Three students from the Physics and Information Technology majors at Yachay University will conduct internships in important research programs at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia, and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), Germany.

Oscar Guarnizo, Information Technology Engineer and Anthony Ramos, Physicist, were selected for important internship programs at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). They will participate intensively in the development of planned scientific research projects that will directly impact their experience, both personally and professionally.

The Visiting Student Research Program (https://vsrp.kaust.edu.sa/) is an opportunity that seeks to offer research experience for highly qualified and motivated international students. Oscar Guarnizo is part of the program on Machine Learning techniques and Deep Learning, which implement a prototype through the review and reproduction of scientific articles.

Not only will he have access to a large number of essential resources for a computer scientist (clusters, video cards, etc.), but he will have the opportunity to complete a master’s program at the same university. Guarnizo hopes to reinforce his knowledge on artificial intelligence, especially in the implementation and application of efficient models for the generation of data.

Anthony Ramos will also get to join the program, virtually, at the Visual Computing Center laboratory (https://cemse.kaust.edu.sa/vcc) until June 30. His internship focuses on Professor’s Helmut Pottmann research on Discrete Differential Geometry with an emphasis on Lie Sphere Geometry, where he’ll learn the fundamentals of S-nets (Discrete Symmetry Grids on Surfaces). At the same time, this could give him the chance to be accepted for the master’s / doctoral program offered by KAUST.

Anthony says: “Although my internship has a more theoretical approach, the fundamentals are very applicable in architectural geometry, geometric design and computerized numerical control. The latter is of great relevance at an industrial level.”

Doménica Garzón, a Physics major, is one of the participants selected for the summer internship at Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, MPIA (https://www.mpia.de/en/careers/internships/summer) in the Astrophysics and Cosmology project for the study of galaxies, in Germany. Each year 4 undergraduate or graduate students, are chosen from around the world for an internship in a research project.

The internship will give her a high-level research experience while allowing her to continue her graduate studies. Doménica plans to travel to Germany in June of this year. MPIA researchers work on a variety of topics, from the search and characterization of exoplanets, the census of the solar neighborhood, to the study of the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, and the detection of the most distant quasars.

The goals of these world-class programs are to contribute to new knowledge that is not only published in journals, but that also helps foster solutions that have an impact in society.

Oscar, Anthony and Doménica agree that these achievements have been possible thanks to the academic training of Yachay Tech, where they have developed the necessary skills to do international research internships.