Undergraduate Students, High-School Students, Courses Offered
Undergraduate Students
Summer Undergraduate Student Opportunity
The Center for Domain-Specific Computing (CDSC) at UCLA welcomes undergraduate students to participate in its research programs. Multiple summer research fellowships are available for summer 2014, which provide:
- Financial support — $5000 stipend for working full-time in summer 2014
- CS 199 course credit for Spring 2014 (the student will begin reading and project preparation)
Priority will be given to sophomores and juniors with a GPA of 3.33 and above. The students are responsible for their own housing and living expenses during the summer.
The applicants need to provide the following:
- Resume
- Statement of research interest ( = 500 words)
- Transcript
Please go to CDSC website at www.cdsc.ucla.edu and select “Education” on top menu to view more info.
If interested, please email your application to Alexandra Luong at alexl@cs.ucla.edu by Feb 25, 2014.
In addition, CDSC is partnering with the FOCUS program (The Frontier Opportunities in Computing for Underrepresented Students) to engage underrepresented students. If you are a student in the FOCUS program, you may indicate this in your application (this is optional).
List of possible research areas/topics:
- Application Drivers
- Medical imaging
- Computer vision
- Augmented reality
- Genomics
- Microarchitectural simulation
- Parallel programming
- Customized computing (using FPGAs and other reconfigurable architectures)
- Domain specific languages
- Compilers for heterogeneous and customizable computing
- Efficient runtime and operating systems (for multi-core heterogeneous systems)
Feedback from Undergraduate Interns from 2014
Timothy Brightbill
My time at the CDSC allowed me to befriend and work with many talented and skilled people. I learned a lot this summer and was able to contribute to research and future projects studying efficient computer architectures. I am glad to have been given this opportunity to expand my knowledge and experience in computer science.
Shadi Mohagheghi
Participation in the CDSC summer internship was a great experience for me. I had the opportunity to apply many of the concepts learned in previous classes to real-world problems, and acquire a much deeper vision of those topics. Some of the advanced subjects learned in upper division engineering classes seem quite abstract to the students unless they apply them as a solution in a research lab, and the CDSC program made that possible. The supervising graduate students in the High Speed Electronics Lab were so helpful and generous in sharing their vast knowledge with me. The program also helped me become more familiar with the challenges and responsibilities of researchers and to prepare myself for conducting research in the graduate school.
Feedback from Undergraduate Interns from 2011
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Working at the CDSC this past summer has been an amazing experience. I have learned a great deal about the challenges and benefits of participating in academic research, and have thoroughly enjoyed contributing to the project. I strongly believe that my programming and critical thinking skills have improved because of this experience. I found the research topic challenging and exciting and hope to make further contributions in the field – Sara Achour |
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The CDSC summer internship was, without a doubt, the most educational, fun, and challenging thing I have done at UCLA, and probably so far in my life. My summer could not have been spent on something more valuable – Steven Weiss |
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Overall it has been a great honor and pleasure for me to work at CDSC at UCLA. I thank the professors and staff for making this all possible. It was a wonderful experience. I was very happy to have all these new friends – Yunming Zhang |
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This summer with the CDSC has been a unique experience that provided me with knowledge and insight that I know will be useful in the coming years. I’m very glad I was given such a valuable opportunity – Kevin Takeshita |
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During my internship at CDSC I learned many valuable real world skills. I was able to use the knowledge that I had learned in my studies. While working on my project I also was taught many new skills that are not attainable through coursework alone. I am very grateful that I was able to work for CDSC this summer – Brian Garfinkel |
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This CDSC summer internship was one of the most valuable experiences that I would not be able to get from other schools or companies. In this summer, I worked on two different fields: parallel programming and RFI analog design. This summer internship experiences in two different fields were truly valuable and enlightening. I truly thank CDSC group for providing this great opportunity –Jeonggoo Song |
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Interning at CDSC this summer has definitely been a valuable learning experience for me. My project in the application domain of hemodynamic flow simulation gave me a taste of multidisciplinary research in computer science and computational fluid dynamics. In addition, I had the opportunity to meet exceptional faculty, graduate students, and fellow interns, all of whom worked on different exciting projects that together contributed to the progress of CDSC – Christine Kuo |
Feedback from Undergraduate Interns from 2010
We hosted six undergraduate summer interns in the summer of 2010, here is what some of them had to say about their experience with us:
Working in the CDSC’s application group was quite a different than the internships I had before–It was much more multidisciplinary. I got to work with students and professors from the Medical Imaging Informatics group, the Applied Mathematics and also the Computer Science department. Even without domain knowledge on medical imaging, students and professors are more than willing to get me up to speed and allow me to contribute. I learned a lot about the roles of each discipline, and also new technical skills that I could put on my resume.
Gene Auyeung (4th Year in Computer Science)
The internship has been great! I had the chance to work on many real projects, including implementing Simics module that models the hardware accelerator that runs IDCT. This kind of hands-on experience is extremely valuable to my engineering career.
Tim Hsieh (4th Year in Computer Science)
It was an extremely interesting experience. I learned a lot from my Professor and felt very accomplished with the work I had done at the end of the summer.
Wade Norris (3rd Year in Computer Science)
Working at the CDSC was a very fulfilling and enjoyable experience. I was given the freedom to pursue my own research interests while gaining valuable insight from esteemed faculty across the country. This was my first experience with academic research and I’m very glad I was given the opportunity to contribute.
Advait Shinde (3rd Year in Computer Science)
CDSC summer internship was a challenging and rewarding experience. I gained valuable hands on experience in an environment that required teamwork. The lab keeps everyone up to date on the progress of others, and you never feel like you don’t know what your work will be used for. I was never afraid to ask questions, and individual contributions outside of your assigned tasks were always encouraged.
George Torres (5th Year in Computer Science)
Working with the CDSC was a great experience allowing me to translate classroom theory into practical application.
Gabriel Virbila (4th Year in Computer Science)
High-School Students
CDSC also welcomes participation of high-school students during the summers. CDSC is partnering with the SMARTS program (Science Mathematics Achievement and Research Technology for Students Program) managed by the UCLA Center for Excellence in Engineering and Diversity (CEED). Please contact the SMARTS program for application (please indicate your interest in participating the CDSC research programs).
High School Student Feedback for CDSC-Summer 2015
Audrey Pham
My summer internship at CDSC was an eye opening experience as well as a great one. I had the opportunity to learn and explore many real world applications of computer science. It was amazing to learn that programming could aid in advances in the medical field such as dealing with cancer. It was also a great opportunity to apply what I had previously learned in biology and math courses to my graduate student’s research project. Thank you CDSC for this great opportunity.
High School Student Feedback for CDSC-Summer 2014
Emily Chang
This past summer I was offered the incredible opportunity of working with graduate students, as well as a professor and mentor to explore the field of computer science. During this internship I was discovered ways to segment MR Images to reduce computation time and improve prostate cancer detection. It was an interesting way to learn the applications of computer science, which I had never learned in my AP Computer Science course in school. This internship definitely revived my interest in computer science, as I explored the field from an entirely different perspective. The support and guidance we received from our mentors was incredible, and everything we achieved during this program would not have been possible without them. It was a pleasure meeting and befriending so many incredible individuals, while also learning so much.
High School Student Feedbacks for CDSC-Summer 2011
Feedback from Ashley Collins:
“The whole experience was great. I realized my love for computers this summer and I want to major in Computer Science orComputer Engineering. Meeting with the professors was an eye-opening experience, a little intimidating but helpful.
Feedback from David Carranza:
“My experience doing research with CDSC was simply amazing. I enjoyed working side by side with a graduate student and I really liked seeing how Computer Science is applied in the real world. The experiences and knowledge I gained from this are invaluable.”
Feedback from Sierra Henderson:
“I have learned so much from my research with CDSC. My mentors were very friendly, patient, and eager to share their knowledge with me and my research partners. What I loved the most was discovering that the world of computer programming is open to anyone.”
High School Student Feedbacks for CDSC-Summer 2010
Feedback from Megha Manjunath/UCSB:
“Interning at UCSB as part of the Apprentice Researchers program was a fabulous experience that I’m sure will be very valuable to me in the future. I have learned a lot from the University lab environment and that has definitely helped me make several decisions regarding my future after high school. Additionally, working with grad students was a fun and engaging experience, I’m glad I didn’t miss!”
Feedback from Fannie Martinez/UCLA:
“CDSC was an interesting experience, challenging but very rewarding. As being part of their High School research program, through SMARTS, it was a privilege to work with professors and other graduate students. We got to work with other high school students to reach a common goal; without one another I don’t believe this experience would have been as beneficial as it was. I learned so much and it was truly an amazing experience to work with CDSC for my summer research.”
Feedback from Ekaterina Shkrabova/UCLA:
“CDSC has provided an incredible and unique opportunity for us as high school students to research and work with professional code that’s part of a truly useful and interesting program, something high schoolers rarely are exposed to. We learned not just what it’s like having a Computer Science major in college, but how real-life programming projects are developed, and it was an enlightening experience.”
Feedback from Larry Osakwe/UCLA
“The internship was a pretty interesting experience. Even with such little experience in computer science, I was given the opportunity to learn and complete my task. I learned a lot, and enjoyed working with others in the same field.”
Feedback from Eric Cooper/UCLA
“Working in the lab on denoising a medical image was exciting, informative, and fun. I met and worked with a lot of great people and look forward to using the knowledge that I gained about C Programming.”
Courses Offered by CDSC Faculties
Fall 2010, “Math 273 Optimization and Calculus of Variations“, Luminita Vese
Fall 2010, “Image Processing Seminar“, Luminita Vese
Winter 2011, “Architectures and Compilation for Domain-Specific Computing“, Jason Cong
Winter 2011, “Smartphones: Hardware Platform, Software Development, and Applications“, Tim Cheng
Spring 2011, “Introduction to Medical Image Processing using CnC”, Alex Bui