Roanoke College senior Jessica Young has won an Honorable Mention award from the Computing Research Association for her research into visual queries. She competed against students from several prestigious schools such as Harvard University, New York University and the University of California at Berkeley to win this award for exemplary research in the ever-changing field of computer science.

Young's research was called "Behavioral Based Visual Queries." She designed and wrote the program interface herself, allowing the user to compare multiple sets of data. Her goal was to make it easier for non-technical users to compare and contrast complicated data. The final product is an interface that can perform two powerful queries-those based on similarity and those based on specific criteria. "People need to be able to look through multidimensional data so they can see similarities between the data," Young says. "It's like when you buy a car-you want to look at all the things to consider, like MPG, features. If you can see all the things you want to compare in one program, it makes the whole experience easier."

The project entailed creating and implementing a computer program that allows users to use familiar interface controls (e.g. sliders and checkboxes) to specify conditions that interest them. Graphical representations of the data respond to these conditions according to a set of behaviors programmed into the system by Young. Using this stimulus-response interaction, the data effectively organizes itself according to the user's interests.

Young's research was part of Roanoke's Summer Scholars program, which is designed to allow students to research and report on something that interests them. Students submit research proposals to the department of their choice and then choose a professor to work with. Dr. Stephen Hughes, a computer science professor at Roanoke, was chosen by Young as her research advisor. "I had a lot of freedom to choose what I wanted to do," Young says.

The Summer Scholar professor/student dynamic is different than throughout the school year. Professors become more of a mentor and colleague, rather than an instructor. "From the student's perspective, it is important to see the faculty as more than just oracles that always have an answer," Hughes says. Students meet several times a week with their professor to discuss the progress of their project; they get suggestions for how to proceed or even just a pep-talk. "If I got stuck, I just went to see Dr. Hughes to see what direction to go in," Young says.

The Summer Scholars program allows students to go more in-depth into something they enjoy about a particular subject. "It allows students to explore the boundaries of their field, where the "right answer" hasn't been established," Hughes says. "From my perspective, it was invigorating as a scholar to face the limits of my knowledge and the potential to learn more."