Office of Undergraduate Research Fellowship Recipient: Cole Wilson

By Gary Hyatt, WSU Honors College, gary.hyatt1@wsu.edu

Name: Cole Wilson

Year: Senior

Major: Computer Science

Hometown: Olympia, WA

Name of the fellowship received: Office of Undergraduate Research Fellowship.

A brief description of your research project:

I’m working with Dr. Mehdi Hosseinzadeh in the Safe and Intelligent Autonomous Systems Laboratory to model adaptive bitrate algorithms using neural networks. Streaming companies such as YouTube and Netflix often take up a lot of bandwidth and slow down the network. To prioritize user experience, they adaptively change video quality based on complex algorithms. This means that while one user might have a good experience watching a video, other users on the rest of the network might experience slow traffic. By understanding and simulating these complicated algorithms using neural networks, we can then throttle individual applications to help promote overall network fairness. The work I’m doing hopes to establish a basic platform to assess this technique.

How has participating in undergraduate research shaped your future goals?

Participating in undergraduate research has been very helpful to me! First, it is a different sort of environment than being in class. You can quickly learn and apply knowledge to real-world problems rather than more theoretical problems or exams. I believe that participating in undergraduate research helps prepare me for industry and a career after undergrad. Doing research is teaching me how to work with others and communicate issues and ideas effectively, as well as how to present my findings in an easy-to-understand way. Additionally, having prior research experience can really help you stand out against other applicants for a job or internship!

How would you describe your Honors College experience at WSU?

My Honors College experience at WSU has been fantastic. During my freshman year, I took part in the First Year Experience seminar classes, and I always looked forwards to them. Being in a smaller group of peers where communication and collaboration was encouraged helped me make new friends and feel more at home at WSU. I also love the opportunity to take unique and interesting classes to satisfy my core credits. I’d strongly recommend Honors to any motivated student.