D2K Lab awards top teams at virtual showcase

A study to classify unlabeled electrocardiograms in adults won the top prize in this year’s Rice University Center for Transforming Data to Knowledge (aka the D2K Lab) spring showcase.

More than 300 participants from around the country took part in the virtual showcase held April 22 to view student video presentations and to interact with student teams via Zoom. A live awards ceremony — also online to observe social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic — followed the presentations.

The D2K Learning Lab is a data science and machine learning capstone program through which interdisciplinary teams of students work on semesterlong, real-world projects sponsored by D2K affiliate members.

Ten teams of students participated in this year’s virtual showcase, won by Team Medical Informatics Corp. for its project, “Beat-to-beat Classification of Unlabeled ECGs in Adult Populations.”

“My favorite part about the project was that it required different skills, such as data wrangling, signal processing and modeling,” said team member and electrical and computer engineering major Nicole Tan, a junior. “I’ve learned a lot about working in teams and how to build a robust data science pipeline that was reproducible, reusable and reliable. Our sponsors and D2K Fellow were very helpful.”

In addition, five student teams from the COVID-19 Houston Response Projects (CHRP) competition presented their work. CHRP is a data science competition launched three weeks ago by the Rice DataSci Club and the D2K Lab to encourage Rice students to get involved in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Team Stay at Home won the CHRP competition for its project, “Mobility and Predictors of Movement During COVID-19.”

“Our team benefitted from the various skill sets that each team member brought to the table,” said junior Connor Rothschild, who studies social policy analysis. “We’re very grateful to have won first place; all of the CHRP projects were so unique and it was a pleasure to compete against and engage with their projects as well.”

The D2K Learning Lab Showcase winners:

First: Team Medical Informatics Corp. for “Beat-to-beat Classification of Unlabeled ECGs in Adult Populations”; Alvin Magee ’20 (computer science), Anthony Chen ’20 (electrical and computer engineering), Xinyue Cui ’21 (electrical and computer engineering professional masters) and Tan.

Second: Team Texas Children’s Hospital for “Pediatric Cardiac ICU Arrhythmias Detection”; Robert Chen (’21, electrical and computer engineering), Yanwan Dai ’20 (statistics professional masters), Yerin Han ’20 (statistics and psychology), Anirudh Kuchibhatla ’21 (electrical and computer engineering), Mario Paciuc ’20 (mathematics and statistics) and Xin Tan ’21 (statistics).

Third: Team Bill.com for “Payment Acceleration Risk Model for Small Businesses”; Graham Curtis ’21 (electrical and computer engineering), Namanh Kapur ’20 (computer science), Grace Morgan ’20 (statistics), Daniel Tang ’21 (computer science), James Warner ’20 (statistics) and Alex Yang ’20 (computational and applied mathematics).

Audience choice: Team Houston Fire Department for “Emergency Response Demographic-Based Risk Assessment for Houston”; Melinda Ding ’21 (computer science), Nick Falkenberg ’20 (mathematics/economics and statistics), Ohifeme Longe ’21 (electrical and computer engineering), Cole Morgan ’21 (statistics), Neyda Maymi ’20 (subsurface geoscience and data management professional masters) and Emre Yurtbay ’20 (statistics).

COVID-19 Houston Response Projects winners:

First: Team Stay at Home for “Mobility and Predictors of Movement During COVID-19”; Kyran Adams ’21 (computer science), Rebecca Francis ’20 (computational and applied mathematics and political science), Mario Paciuc ’20 (mathematics and statistics) and Rothschild.

Second: Team Care 4 Everyone for “Sheltering the Homeless During a Pandemic”; Denizhan Yigitbas ’21 (electrical and computer engineering and computer science), Roy Phillips ’21 (electrical and computer engineering) and Daniel Fay ’21 (electrical and computer engineering).

Audience choice: Team Lovett for “Distributing Ventilators in Texas”; Henry Creamer ’21 (computer science), Jake Joseph ’22 (economics and social policy analysis), Robert Walsh ’22 (mathematics and computer science) and Yong Shin ’21 (social policy analysis).

The showcase was sponsored by Bill.com, ExxonMobil and Energy Transfer. The D2K Lab is supported by a $4 million gift from Rice alumnus Kevin Harvey and his wife Catherine Harvey.

To learn more about the Rice D2K Lab, visit d2k.rice.edu.