Virginia Tech Language and Culture Institute: Radford celebrates Brazilian students' success

Charlene Dandrow (left), associate director of the Language and Culture Institute at Radford University, takes one last group photo with BSMP students in front of the Radford planetarium in the new Center for the Sciences building.

On April 28, the Language and Culture Institute at Radford University held a farewell celebration for the 13 students of the Brazil Scientific Mobility Program who attended the LCI@RU pre-academic intensive English program in July and then went on to complete an academic year in mostly STEM-related coursework at Radford University.

"We are so fortunate to have hosted the BSMP students this academic year at Radford University," says Charlene Dandrow, associate director of the LCI@RU. "When I first met the BSMP students, I was truly impressed by their high caliber and motivation. I believe this U.S. educational and cultural experience has equipped them with the essential skills and knowledge to enable them to be successful at their upcoming summer internships, and more important, when they return to their Brazilian universities to complete their undergraduate studies in their respective STEM fields. I wish them all the best of luck!”

Mateus Lopes says goodbye to Radford
professor Karen A. Ughetta.

Students and their majors

Michael Alexandre Da Silva Sampietro, Computer Science
Isabela Romeiro Simoes Cintra Rosa, Computer Science
Joao Henrique Goncalves Veras, Computer Science
Mateus Alves Gomes, Computer Science
Diego Menezes Bonfim, Biology
Igor Reginato Dulgher Araujo, Information Systems
Lorenna Rocha Reis, Chemistry
Ana Carolina Pereira Pla , Nutrition
Marcela Ribeiro Basso, Statistics
Renan Luigi Martins Guarese, Computer Science
Diego Vitoriano Da Silva, Computer Science
Mateus Lopes Teixeira, Information Systems
Phillipe Alcantara Fonseca Lopes, Information Systems

For their summer internships, most of the Brazilian students have been invited to conduct research at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.

Some of their research topics

Marcela Marcela Ribeiro Basso and Renan Guarese:

Our research is called Research in Construction and Testing of Adaptive Monte Carlo Algorithms with Applications to Financial Risk Management. This research will develop new Monte Carlo algorithms that automatically adjust the sample size to reach the desired error tolerance. These algorithms will also employ variance reduction methods. Their effectiveness will be demonstrated through various option pricing and other financial risk applications.

Diego Vitoriano da Silva:

I’m going to Illinois Institute of Technology, and I'll be conducting research on Integrated GPS and INS Embedded Systems. In other words, it's basically an implementation of INS (inertial navigation system) technology to work along GPS (global positioning system) when the latter fails in systems like Raspberry Pi's (2, 3 and 0), Beagle Bone Black, etc., which are small computers.

Mateus Lopes Teixeira, Michael Alexandre Da Silva Sampietro and Isabela Romeiro Cintra Rosa:

We’re going to IIT to do a research in Information Search and Retrieval at IIT. A brief description is that will the focus will be on three critical issues in modern search engines, namely volume, velocity and veracity. We will explore parallel and distributed solutions for text and multimedia retrieval.

Mateus Alves Gomes:

I will be doing research in Cloud Platform for Internet of Things at IIT. I will be performing hands-on research, which may include learning and applying new laboratory methods and concepts and/or developing and applying software/hardware programs to generate data relevant to this research. I will also attend regularly scheduled seminars that augment the faculty-mentored research, covering topics such as engineering ethics, safety, communicating research findings and project results.