Matthew Eichhorn, a junior from Williamsville, NY, who is double majoring in Mathematics and Computer Science, has won our second Math Summer Scholarship. Matt is highly involved in the Math Department, participating in competitions including the Putnam exam and the Rochester Math Olympiad. Additionally, he has served as an undergraduate teaching assistant for both MTH 141 and MTH 241, as well as a tutor in the Thomas J. Edwards Undergraduate Learning Center, which assists students with material ranging from algebra and trigonometry through MTH 142.
The scholarship provides the opportunity for Matt to study theory and applications of machine learning under the guidance of Dr. John Ringland. The primary application will be designing and using deep convolutional neural networks to analyze Google Street View imagery from rural Thailand, with the ultimate goal of determining how farming practices, especially small-scale residential horticulture, are related to the food-security and health of the population.
The annual undergraduate research award, established at UB in 2017, as a result of a scholarship endowment by The Summer Math Foundation, Inc. of Amherst, New York. The endowment supports a six week, full-time summer program for the selected undergraduate student to work with a UB Math faculty mentor, which includes a $3000 stipend.