Intern of the Week: Varshini Rao
Check out Varshini's internship!
Name: Varshini Rao
Pronouns: she/her
Semester of Internship: Summer 2023
Major: Computer/Information Technology
Current Class Level: Master’s Student
This semester I completed a(n)...: Internship
Internship, Co-op, or Research Site (Company/Organization Name): Constellation Energy
Location of the Organization (City, State): Baltimore, Maryland
Title of position: Summer intern in AMP-IT. Front-end developer and data analyst.
Tell us about your internship, co-op, or research opportunity, including your day-to-day responsibilities:
During my internship, I was tasked with analyzing user usage patterns on a specific webpage, with the goal of enhancing the user experience through interface improvements. My day-to-day responsibilities primarily revolved around understanding user behavior, ideating potential UI changes, and implementing these improvements.
I started by collecting and analyzing data on how users interacted with the webpage, identifying pain points, and areas that needed improvement. I then brainstormed ideas to make the webpage more user-friendly, focusing on easier navigation and comfortable browsing, including efficient result filtering.
One of my key tasks was to create a mock-up presentation that showcased the proposed UI changes. To ensure that the changes would align with the needs of the end-users, I arranged meetings with both the IT and business teams. These teams were the primary users of the webpage, and their input was crucial in the decision-making process.
During these meetings, I presented my ideas and mock-ups, seeking feedback and insights from the teams. Through collaboration and open communication, we collectively shortlisted upgrades that resonated with both teams.
Once the changes were approved, I leveraged my front-end UI development skills to implement these modifications to the webpage. This phase involved coding in HTML, CSS, Javascript, and C# to bring the proposed improvements to life.
In summary, my internship experience was a dynamic process of data analysis, ideation, collaboration, and hands-on implementation. It provided me with a comprehensive understanding of user-centric design and the importance of bridging the gap between technical and business teams to create effective solutions.
Describe the process of obtaining your position. When did you hear of the position and submit your application?
I looked through internship openings on numerous platforms until I found this one on the company's website, where I then submitted my application. They looked over my application and invited me in for an interview.
What resources did you use to find your current experience?
LinkedIn or other social media
What have you enjoyed the most about your position and organization?
What I've enjoyed most about my position and the organization is the opportunity to make a tangible impact. Being entrusted with the task of analyzing user habits and improving the webpage's interface has been incredibly rewarding. It's fulfilling to see how small changes can lead to a smoother and more enjoyable user experience.
Moreover, the collaborative environment within the organization has been a standout aspect. Working closely with both the IT and business teams allowed me to gain insights from diverse perspectives. The open exchange of ideas and feedback fostered a sense of camaraderie, making the entire process not only productive but also enjoyable.
Overall, the combination of meaningful work and a supportive organizational culture has made my internship experience both enriching and fulfilling.
How do you believe you have made an impact through your work?
I believe I've made a meaningful impact through my work by enhancing the user experience of the webpage. By analyzing user habits and implementing user-friendly interface changes, I have contributed to making the web page more accessible and efficient for its users. This has likely led to increased user satisfaction, improved navigation, and a smoother browsing experience.
Moreover, by actively involving both the IT and business teams in the decision-making process, I've helped bridge the gap between technical and non-technical stakeholders. This collaborative approach not only ensured that the changes met the actual needs of the end-users but also fostered better communication and understanding between different departments within the organization.
In summary, I believe my work has contributed to improving user satisfaction and facilitating effective cross-team collaboration, ultimately making a positive impact on the organization as a whole.
What advice would you give to another student who is seeking an internship or similar experience?
I would offer the following advice to a fellow student seeking an internship or similar experience:
- Start Early: Begin your internship search well in advance. Many organizations have application deadlines, and the competition can be fierce. Starting early allows you to explore a wider range of opportunities.
- Research Thoroughly: Understand the industry and companies you're interested in. Research their culture, values, and the type of work they do. Tailor your applications to align with their specific needs and mission.
- Build a Strong Resume and Cover Letter: Your resume and cover letter are your first impression. Make sure they are well-structured, highlight relevant skills and experiences, and are tailored to the internship you're applying for.
- Stay Professional: Once you secure an internship, maintain professionalism. Be punctual, take initiative, communicate effectively, and seek opportunities to learn and contribute.
- Be Open-Minded: Be open to internships that might not seem directly related to your major. Skills like communication, teamwork, and problem-solving are transferable and valuable in any field.
Please provide a short reflection or quote about what you liked most about your position / earning internship credit / working with the Career Center.
Working with the Career Center was a game-changer for me. It's where I discovered the power of guidance and support in shaping my career path. The insights and resources they provided helped me land my dream internship, where I honed my skills and gained real-world experience. The best part was seeing how classroom learning seamlessly blended with hands-on work. It reaffirmed my belief that education meets its true purpose when it bridges the gap between theory and practice. My journey wouldn't have been this rewarding without the Career Center's unwavering assistance. They transformed ambition into achievement.
Do you want the chance to be the next Intern of the Week? Fill out this form to be considered!
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Name: Varshini Rao Pronouns: she/her Semester of Internship: Summer 2023 Major: Computer/Information Technology Current Class Level: Master’s Student This semester I completed...
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Career Center
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Mon, 25 Sep 2023 12:30:36 -0400
Between Women
First meeting in a while!
UMBC Women's Center welcomes back discussion-based group Between Women. First meeting will be taking place on Monday, September 25th at 4pm-5pm.
Description: Between Women is a discussion-based program that centers the experience of students who identify themselves on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum/femme.
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First meeting in a while! UMBC Women's Center welcomes back discussion-based group Between Women. First meeting will be taking place on Monday, September 25th at 4pm-5pm. Description:...
Flyer
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Women's, Gender, & Equity Center
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Sun, 24 Sep 2023 12:56:22 -0400
Upcoming Student Org Tabling Opportunity with OCSS
Looking for new members? Sign up to table at our org fair!
Off-campus students, including transfers, commuters, adult learners, and veterans, often miss out on the benefits of being involved in on-campus student organizations. To help bridge this gap, Off-Campus Student Services is holding an Organization Fair on Wednesday, October 18th to bring student organizations together and give off-campus students an opportunity to meet and learn about your organizations. The aim is to spark their interest and encourage them to become more involved beyond academics.
If your organization is interested in participating in this event, please complete the form provided by 11:59 pm on September 30th. Further details will be provided once the form is submitted.
Event Information
Name: Off-Campus Student Services Organization Fair
Date: 10/18/2023
Time: 5:30-7:00pm
Theme: Halloween
Location: The Commons, Main Street (across from the book store)
Person of Contact: Demetrius McGuffin; d198@umbc.edu
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Off-campus students, including transfers, commuters, adult learners, and veterans, often miss out on the benefits of being involved in on-campus student organizations. To help bridge this gap,...
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Commuter Connections
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Fri, 22 Sep 2023 13:08:47 -0400
Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month
Celebration, Upcoming Events, & More!
September 15th to October 15th is National Hispanic Heritage Month. Throughout this time, i3b, UMBC and country celebrates the important contributions, heritage, and culture of all Hispanic and Latinos in the United States.
Honoring our Hispanic/Latin(e/x) community and their influence on our country, we recognize culture and traditions that have shaped all of our communities. We impart to all at UMBC to partake in understanding and uplifting the stories, experiences, passions, love, and history of our Hispanic/Latin(e/x) community. Hispanic Heritage Month further celebrates the traditions, cultures, families, love, and service all Hispanic and Latin(e/x) folks.
History of Hispanic Heritage Month
Beginning on September 15th, Hispanic Heritage Month celebrates the anniversary of independence of the Latin American countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, dating back to 1968. Additionally, Mexico, Chile, and Belize also celebrate their independence days during this period with Día de la Raza on October 12th.
The term Hispanic, referring to the racial and ethnic groups of folks from hisphanophone (Spanish Speaking) countries, that were historically colonized by Spain. This term is inclusive to those of Spanish origin. The term Latino, excludes Spain, but includes non-Spanish speaking Latin American countries such as Belize, Brazil, Guyana, and Haiti. Some folks may have ethnic roots from Latin America, and may use either, neither, or both Hispanic and/or Latino.
In the month of September and October, i3b is partnering on events in celebration of our Hispanic/Latin(e/x) communities.
Bachata / Salsa Night
Friday, September 29th in The Commons, Mainstreet in front of the bookstore, join us for Bachata / Salsa Night! Come join all of our partners to learn how to salsa and bachata. Don't know how to dance? That is completely alright! We will have an instructor and a local performance during the event.
Want to learn more about events, exhibits, and other exciting experiences happening in the greater D.C. area?
Click here.
Due to available funding, we are able to continue accepting applications from graduate and undergraduate students for the elite
NSF CyberCorps: Scholarship For Service (SFS) Program. Applications will be reviewed and awards made on a rolling basis through 30 November so those interested are *strongly* encouraged to apply ASAP while funds are available. Awards can be made for the current semester!
SFS funding includes full-time tuition, fees, annual stipends of $27,000 (undergrad) to $37,000 (graduate), and generous professional development funds for equipment, training, conferences, etc. After graduation, SFS Scholars must work for the US government in a cybersecurity role for each year of funding received. USA citizenship or permanent residency required - MINIMUM GPA of 3.00 needed.
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Due to available funding, we are able to continue accepting applications from graduate and undergraduate students for the elite NSF CyberCorps: Scholarship For Service (SFS) Program. Applications...
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Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
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Fri, 22 Sep 2023 11:14:38 -0400
Gym Day!
Gym Day is today! Hope to see you at the RAC at 7!
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Gym Day is today! Hope to see you at the RAC at 7!
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CWIT Student Council
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CWIT Student Council
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Thu, 21 Sep 2023 15:36:36 -0400
Talk: Alternative Perspectives on Cyber Warfare 10/2
Monday 2 October 2023 7-8:15pm ET (online via Webex)
Alternative Perspectives on Cyber Warfare
Dr. Rain Ottis
Associate Professor, Tallinn University of Technology
Monday 2 Oct. 2023 7-8:15pm ET (online via WebEx)
UMBC's CYBR program and the UMBC Center for Cybersecurity welcomes Dr. Rain Ottis for a virtual lecture/discussion about cybersecurity and cyber warfare! Estonia is one of the global centers of cyber with the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE) located in Tallinn. Dr. Ottis' remarks will explore and foster discussion on cyber warfare issues by approaching and framing them from alternative and/or non-Western perspectives. Such contexts can provide valuable insight given the global nature of cyber warfare and especially Estonia's close proximity to Russia and the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Dr. Rain Ottis is the Director of the Centre for Digital Forensics and Cyber Security in Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia. From 2008 to 2012, he served as a scientist at the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, where he worked on cyber security in the context of national and international security. Prior to that assignment he served as a communications officer in the Estonian Defence Forces, focusing primarily on cyber defense training and awareness. His research interests include cyber conflict, national cyber security, cyber defence exercises, and the role of serious games in cyber security.
Dr. Ottis holds a PhD in Computer Science from Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech), MSc in Engineering Informatics from TalTech, and a BS in Computer Science from the United States Military Academy at West Point.
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Alternative Perspectives on Cyber Warfare Dr. Rain Ottis Associate Professor, Tallinn University of Technology Monday 2 Oct. 2023 7-8:15pm ET (online via WebEx) UMBC's CYBR program and...
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Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
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Thu, 21 Sep 2023 11:42:28 -0400
Thu, 28 Sep 2023 17:57:41 -0400
UMBC ranks among the best in undergraduate resesarch
#27 in U.S. News and World Report
UMBC continues to show its strengths in undergraduate research, innovation, value, teaching programs, and several other areas highlighted in the 2023–24 U.S. News and World Report Best Colleges undergraduate rankings. This year, the university moved up in the national rankings in numerous categories, showcasing UMBC’s growth in several key areas.
The 2023–24 U.S. News college rankings, released today, were calculated using 19 key measures of academic quality, evaluating nearly 1,500 four-year bachelor’s degree-granting institutions in the country. For the second consecutive year, UMBC has moved up several slots on the list of Best National Universities (tied at #133). UMBC also climbed 38 slots in the category of best value schools, coming in at #69 nationally.
The university remains a leader in undergraduate teaching programs, ranking #12 nationally. UMBC also maintains its longstanding position as one of the nation’s most innovative universities, ranking #15 this year.
Since receiving a Research 1 Carnegie designation in 2022, UMBC has advanced nearly 20 slots in the undergraduate research and creative projects rankings, now nationally ranked at #27. Those research efforts culminated in UMBC students receiving prestigious Goldwater and Gates Cambridge scholarship awards within the last year.
“This impressive jump shows that internal and external stakeholders have really taken notice of the incredible work that our undergraduates are engaged in,” says April Householder ’95, visual and performing arts, UMBC’s director of undergraduate research and prestigious scholarships. “The faculty and staff at UMBC nurture a culture of research across all disciplines, supporting academic excellence from the humanities to the sciences.”
See the full UMBC News story here: https://umbc.edu/stories/us-news-best-colleges-2023-24/
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UMBC continues to show its strengths in undergraduate research, innovation, value, teaching programs, and several other areas highlighted in the 2023–24 U.S. News and World Report Best Colleges...
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Undergraduate Research
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Tue, 19 Sep 2023 12:14:32 -0400
Data Science Talk, Thr. Sept. 28, 6-7:00pm ET, ITE 110
by Dr. Darin Johnson
Speaker: Dr. Darin Johnson
Date: September 28, 2023
Time: 6 p.m. - 7 p.m. ET
Room: ITE 110
Title: Detecting DNS Tunnelling using Behavioral and Content Features.
Abstract: DNS Tunneling is a method of encoding information into DNS queries and responses to enable communications between a client and a server. Open source proof of concept examples include Iodine (Schouten) and DNSCat ("iagox86/dnscat2"). Malware can use DNS Tunneling for Command and Control as in recent cases such as DNS Anchor (Dahan) and Saitama (Stockley). Complicating matters are DNS Blocklists which follow or in some cases don't follow RFC 5782 ("RFC 5782 - DNS Blacklists and Whitelists") but are used for generally benign use cases. As a potential vector for C2 and exfiltration, DNS tunneling is important for enterprises and the security industry to detect and counter. There is extensive literature using pattern matching, cache misses, and machine learning to detect DNS tunnels.Infoblox's previous work in this field included "Behavior Analysis based DNS Tunneling Detection and Classification with Big Data Technologies" (Yu, et al.). In this talk, we describe new work emphasizing a reduction in false positives. To achieve this, we introduce several new features, including using the autoencoder reconstruction loss of a DNS query which to our knowledge has not been used in the literature. We do an in-depth analysis of feature importance, show that several features in previous models were redundant, and show the newly added features improve decision performance. We also show that using DNS Block lists as a proxy for a labeled dataset can pick up additional tunnels such as DNSCat and Iodine.
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Speaker: Dr. Darin Johnson Date: September 28, 2023 Time: 6 p.m. - 7 p.m. ET Room: ITE 110 Title: Detecting DNS Tunnelling using Behavioral and Content Features. Abstract: DNS Tunneling is a...
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Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
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Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
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Tue, 19 Sep 2023 09:39:10 -0400
Mon, 25 Sep 2023 10:53:17 -0400
talk: Privacy in ML/AI in Smart Environments, 2-3pm Tue 9/19
ITE 325b ITE, UMBC
IEEE Sponsored Event
Bringing Privacy into the Picture: New Optimization Goals for ML/AI in Smart Environments
University of Central Florida
2:00-3:00pm ET, Tuesday, Sept 19, 2023
ITE 325b ITE, UMBC
check back for online link
Smart assistive environments adapt to the needs and preferences of disabled or elderly users who need help with the activities of daily living. However, the needs and requests of users vary greatly, both due to personal preferences and type of disability. As handcrafting an environment is prohibitively expensive, in recent years significant research was done in systems that use machine learning to create a predictive model of the user. Machine learning, however, typically requires large amounts of data. A stand-alone smart environment, however, only has access to the data collected from its user since it was deployed. A possible solution is to perform centralized, cloud-based learning by pooling the training data collected from multiple users. However, uploading data collected from the personal habits of elderly and disabled users creates significant security and privacy concerns.
In this talk, we investigate the type of data sharing necessary for learning user models in smart environments and propose several novel considerations. We point out that data sharing is only ethical if the user derives a benefit from it. This implies that the decision to share data must be periodically revisited, it is not a commitment extending indefinitely in the future. We study the data sharing decisions made by users under several machine learning frameworks: local, cloud, and federated learning. We show that most users only benefit from data sharing for a limited interval after the deployment of the system. We also investigate machine learning techniques that predict whether the user will benefit from sharing the data before the data is shared.
Damla Turgut is Charles Millican Professor and Chair of Computer Science at the University of Central Florida (UCF). She is the co-director of the
AI Things Laboratory. She held visiting researcher positions at the University of Rome ``La Sapienza'', Imperial College of London, and KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. Her research interests include wireless ad hoc, sensor, underwater, vehicular, and social networks, edge/cloud computing, smart cities, smart grids, IoT-enabled healthcare and augmented reality, as well as considerations of privacy in the Internet of Things. Dr. Turgut serves on several editorial boards and program committees of prestigious ACM and IEEE journals and conferences. Her most recent honors include the NCWIT 2021 Mentoring Award for Undergraduate Research (MAUR), the UCF Research Incentive Award, and the UCF Women of Distinction Award. Since 2019, she serves as the N2Women Board Co-Chair where she co-leads the activities of the N2Women Board in supporting female researchers in the fields of networking and communications. She is an IEEE ComSoc Distinguished Lecturer, IEEE Senior Member, ACM Senior Member, the Chair of the IEEE Technical Committee on Social Networks, and the Chair of the IEEE Technical Community on Computer Communications (TCCC).
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IEEE Sponsored Event Bringing Privacy into the Picture: New Optimization Goals for ML/AI in Smart Environments Dr. Damla Turgut University of Central Florida 2:00-3:00pm ET, Tuesday,...
https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/374300
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Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
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Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
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Mon, 18 Sep 2023 16:43:47 -0400
