Melissa C. Email & Phone Number

Chicago, Il, Us

Evanston, Illinois, United States

Graduate TA for the Introduction to Graduate Studies course- Graded and gave feedback on writing and arguments for assignments such as paper reviews, project proposals, and research presentations

Evanston, Illinois, United States

- Created, led, and evaluated co-design workshops for designing scalable interventions for student self-efficacy- Designed, conducted, and analyzed qualitative data from longitudinal interviews with students to understand reasons for self-assessments in programming- Conducted design-based research to iteratively build and test AI-driven, IDE-based real-time intervention through user studies with students to understand usage and perception of tools

- Conducted focus groups and analyzed qualitative data to elevate student voices and experiences as a part of program evaluation for the Women in STEM student club- Helping to facilitate connections between Northwestern faculty and ETHS teachers towards developing more inclusive and supportive computing curricula- Providing additional logistical and planning support for Women in STEM student club programming

Software engineer intern (server) on Lyft Pink & Memberships team- Revamped existing framework to run faster and produce consistent results, improving the user and developer experience- Communicated project plans and results to engineering and cross-functional colleaguesServed as a member of the Lyftern Advisory Committee- Co-coordinated two projects to help interns network across locations and practice presentation skills- Provided input on intern programming and synthesized feedback about the intern experience

Participant in a program in the computer science department jointly encouraging undergraduate research and mentorship of female studentsResearch- Constructed data visualizations and conducted statistical testing to understand disparities in self and peer evaluations in group work settings and connected results to theories from literature review- Presented a poster on research findings in the Undergraduate Research SymposiumService- Coordinated with two teammates and external partners to organize a panel of undergraduate and graduate students to share experiences with computing with fifth grade students in the community- Participated in various community building, mentorship, and outreach programs for current and prospective college students

Urbana-Champaign Area

Nominated by professor and selected by the department as one of five Outstanding Course Assistants in Fall 2020- Facilitated in-class group-work activities by answering student questions and clarifying course content- Adapted homework and exam questions to online format to enhance student learning in the virtual and hybrid settings- Held office hours to debug and answer questions about labs covering various course concepts

- Brainstormed, developed, and tested a proof-of-concept unsupervised image segmentation method to determine the locations of grassways in crop fields to improve crop yield estimation accuracy- Developed and presented a research proposal, poster, and final report to demonstrate preliminary research results for stakeholders and the general public- Experimented with model hyperparameters to determine the best configuration for classifying street view images of crop field tillage

Software engineering intern (server) on the Integrity team- Leveraged existing code and infrasturcture to create a P0 version of a new feature for the financial fraud team, putting Lyft in line with card network expectations- Collaborated with cross-functional partners such as analytics, data science, product, operations, and engineering to finalize implementation details and understand pros and cons of major decisions- Wrote and/or presented a tech spec, experiment spec, test plan, and final presentation to other engineers and stakeholders about the project

Menlo Park, California, United States

- Developed a new framework to test feature extractors used to detect user-identifiable information- Decreased the time needed to run experiments by half and created an easy-to-use UI to assist in feature extractor development process

Doctor Of Philosophy - Phd, Computer Science

Bachelor'S Degree, Computer Science

Majoring in Computer Science and minoring in Mathematics Graduated with Highest Honors and as a Distinguished Chancellor's Scholar