Student Presentations: INFORMS Annual Meeting 2021
COVID-19 Exploration
Christie Nelson, Karen Bemis, Shrey Joshi, Fiona Shafer, Wahhaj Khokar, Faizah Rahmin, Adarsh Patra, Tyler Lee, Abdourrahman Ahmed, Jason Lee
Our team aimed to create a comprehensive website including IRB-approved survey data, expert interviews, interactive maps/case data, social media sentiment analysis, and news highlights to provide unbiased COVID-19 information to the public. Our goals included addressing the general perspective on information distribution, exploring opinions on vaccinations, and presenting all information in a clear and accessible way. In addition, we obtained original data from both surveys and health worker/industry interviews. All of these goals were achieved and presented on our site.
Grade Crossing Safety and Technology
Madelyn Ferguson, Andy Yang, Hanks Flanigan, Lucas Hall, Christie Nelson, Michael White, John Betak
With potential rail development, considerations must be made to increase safety at Grade Crossings. We researched novel technologies for a class 1 railroad. Research centered around 3 high-risk crossings. New technologies offer solutions to many of the risks found through visual observation. Identified risks include signage, ambiguous crosswalks, lack of barriers to areas of high risk, and liquified natural gas protections. Proposed technologies include active protection measures such as LED lights, LiDAR image detection, radar-based detection systems, and passive protection measures.
Cybersecurity Visualization and Storytelling with NJCCIC
Vivek Rajan, Abraham David Minkowicz, Angela Annecchino, Aniket Ashesh, Brian Girgis, Kunj Patel, Maher Arora, Christie Nelson, Michael Geraghty, Rob Bruder, Joe Russo, Aditi Shah
An interdisciplinary team of cybersecurity, analytics, and user experience and design students partnered with the NJ Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Cell (NJCCIC) to create story-based dashboards using out-of-the-box thinking. These dashboards ultimately display information on cyber threats for NJ. Every week, the student team met with NJCCIC and Google for “learning” sessions about NJCCIC, their data, and Google tools Chronicle, Looker, and Big Query. This experience allowed an opportunity to see the demands in the field of cybersecurity, including a “day in the life” session.
Trends Over Time of Digital Forensics Use in Federal Criminal Courts
Ryan Aponte, Christie Nelson, Fred Roberts, Dennis Egan
We examine criminal court case text data from Thomson Reuters Westlaw and use keyword searches to gain insight into the use of digital forensics in the federal criminal court system. We also search for trends over time in digital forensics applications. This enables a better understanding of the direction of the field, such as from analyzing personal computers to mobile devices and the internet of things. With this novel understanding, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers and the Department of Homeland Security will be able to provide more tailored training to law enforcement.