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Nick Abegg

Computer Scientist

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About Me

I'm a senior computer science major at Saint Vincent College, expect to graduate in the spring of 2024. I'm passionate about all things related to computers, with a particular love for Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML), and I enjoy applying cybersecurity concepts to these areas. I also have a minor in philosophy.

My current aim is to pursue further education in graduate school, focusing on AI, NLP, ML, and/or cybersecurity. empower the next generation of students and equip them with the skills to achieve their life goals in the world of technology.

Experience

Saint Vincent College Computer Science Department

Collaborative Learning Project Facilitator

I am a CLP Facilitator for our department's Introduction to C++ course. Every week I will create a C++ practice worksheet in LaTeX based on recent course material for the course. Once a night every week students can attend my CLP session and work through the practice sheet. Students are encouraged to ask me questions regarding the topics covered in the course or that are in the worksheet.

Pennsylvania State University - College of Information Science and Technology

Research Experience for Undergrad

This was my summer research experience I did over the summer of 2023. It was an amazing experience and introduced me to the topic of NLP which has become one of my favorite topics in all of computer science. During this program, I gained invaluable experience in NLP, research question formulation, literature surveying, and academic paper writing. The program helped to assure me that I wanted grad school to be my next step and that I wanted to pursue further education specifically in the topics of AI, ML, NLP, and/or cybersecurity.

My research was on automated authorship obfuscation and the viability of utilizing a psycholinguistic theory known as Uniform Information Density. I created three different algorithms that automated the obfuscation process of a large quantity of text. After obtaining the results (with some help from a graduate student at PSU), I analyzed & discussed the success of the algorithms. While my results were not anything groundbreaking due to some technical issues, the experience of conducting in-depth research on an advanced topic like NLP was immensely educational.

Saint Vincent College Computer Science Department

Head Tutor

As head tutor, I assist students in understanding concepts, homework, projects, and exams in Computer Science courses. Typically, I tutor only for the two intro C++ courses, but I can also tutor in any of the courses I have taken previously in our department. specifically, as Head Tutor, I organize the tutoring schedule and any tutoring activities within the department.

Saint Vincent College Information Technology Department

Cybersecurity & System Administrator Assistance

I started working in the IT Department at SVC in 2020 as a freshman. Though it was mainly as a helpdesk technician and designated printer fixer. However, due to my interest in cybersecurity and work ethic, I was able to get 'promoted' to be a Sys. Admin and Cybersecurity Assistant.

Utilizing different tools like Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, and data sanitization software, I assisted our school's Cybersecurity Technician with his typical daily work. This job provided me with more real-world experience in how the theoretical cybersecurity concepts I learned about are actualized in maintained in a complex and dynamic environment.

Education

Saint Vincent College

Aug 2020 - May 2024

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science

I am currently finishing up my bachelor's degree in computer science as well as my minor in Philosophy. I will be graduating from the Honors College here at SVC with a current GPA of 3.985.

Graduate School

2024 and forward

Goal: PhD in Computer Science or Informatics

Looking forward, I am planning to continue my education in graduate school and I am currently going through the application process for several different programs. Continuing my education and contributing to research in the fields of Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, and NLP are my main goals is very important to me.

Course Work

Notable CS Courses

Notable Math Courses

Additional Notable Courses

Notable Projects & Research

Maze Generator and Maze Solver

During my Introduction to Artificial Intelligence course (FA 2023) I and another student developed an automated maze generator and solver. The mazes were generated utilizing Iterative Dept-First Search while the mazes were solved utilizing A*. Taking the project beyond the scope of the course requirements, we compared the actual space and time complexity of the algorithms with the algorithm's theoretical space and time complexities. We are hoping to port the code to C++ and redo our test as we believe the Python libraries used to measure space complexity did not properly measure the memory usage properly.

View Project Code View Paper

MiniMax, Temporal Difference Learning for Connect 4

Here is another project developed for my Introduction to AI course that we took beyond the scope of the project specifications. We built a minimax and a temporal difference learning agent to play Connect 4 and conducted a similar investigation into the space and time complexities of the implementations. We designed the minimax agent with two restrictions: (1) The agent had to be able to make a move in less than 60 seconds. (2) The agent or its adversary were not permitted to play the dominant move of the center column at the start of the game.

View Project Code View Paper

Summer 2023 REU - Authorship Obfuscation

During the Summer of 2023, I conducted research for Pennsylvania State University's College of Information Science and Technology's Machine Learning and Cybersecurity program. My research concerned ways of automatically obscuring the identity of the author of some text utilizing a psycholinguistic theory known as Uniform Information Density. The code for the three algorithms I developed to automate this process can be found in the link below. There is also a link to the paper itself that was written to summarize the entire research process I conducted. Lastly, there is a link to the final presentation that I gave at the end of the program to showcase my research.

View Project Code View Paper on Arxiv View Final Presentation

Game Development: Dark Dungeon

This was my final game project for my Game Dev 1 Course (FA 2022). I worked on this game with two others and served as the group leader. It is one of my favorite projects I have ever worked on and, I believe it is one of the most quality projects I have ever produced. The game was made in rough 4 weeks and required lots of team collaboration to get it done. It features a randomly generated map, enemy AI, and a complex combination of sounds, animations, and scripts.

View Project View Video Demo
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Formula-1 Web Scraper

For my Fall 2023 Database class project, I opted to create a web scraper in Python using BeautifulSoup for the F1 2023 season. The goal was to extract, transform, and load practice, qualifier, race, team, and driver data into an SQL database. While many manually copied data, I took on the challenge of automating the process. It took me three days to develop the scraper, and with weekly updates in mind, I successfully automated the ETL process. The script can fetch and update data in my SQL server within 5-10 minutes, providing valuable hands-on experience in web scraping.

View Project Code View Reports

Java Tokenizer and Recursive Descent Parser

For my Programming Languages course (Spring 2023), I had to create a Parser in Java. It isn't too complex, but it was a lot of fun and helped immensely when I worked with tokenizers and parsers for my REU researcher in Summer 2023. A more in-depth description can be found on the github page linked below.

View Project Code

BackBlog

During my Fall 2023 semester, we desinged and conceptualized a collaborative movie playlist app using the Agile development process and user feedback. Along with being the leader of the group, I composed the documentation in LaTeX for this project, which was my main contribution to the project. In my leadership role, I organized meeting times, communicated instructions and expectations for specific tasks to my group members, and provided oversight and guidance for the UI design. Development for our app will begin soon during winter break 2023.

View Project Documentation

Skills

Research Interest

I am interested in conducting research that helps promote good in the world. Those who are vulenrable or exploited are the ones I wish to help the most.

Hobbies & Interest

Baking

Around 2021 I got into baking as a hobby. I find it relaxing and enjoyable to create a complex baked good from a variety of basic items.

  • One of my favorite items to bake is cinnamon rolls from scratch. They take almost a whole day to prepare properly and then require chilling in a freezer overnight. While the process is long, the reward of making homemade cinnamon rolls is worth it.
  • I also recently tried my hand at making homemade pizza dough from scratch. This was a challenge because I've never made something like pizza, and it requires a very different process compared to my normal baking items.

Favorite Reads

I got really into reading at the start of COVID in 2020. It was something that was hard to get into due to the demanding nature of high school sports. However, COVID gave me ample time to start reading for fun.

    Alan Turing: The Enigma

  • I read this because I wanted to learn more about Alan Turing as a person. I knew the impact of his work on the world of computers, but I found his personal journey and story to be fascinating. This book was a wonderful read for both the historical/academic perspective it provides to computing as well as the personal lessons it endows on the reader.

    • Song of Ice and Fire Series

  • Being a massive fan of Lord of the Rings, I was eager to jump into this series. While I just recently finished the third book and I am patiently waiting to pick up the fourth, I can tell the series will be one of my favorite reads of all time. The complexity of each character, the intense stakes of every major event, and the flawed/relatable characters is why I love this series.

    • Brave New World

  • Possibly my favorite book of all time, it was a required reading for my AP Literature class in high school. Typically, I struggled to get into the readings required for classes in high school, but this book was different. I was enthralled and ended up reading the whole book in a day! While technology might not be the same as ours, the lessons one can glean from the tragic state of their society can most certainly be applied to our society. A beautifully tragic story that I need to read again soon.

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