the ICPC is an annual multi-tiered competitive programming competition among the universities of the world. The contest started at Texas A & M in 1970 and has spread to include branches and chapters throughout the world. A team of St. Lawrence students JJ Ignac ’27, Tim Kashkarov ’26, and Alisa Krakhofer ’26 was among 27 teams, including teams from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Siena College, and Union College. All teams spent five hours working to solve twelve challenging problems. Ignac, Kashkarov, and Krakhofer earned the 18th place.

Three members of the Math, Computer Science, and Statistics Department participated in the Joint Statistics Meetings in Washington, DC in early August 2022.  Patti Frazer Lock organized and chaired an invited panel of ten experts talking on increasing opportunities for undergraduates in statistics and data science.  The title of the panel was ”The Future of Innovation:  Encouraging Undergraduate Engagement in the Profession” 

 Robin Lock presented a talk on “Applications of Poisson Models for Rating Teams and Predicting Outcomes of Soccer Matches” which described joint work done with Brenden Bready ’22 on bivariate Poisson models for rating offensive and defensive abilities of soccer teams based on past league game results and predicting the outcomes of future matches.  

 As part of his senior year experience, Brenden created a Shiny app for downloading up to date match outcomes for the 25 different European soccer leagues, updating team ratings, forecasting future contests, tracking the accuracy of those predictions, and allowing for in game computation of event probabilities. 

 Brenden is now pursuing a graduate degree in Statistics at Virginia Tech. 

 Here is a picture of Dr. Robin Lock presenting his and Brenden’s work. 
 

 Professor Michael Schuckers also attended the conference and served as an elected officer for the Section on Statistics in Sports of the American Statistical Association.  He will be Program Chair for that section for 2023. 

 

• MCCNNY Conference - March 26, 2022 at Clarkson University.  Eduardo Puerta (’22) was awarded a “best speaker” prize for his presentation on his research exploring connections between knot theory and linear algebra at the Mathematics Contest and Competition of Northern New York (MCCNNY) on March 26^th, 2022.  Dr. Dan Look was attending faculty member.
  The purpose of MCCNNY is to foster collaborations within the Associated Colleges of the St. Lawrence Valley, provide career, REU, and graduate school information, and to celebrate the success of mathematics students.
   
• MCCNNY Conference – February 29, 2020 at Clarkson University. Attending were faculty members Dr. Dan Look, Dr. Ed Harcourt and Dr. Ivan Ramler along with the following students: Presenter: Xin Tao, Junior, Title: Building an All Voice Reminder. Presenter: Haojing Jia, Senior, Title: Creating a Statistical Model for Evaluating the Concentration of Smog in China. Presenter: Mairead Drake, Senior, Title: “The story so far”: Writing Styles, Authorship, and Naive Bayes. Presenter: Sky Ratcliffe, Junior, Title: An Expository Look into the Banach-Tarski Paradox. Presenter:Clare Jenkins, Senior, Title:Cops and Robbers on Graphs. Presenter:Kira Murphy, Senior, Title: Bears and Fish: A Variation of Cops and Robbers on Graphs. More information on the conference can be found here including the students abstracts.
   
• Statistics & Computer Science Student Presents at Virtual Statistics Conference, Nov. 2020. Siyuan (Tom) Zhang ’22 presented a virtual poster about his research at the 2020 Electronic Undergraduate Statistics Research Conference.Tom, a Statistics and Computer Science double major from Beijing, China, presented a 5-minute video, titled “Investigating the Most Effective Card-Upgrade Strategy in Clash Royale” which was based on research conducted with his mentor, Associate Professor of Statistics Ivan Ramler, as part of his SLU Fellowship project. The Electronic Undergraduate Statistics Research Conference (eUSR), which runs each fall, is a free online conference where undergraduate statistics & data science students present their work, learn more about careers in statistics & data science, and acquire valuable information about applying to, and succeeding in, graduate school.

• Recent Grad’s Research Earns Second Place at Stats Conference, Aug. 2020. Jacquelyn “Jackie” Garso ’20 and her research about the differences in shot selection between NWHL teams earned her a second-place finish in the Undergraduate Poster Competition in the Statistics in Sports Section of the American Statistical Association’s 2020 Joint Statistical Meetings’ Virtual Conference. Her poster, titled “Testing Spatial Distributions of Event/Shot Locations,” was based on research she conducted with her mentor, Charles A. Dana Professor of Statistics Michael Schuckers, as part of her senior thesis. Joint Statistical Meetings is one of the largest statistical events in the world with than 6,500 attendees, including 1,000 students, from 52 countries who attended the more than 600 sessions offered. Topics ranged from statistical applications to methodology and theory to the expanding boundaries of statistics, such as analytics and data science.

• Lexi Joy '19 and Professor Schuckers present at RIT, October 2019. Dr. Michael Schuckers gave a talk at the Rochester Institute of Technology Sports Analytics Conference October 2019, which was an extension of the senior thesis of Lexi Joy '19. Lexi was a double major in Fine Arts and Statistics and her thesis was an investigation of some data visualization methods. The talk, A New Perspective on NHL Shot Mapping, is available here.

• Student, Faculty Present at Education Conference, April 5, 2019. Emily Casey-Wagemaker '19 presented her research during a poster presentation at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference, held in Toronto. Her presentation was based on a paper, titled "Deconstructing discipline: A mixed methods analysis of disciplinary policies in New York State’s Capital District," that Casey-Wagemaker co-wrote with Associate Professor of Mathematics Daniel Look and Assistant Professor of Education Jessica Sierk. The paper was based on current data, which show large disparities in disciplinary actions experienced by students of color as opposed to their white classmates. Discourse and policy language in school codes of conduct can reflect the endemic nature of racism in society, which, in turn, negatively impacts students of color. Utilizing statistical, sentiment, and critical discourse analysis, this mixed methods research provides a more complex view of the impact of policy on the disproportionality of discipline in schools. This research examines how racism and classism interact with discipline in schools and how this contributes to high dropout rates and the school-to-prison pipeline. Founded in 1916, AERA is a national research society that strives to advance knowledge about education, to encourage scholarly inquiry related to education, and to promote the use of research to improve education and serve the public good Casey-Wagemaker presented during the Critical Educators for Social Justice special interest group poster session.

• Students attend the MAA Seaway Section Spring Meeting at St. John Fisher, April 2019. The following student represented SLU. Travis Marnell - "How Math is Solving the Issue of Gerrymandering", Francisco Rodriguez-Tineo -" Prison Gerrymandering", Xizhao (Amber) Liu - " Robinson or Doyle? Authorship attribution", Nicholas Lynn -  "How to Pick a Winner",  Cameron Dehais -  "Nickelodeon Fan Polls under Various Voting Methods", Seongwon (Ryan) Im -  "Are There Racist Soccer Referees", Connor Fulk -  "Racial Bias in US Prison Sentencing", Eliza Oliver - "Using the Prisoner’s Dilemma to Understand Prejudice", Emily Viehl - "Creating a Content Based Book Recommendation System".

• Students take 1st & 2nd Place Presenting in MCCNNY, Oct. 2018. The MCCNNY (Mathematics Competition and Conference of Northern New York) was held Saturday, October 27, 2018 at Clarkson University. First Place winner in the poster session was Emily Casey-Wagemaker SLU Senior, Mathematics and Spanish Double with Education Minor. Advisor: Dr. Daniel Look, Title: “Racism, classism, and education policy: A mixed methods analysis of disciplinary policies in the Greater Capital District of New York State” Second Place winner in the poster session was Emily Viehl SLU Senior, Statistics. Advisor: Dr. Ivan Ramler, Title: “Creating a Book Recommendation System for Project Gutenberg”

• Students attend Sports Analytics Conference, Oct. 2018.  Dr. Michael Schuckers and five students attended a conference in Pittsburgh, PA.  They went to the Carnegie Mellon University Sports Analytics Conference.  Students included were Gabe Cronish, Seongwon Im, Nevaan Perara, Darren Ricalton and Gordon White. All of the students are members of the SLU Sports Analytics Club and Dr. Schuckers is one of the advisors for the club.    
   
• St.Lawrence hosted the Seaway Section Meeting of the Mathematical Association of America on November 6-7, 2015. Dozens of students attended and helped run the conference and four students (Janelle Fredericks, Nanjiang Liu, Scarlett Qi, and Son Vuong) gave presentations on their research.
• On January 4 – 7,2012 six faculty members and four students gave presentations at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Boston.  SLU Professors Dan Look, Patti Lock, Robin Lock, Duncan Melville, Michael Schuckers, and Sam Vandervelde gave talks. Student Lauren Stemler gave a talk titled “Representations of Graphs Modulo N. Students”,  Cassidy Griffin, Richard Powell, and Brendan Gorman gave a poster presentation titled “Obtainability of Strong Orientations: Creating an Efficient Network of One-Way Streets”.
• On September 4, 2011 ten attended a Mathematics Jeopardy contest: a team of 3 students; Sachi Hashimoto '14, Roelof Groenewald '14, and Hannah VanParys '12 and 5 students, Brynn Hagen '12, Sachi Hashimoto '14, Nancy Decker '11, Jim Curro '12, and John Goheen '12  presented their research.
• Associate Professor of Statistics Michael Schuckers and Lauren Brozowski '11 each gave presentations on their research at the Joint Statistical Meetings, which was held in Miami, July 2011 . Schuckers presented his research on the National Hockey League draft system and Brozowski presented work that the pair did, analyzing rates of penalties called in the NHL. Brozowski was a member of the St. Lawrence women's ice hockey team and earned her degree in mathematics.
• Several students attended a pre-conference workshop on developing mobile phone applications for CS0 using Google's mobile phone software, ANDRIOD.   Three of our students, Geoff Baum, Tansy Peplau, and Nancy Decker, participated in the CCSCNE programming contest and placed 12th out of 28 schools. 

Other Student Conference Participation

Computer Science Students Participate in the Annual ACM Programming Contest

Students Compete in ACM Programming Contest, March 6, 2021.

The annual ACM International Collegiate Programming Contests (ICPC) took place online this year due to the pandemic. Sponsored by IBM, the ICPC is an annual multi-tiered competitive programming competition among the universities of the world. The contest started at Texas A & M in 1970 and has spread to include branches and chapters throughout the world.

Kevin Caravelli ’22, Benjamin Heinze ’23, Cameron Kessler ’23, Kimberly Merchant ’22, Edward Smith ’23, and Siyuan Zhang ’22 participated in the North America Qualifier on February 11.

On March 6, Olivia Omar ’22 joined the returning five students (Benjamin Heinze ’23, Cameron Kessler ’23, Kimberly Merchant ’22, Edward Smith ’23, and Siyuan Zhang ’22) to participate in the Northeast North America Regional Contest. Java++ (Kimberly, Olivia, Siyuan) and SLU Team 6 (Benjamin, Cameron, Edward) were among 44 teams who spent five hours to solve 18 challenging problems. Java++ and SLU Team 6 earned the 26th and 36th places, respectively.

Students Compete in the Preliminary ACM Programming Contest, Oct. 26, 2019     

Nine St. Lawrence University computer science students attended the annual ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC), which took place on Oct. 26 at Hamilton College. Sponsored by IBM, the ICPC is an annual multi-tiered competitive programming competition among the universities of the world. The contest started at Texas A & M in 1970 and has spread to include branches and chapters throughout the world. St. Lawrence students Peixuan Cai '21, Xuanming Cui '20, Ruoya Ding '21, Joshua Epstein '20, Timothy Jones '20, Jack Pattison '20, Jonas Peek '20, Xin Tao '21, and Sai Wei '20 were among fifteen teams, including teams from Hamilton College, Rochester Institute of Technology, Sienna College, and SUNY Oswego. All teams spent four hours working to solve eight challenging problems, and Jones, Pattison, and Peek earned the eighth place.

Students Take First Place in Local Programming Contest, Oct. 2018

 Six St. Lawrence University computer science and statistics students attended the annual ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC), which took place on Oct. 13 at Clarkson University.

Sponsored by IBM, the ICPC is an annual multi-tiered competitive programming competition among the universities of the world. The contest started at Texas A & M in 1970 and has spread to include branches and chapters throughout the world.

St. Lawrence students Guinevere Gilman '19 of Exeter, New Hampshire; Seongwon Im '19 of Seoul, South Korea; Yuexin Li '19 of Zhengzhou, China; Angelica Munyao '19 of Nairobi, Kenya; Matthijs van Mierlo '19 of Wallingford, Connecticut; and, Sai Wei '20 of Beijing, China, were among four teams, including two teams from Clarkson University.

All teams spent four hours working to solve seven challenging problems. Gilman, Munyao, and van Mierlo solved three problems, earning first place and qualifying to compete in the regional final at Rochester Institute of Technology on Nov. 10.

This is the second time that St. Lawrence University qualified for the regional final. In 2017, Xuanming Cui '20, Khang Le '19, and Yuexin Li '19 made up the first St. Lawrence team to qualify in the last 15 years.

3 Students Compete in the ACM Programming Contest Regional Final, Nov. 11, 2017

Three CS students (Xuanming Cui ('20), Khang Le ('19), Yuexin Li ('19)) went to Rochester Institute of Technology on Sat, Nov. 11 to participate in the annual ACM Programming Contest Regional Final. It is the first time St. Lawrence University qualified for the regional final in the last 15 years. Our team was one of the 17 teams from the Northeast North America region that are competing for one spot in the ACM Programming Contest World Final next April in Beijing, China. The teams were from Acadia University, Boston College, Dalhousie University, Hamilton College, Harvard University, McGill University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mount Allison University, Northeastern University, Plymouth State University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Siena College, St. Lawrence University, University of Rochester, University of Connecticut, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and University of New Brunswick Fredericton. The MIT team solved all nine problems securing the spot in the world final in Beijing.

The contest originally started at Texas A & M in 1970. It spread through North America and has branches and chapters throughout the world. “The contest fosters creativity, teamwork, and innovation in building new software programs, and enables students to test their ability to perform under pressure. Quite simply, it is the oldest, largest, and most prestigious programming contest in the world.”

6 Students attend Programming Contest at Clarkson University, Oct. 21, 2017

Six CS students went to Clarkson University on Sat, Oct. 21 to participate in the annual ACM Programming Contest. The contest originally started at Texas A & M in 1970. It spread through North America and has branches and chapters throughout the world. “The contest fosters creativity, teamwork, and innovation in building new software programs, and enables students to test their ability to perform under pressure. Quite simply, it is the oldest, largest, and most prestigious programming contest in the world.”

SLU A (Guinevere Gilman ('19), Nevaan Perera ('19), Matthijs van Mierlo ('19)) and SLU B (Xuanming Cui ('20), Khang Le ('19), Yuexin Li ('19)) were among 8 teams from three schools (Clarkson University, McGill University, St. Lawrence University), and all teams spent four hours working to solve seven challenging problems. SLU B solved two problems, earning 2nd place, while SLU A solved one problem, earning 7th place.

On Saturday, October 22, 2016 Dr. Choong-Soo Lee took eight computer science students to Clarkson University to participate in the annual ACM Programming Contest. The contest originally started at Texas A & M in 1970. It spread through North America and has branches and chapters throughout the world. “The contest fosters creativity, teamwork, and innovation in building new software programs, and enables students to test their ability to perform under pressure. Quite simply, it is the oldest, largest, and most prestigious programming contest in the world.” Khang Le ('19), Evan Page ('18), Taylor Pellerin ('17), Nevaan Perera ('19), Christopher Roy ('19), Madison Rusch ('17), Kaden Weaver ('17), and Yuxi Zhang ('18) were among 10 teams from schools including Clarkson University, Middlebury College, St. Lawrence University, and University of Vermont. All teams spent four hours working to solve six challenging problems. Christopher Roy ('19) and Madison Rusch ('17) solved two problems, earning 4th place at the site, while Nevaan Perera ('19), Kaden Weaver ('17), and Yuxi Zhang ('18) solved one problem, earning 6th place at the site.

• Lauren Stemler '12 • Receives a National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) at the Rochester Institute of Technology. She will be working on a graph theory project titled Vertex
• James Douglass  • DrupalCom Conference, San Francisco, CA, April 2010
• Two teams participated in the Computer Science Programming Competition, Potsdam, NY, March 2010
• Nancy Decker, Alex Fisher, David Tersegno • Math Jeopardy winners, St. Lawrence Valley Mathematics Symposium, Potsdam, NY, February 2010
• Melissa Rogers • Nebraska Undergraduate Conference for Women in Mathematics, Lincoln, NE, January 2010
• Jamie Perconti • “On Ramsey Numbers for Sets Avoiding Prescribed Differences”, Integers Research Conference, University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA, October 2009
• Andy Rampersaud • “Functional Impact of Single Amino Acid Variants of Natural Killer Cell Receptor KIR3DL1/S1”, National Cancer Institute, Frederick, MD, August 2009
• Adrienne Woodworth • “Combating Obesity Trends in Teenagers through Persuasive Mobile Technology”, UC-Santa Cruz, August 2009
• David Tersegno • "Detecting Atmospheric Nitrous Oxide Using a µm 4.54  Quantum Cascade Laser", MIRTHE, Princeton University, August 2009
• Thang Huynh • “Spectral Properties of an Octahedron and 3 Orthogonal Exponentials of a Disk”, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel, August 2009
• Tansy Peplau • "Hyperspectral Image Processing for Face Recognition", Montclair, NJ, August 2009
• Melissa Rogers • Carleton College Summer Mathematics Program for Women, July 2009