Dylan Binu is an international student from India and has been in the United States since January of 2020, pursuing his bachelor’s degree in computer science. He graduates this December, after completing his studies during the Fall 2023 semester. He works as a research assistant with one of his professors, Murali Mani, and the assistantship is supported by the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP). UROP is an opportunity for undergraduate students to participate in ongoing or new research projects conducted by their professors. Binu believes UROP will help to advance his career in computer science, beyond just completing courses related to computer science.
Binu has been working with Professor Mani since January 2021. Their first project in 2021 involved writing an article. Professor Mani was working on a manuscript related to static and dynamic memory allocation differences and how they are conducted for different programming languages. For example, C++, Java, Javascript, and Python. As Binu notes: “As a student worker, I was working with a fellow student worker from my class. We would help Professor Mani conduct experiments and write reports. It has all been an amazing experience so far as it’s one thing to know your professor through classes, but to work with them outside of class hours helps you build networks and maintain a professional connection across several semesters and it’s been incredibly helpful.” He went on to remark: “In a semester that I was taking a course with Professor Mani, I asked him if there was any way that we could stay in touch and continue our connection. I wasn’t necessarily looking for a research opportunity and was just looking to stay in contact with my professor and the work he was doing. I was doing this research project with another student from my class and asked if I would like to join, so I took it up and it’s been an amazing experience ever since.”
Over the last one and a half years, Professor Mani and his team have been working on a project where they are attempting to write an algorithm in Python that optimizes benchmark query runtimes. Binu uses a lot of SQL in his professional career. He works as an application development intern with Delta Dental of Michigan and SQL is one of the languages that he uses in that profession. For their current project, Professor Mani and his team take a set of benchmark queries and evaluate their runtimes. Their objective is to develop queries that have shorter runtimes than the benchmark queries and this is achieved by an algorithm that they developed in the Python programming language. They have been successful in developing a new algorithm using Python. A majority of the Python-scripted queries have reduced runtimes significantly. There are a few queries left that still need work and that’s what they will continue to work on. To simplify the research that they are doing, let’s assume that we have a table of information stored on a computer. You would call that information a dataset in a database. A database is an online platform where data can be stored. What they are doing with their project is optimizing the amount of time that it takes to retrieve that data from the database. The plan is to come up with queries that retrieve that information at a faster rate. A Query is a statement that you write in a language like SQL or Datalog and we use such statements to retrieve data.
Understanding queries and runtimes and the process of Python scripting for SQL has been very beneficial for Binu’s career. This is something he wouldn’t have necessarily learned in regular courses as it is very research/application-specific knowledge. He is able to apply this knowledge to the work he does in the real world. Binu is very grateful for this hands-on research experience with his professor and recommends it to any student interested in gaining applied research experience.