I am currently a
Computer Science PhD candidate at the
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, defending my dissertation proposal on September 10, 2009.
I am working in Hava Siegelmann's Biocomputation lab, known as BINDS.
I was funded by a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Fellowship from September 2006 through August 2009, was a Google Anita Borg Scholarship winner in 2006, and a Verizon Rising Star Scholarship winner in 2007.
I received my Bachelor's degree from Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State
University (Virginia Tech), in Computer Science in May of 2005.
During Fall 2009 I am a TA for the undergraduate AI class, CS383. For information on my office hours, please see the class wiki (link to be added soon).
My research interests are based in biologically inspired computations,
specifically as they can be related to artificial intelligence. I am currently
working on projects including agent communication as inspired by tumor biology,
and a simulation of tumor growth that examines methods to counteract it. I am also working on an emotion-driven real-time strategic AI for a multi-player game, to determine how emotion can be used in AI decision making.
I also worked with Ramesh Sitaraman for my synthesis project, which was related to modeling cancer-like systems mathematically.
My personal interests include volleyball, tennis, fencing (sabre), art,
website design, music, hiking, and the usual CS major video games. I also enjoy photography; to see a few of my photos you can visit
my photo blog.
In the fall I follow college football, specifically my alma mater (Go Hokies!). If you are interested to learn more about me
personally, my website is
NorthernBelle.net.
To learn more about me professionally, please visit the
Resume or
Publications page on this website.
