DOHA, QATAR (April 27) – More than 60 students showcased their research and course projects through posters, videos, presentations and demonstrations at the annual Meeting of the Minds undergraduate research and project symposium.
“I like the name ‘meeting of the minds’,” said Charles Thorpe, Dean of Carnegie Mellon Qatar. “This is the minds of the students, showing off their research projects, meeting the minds of our external judges and visiting colleagues, with their real-world wisdom. We need to put our best minds together, inside and outside the University, to address the real problems of Qatar and the world.”
Meeting of the Minds is part of Carnegie Mellon University’s Undergraduate Research Initiative, which is a program that supports and encourages undergraduate and postgraduate students to participate in innovative research. Some projects grow out of coursework, while others typify Carnegie Mellon’s emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration to solve real-world problems.
Twenty-seven undergraduate and 12 postgraduate research posters were featured in the symposium in the categories of Business Administration, Computer Science, Information Systems and Liberal Arts and Sciences. Students demonstrated a wide range of projects including Arabic lip-syncing for 3-D face animation applications and how information technology can raise awareness about diabetes. There were also some literacy projects that were showcased including mobile phone-based educational games to improve English literacy and curriculum development and reflections on teaching English to migrant workers. Several students from the Pittsburgh Architecture department also displayed their projects.
A review committee consisting of experts from Qatar’s academic institutions and industry sector reviewed the presentations and selected the best projects and posters. Representatives from TAMUQ, WCMCQ, Qatar University, VCU Qatar, QP, ExxonMobil, Qatar Shell Research & Tech Park, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service Qatar, Doha Bank, iHorizons, Total Qatar, Aspire, Qatar Airways, QSTP, Vodafone and Fuego served on the review committee, which presented awards and certificates for the best poster design and best project. The Best Computer Science Poster, Best Poster Design and Best Overall Project were all awarded to Dynamic Path Planning and Traffic Light Coordination for Emergency Vehicle Routing.
Team members Yi Luen Eng and Hend Geddawy were thrilled with their win. “The main motivation for our project was the observation that the heavy traffic in Qatar impedes the routing of emergency vehicles, which could make a critical difference between life and death,” said Geddawy. “This project focuses on the premise that mere seconds can save a life.”
“We are grateful for the help we received from Carnegie Mellon to develop our project. The research environment was perfect – both the lab and the professors, and the assistance Carnegie Mellon offered in getting the license for the traffic simulator was critical to our project," said Eng.
Meeting of the Minds benefits members of the Qatar community by helping them to understand the importance of conducting research, and see the numerous ways that research can benefit society. Meeting of the Minds has been held at the end of the spring term at Carnegie Mellon Pittsburgh for several years, and has also become an annual tradition in Doha.
ABOUT CARNEGIE MELLON
With more than a century of academic excellence and innovative research, Carnegie Mellon University is a global leader in education with real-world applications. Consistently top ranked, Carnegie Mellon offers a distinct mix of programs to its 10,000 students at campuses around the globe. Core values of innovation, creativity, problem solving and collaborative teamwork provide the foundation for everything we do.
At the invitation of Qatar Foundation, Carnegie Mellon joined Education City in 2004. Here, Qatar Foundation has created a world-class center for scholarship and research that is the ideal complement to Carnegie Mellon’s tradition of innovation through collaboration. Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar offers its highly regarded undergraduate programs in business administration, computer science and information systems to students in Qatar and the Gulf Region.
