Alina Y.

Alina is a senior at the Harker School and is deeply passionate about computer science and its societal applications. She has taken numerous challenging courses to fully immerse herself in computing, such as AP CS A, Data Structures, Computer Architecture, and Advanced Topics in Compilers and Interpreters. Additionally, she has undertaken multiple projects involving machine learning. In one project, she helped code an image processing model that identifies areas of the eye that are linked to nearsightedness. In another Astrophysics project, Alina and her partner researched and discovered new earth size exoplanets in Kepler data using a novel GPU fast folding method and a deep learning model. The project won Honorable Mention in RRI Physical Science and Engineering Category, and also the Special Award: Patch and Certificate, SETI Institute, both in the 2021 Synopsys Science and Technology Championship. She now works on a research project to use deep learning techniques to analyze a new unique hierarchical trinary system, which she discovered in Kepler Survey Data. With regards to this specific type of trinary, the hierarchical compact triples, there are only 26 other systems like it. Her research has been selected for presentation at the 2021 Sigma Xi Annual Meeting and Student Research Conference. She knows that she will attend college for both undergraduate and masters degrees delving into applications of tech to improve everyday life for the general public. Alina is also extremely passionate about education, so she would like to create technology that can improve the learning experience for diverse learners. She is a National Merit Scholarship finalist.