Raul D. Guerra

Ph.D. candidate , U. of Maryland at College Park, 2014 (expected)
MS ,U. of Maryland at College Park, May 2012 (expected)
BA ,Colgate University, 2009



Computational Linguistics and Information Processing [CLiP Lab]
Institute for Advanced Computer Studies [UMIACS]
A.V. Williams 3126
University of Maryland, College Park







About Me

Current Research Interests

I am interested in Natural Language Processing [NLP] and Machine Learning. I am still ironing out the specifics of this interest. Currently I am working on exploring the relationship between large collections of images and the user-tags and text associated with them. I am a currently working in the T3 Research Lab with Judith Klavans

Short Bio

100% Chapin (def. a native of Guatemala). I received a bachelor degree in Computer Science from Colgate University, and I am currently in the Ph.D. program in Computer Science at the University of Maryland at College Park.


Resume will be provided on request.

Research

T3 Research Group at the University of Maryland College Park

Summer 2010-Present

  • Collaboration between museums, libraries, and universities to improve both public access and the public engagement with art museum collections.
  • Performed experiments to apply basic Natural Language Processing to pre-process user-tags, which is challenging because user-tags lack the context that words and phrases have in text.
  • Proposed innovative approaches to the analysis of the user-tags to understand the most important features of the tagged resources and complement the tagged resource's metadata.

Research Assistant for Ken Belanger at Colgate University [PDF]

Summer 2008

  • My summer research project was one of Colgate's Summer Research projects picked to be fully funded by a grant given to Colgate's Natural Science division by the Michael J. Wolk Heart Foundation
  • Learned to work with a group of people with very different expertise.
  • Performed my own biology experiments.
  • Utilized DNA sequence alignment software to find homologues of yeast DNA sequences in higher order organisms. Then inserted the potential homologue DNA sequences from higher-order organisms into yeast to see if these sequences performed the same function.

Research Assistant at Pakrasi Lab in Wash. U. in St. Louis

Summer 2007

  • Programmed scripts in MATLAB that efficiently organized huge Excel tables with data from Microarray experiments that measured the expression in High Light of specific RNA sequences in Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803.
  • Programmed scripts to capture data from internet databases for Synechocystis and compared the captured data to information from the Microarray experiments to scrutinize the differences.
  • Presented work to graduate students and faculty in the Frontiers in Integrative Biological Research [FIBR] workshop.

Projects

Fun class projects

  • Facial Recognition (Fall 2011) My group and I decided to tackle a Computer Vision problem. We did facial recognition using the Olivetti Research Ltd (ORL) database of faces. We applied techniques learned in our Machine Learning class CMSC 726.
    Python,SciPy,NumPy,LibSVM
  • Temporal Graph Databases (Spring 2011) For CMSC724, My group and I proposed a way to handle temporal queries over graphs that evolve through time. We implemented a temporal layer on top of the graph database Neo4j.
    SQL,Java
  • Contextualizing Tags (Fall 2010) For the Computational Linguistics class, CMSC723, my group and I analyzed major themes addressed by users while tagging museum images with text. Our dataset came from the Steve Tagger project. To identify user-tag themes we built a co-occurrence graph of all tags. We then clustered the graph and considered clusters as the 'themes'.
    Python,NLTK,Cytoscape
  • Location-Based Dynamic Social Networks(Spring 2010) For CMSC 818G My group and I programmed a basic prototype of a scalable location-based service using open standards and open tools such as HTML5, MySQL, and Google Maps. Contrary to current social networks with geo-location, we were interested in how a group of strangers can self-organize into a temporary social network and discover people with similar interests when they all share the same location.
    Python,Javascript,SQL

Teaching

Teacher Assistant for the Computer Science Department at the University of Maryland in College Park

Fall 2009-Spring 2010

  • T.A. for CMSC 132H (Fall 2009) and CMSC 132 (Spring 2010)
  • Led recitations, answered questions, and taught some of the class material
  • Supervised and answered questions about programming assignments
  • Graded homework, projects, and exams

Teacher Assistant for the Computer Science Department at Colgate University

Spring 2007-2009

  • T.A. for COSC 101
  • Supervised and answered questions about programming for students during their labs

Leadership
  • In-charge of the submission's review process, which included managing the reviewers and delegating tasks.

Colgate University's Arthur Watson, Jr. '76 Endowed Fund for Career Planning Fellow

Summer 2006

  • Awarded $3,500 to implement a self-designed project under the supervision of a Guatemalan NGO.
  • Defined why the Garifunas, a cultural minority in Livingston, Guatemala were not getting the revenue they deserved for performing artisan fishing which is more environmentally friendly.
  • Designed a solution for the Garifunas with the specifics on how to sell their fish outside of their local market.
  • Drove the project forward by providing the Garifunas resources and worked with them to draft a strategic plan.

Awards
  • UMCP Graduate School Block Grant Fellowship (2009-2011)
  • NOT TAKEN ICTAS Doctoral Scholar fellowships (2009): One of three college-wide fellowships at VirginiaTech, which offered tuition and academic fees as well as a $25,000 per year stipend for four years.
  • Dean's Award for Academic Excellence at Colgate University (2005-2009)
  • Charles A. Dana Scholar at Colgate University (2007-2008)
  • The Lawrence & Daniel Tack Family Endowed Scholarship Fund at Colgate University (2008-2009): Offered to Colgate students with superior academic achievement as well as demonstrated leadership in the college community.
  • Member of Upsilon Pi Epsilon: International Honor Society for Computing Sciences
  • Arthur Watson, Jr. '76 Endowed Fund for Career Planning Fellow (Summer 2006): Colgate University's fellowship for pursuing a self-designed career exploration project for a summer.

Courses

Fall 2011

Spring 2011

Fall 2010

Spring 2010

Fall 2009

Miscellaneous