Eighteen students from across the country got a crash course in computer vision, machine learning and how to secure a research career in tech during the 2024 SoNIC Summer Research Workshop, held June 24-28 on Cornell’s Ithaca campus.

SoNIC participants developed models to help people with impaired vision to identify objects around them and to allow citizen scientists to identify bird species more accurately, in collaboration with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Founded in 2010 and hosted by the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, SoNIC is an annual workshop designed to increase the number of underrepresented minorities in higher-level computer science programs. Students from colleges and universities nationwide gather at Cornell to gain hands-on research experience and to learn more about pursuing advanced degrees and research careers in tech. Any student can apply and no previous research experience is needed, but students must be majoring in a STEM field to apply.

"SoNIC is not just about algorithms and running models. It's about empowerment and opportunity," said LeeAnn Roberts, director of the Cornell Bowers CIS Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging, and SoNIC’s lead organizer. "Our summer program aims to equip these students with the confidence, knowledge and connections to begin forging successful careers in academia and the tech industry."

This year's class delved into computer vision, a type of artificial intelligence that uses machine learning and neural networks to analyze images, videos and other visual inputs. Specifically, they found new applications for the Large Language and Vision Assistant (LLaVA), a multimodal language model that processes text and images.

Read the full story on the Cornell Bowers CIS website.