What challenges did he face?

• With certain foundation in computer science, Samvel would like to deep-dive into aspects of machine learning and learn advanced coding skills.
• Samvel had to overcome the limitations brought on by the newness of BCI (Brain-Computer Interface) systems application development.

How did our program help him?

• The program has proved to provide a new learning ground for Samvel, who learnt to use python and Jupyter notebook to reach his research goals and also to understand components of data visualization and applying to his datasets.
• The program was able to challenge him sufficiently and to work with a qualified professor on a research which he has been interested in for a long time.

Student’s testimonial

“Over the course of the last 8 weeks I believe that we (my mentor and I) have made great progress
towards developing a BCI (Brain computer interface) system. A brain-computer interface (BCI) is a
system that allows communication between a subject’s brain and a computer, without a device
requiring any physical movement, such as a keyboard.

One of the main applications of a BCI system is to help individuals with neurological disorders communicate with the world around them. This mentorship was a huge learning experience for me. From understanding the logic behind visualization of the data, to discussing new logic with Dr. Campbell that was to be applied to our datasets, to learning how to use python and Jupyter notebook for our goals, every step was a learning experience.

The project we chose (BCI systems) was also one that really interested me, and had actually
been on the list of projects that I wanted to work on for a long time. I didn’t really know how to begin
with it and continue developing it, and this is another thing Dr. Campbell helped me with.

Our objective to be achieved by the end of the 8 weeks was to have a system that, when provided with
the appropriate data (EEG signals and the accompanying annotations to the file), could provide a trained
model that could then be applied in real time. The machine learning algorithm, a Bi-directional LSTM
(Long short term memory), does require a few more tweaks, but I plan on continuing to work on this
project and bring it to a much more polished state.

Another objective that we had was to complete a research paper on the same subject of BCI systems.
This took a lot more time, but I will continue to send Dr. Campbell drafts of it until we both feel that the
paper is complete.

Overall, I can’t thank Dr. Campbell enough for this wonderful learning opportunity, which not only
brought me a lot of new knowledge, but also helped me begin a project in an area that really interested
me, and from a long time too.”

Samvel Kulkarni

Matched professor:

A Computer Science Research Assistant Professor at Brown University and an information and computer science project director, who has won several scientific awards.

“Samvel and I took advantage of our generational differences and cultural differences to make diversity a strength in cooperative coding. I really enjoyed seeing that in action. He is an intelligent student with a great amount of sincerity and dedication to his work.“

Mentor from Brown University