The National Center for Supercomputing Applications recently honored the accomplishments of students and mentors participating in the 2026 Summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) and Student Pushing Innovation (SPIN) programs. The recognized individuals spanned several key initiatives, including the REU FoDoMMaT and the CS Distributed REU, and the SPIN internship program.
Throughout the summer, REU and SPIN students have played a critical role in advancing research projects by developing innovative solutions, demonstrating strong initiative, and fully committing to their responsibilities.
“Thank you for your hard work and dedication this summer!” program leadership wrote in a joint message to the students and mentors. They also highlighted the vital role of the mentors, noting: “The success of these programs would not have been possible without our mentors! Thank you for sharing your expertise, mentoring our students, and helping them grow as researchers!”
Congratulations to the students and mentors recognized below. Your outstanding achievements and contributions are truly inspiring!
Outstanding 2026 Summer REU FoDoMMaT and CS Distributed REU Fellows:
- Benjamin Berol, REU FoDoMMaT, Generative AI and Exascale Computing for Materials Science Discovery.
- Noah Dengler, REU FoDoMMaT, Understanding Climate-Driven Migration in Brazil Through AI-Based Modeling.
- Ella Madalinski, REU FoDoMMaT, Nutrition Data Collection and Analysis Tool with Generative AI Integration.
- Howard Tang, REU FoDoMMaT, Class-Incremental Learning with Integrated Algorithmic, Data, and Architecture Choices.
- Pranav Verma, REU FoDoMMaT, Understanding Climate-Driven Migration in Brazil Through AI-Based Modeling.
- Audrey Feng, CS Distributed REU, Measuring Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) Dependability via Wide Area Network Fault Injection.
- Victoria Zhang, CS Distributed REU, Rare-Event Estimation for Sums of Discrete Squared Random Variables.
Outstanding 2026 Summer SPIN Interns:
- Emma Chen, Developing a Typology of U.S. Neighborhoods that Accounts for Racial-Ethnic Disparities
- Xinghan Chen, AI for Science: Advancing AI for Crop, Soil, and Environmental Prediction
- Nihar Koganti, Building an Intelligent Assistant for High-Performance Computing Environments
- Ajay Nagi Reddy Kumdam, Enabling LLM-as-a-Service on High-Performance Computing Systems
- Yifei Li, Building an Intelligent Assistant for High-Performance Computing Environments
- Sophia Moylan, LLM-Based Knowledge Agent
- Amul Prakash, Exploring Quantum Sound and Music
- Leyi Qian, Music on High-Performance Computers
- Chuck Wang, Guinea Pig Simulator 2.0
- Suri (Xinyi) Wang, Music on High-Performance Computers
- Zonghang (Ben) Wu, Turn Code Into Compassion: Visualize Aging
- Diyun Zheng, Music on High-Performance Computers
Outstanding 2026 Summer REU FoDoMMaT and CS Distributed REU Mentors:
- Angela Lyons, REU FoDoMMaT
- Volodymyr Kindratenko, REU FoDoMMaT
- Anastasia Stoops, REU FoDoMMaT
- Phuong Cao, CS Distributed REU
Outstanding 2026 Summer SPIN Mentors: