Majors: Data Science, Computer Science
Clark Days: Nguyen conducted research with Computer Science Professor Shuo Niu to better understand how people used YouTube during COVID to counteract the effects of social distancing. She has also done work in Geography Professor Lyndon Estes’ lab on ways to download and process satellite images to enhance sustainable agricultural practices, and has worked with Computer Science Professor Gary Holness on applying machine learning to decrease the use of pesticides. She is now developing a platform that can be used for labeling various parts of the earth — for instance, by categorizing crops.
Post-Commencement Plans: Nguyen is pursuing a master’s degree in data science, with a focus on machine learning, at the University of Washington in Seattle. She hopes to one day apply her knowledge and training toward helping her home country of Vietnam, particularly with its agriculture-based economy. “I’m interested in imaging, and my long-term goal is to find ways to help with sustainability issues,” she says.
Observation: “You can draw insights from data, but the numbers don’t mean anything until you analyze them. Once you do that, the numbers tell a story.”