HOLLY JACKSON


I’m a second-year PhD student in computer science at UC Berkeley advised by Ben Recht.

Previously, I received my Bachelor’s in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT and my Master’s in human rights studies from Columbia University.

I work on on interdisciplinary applications of computer science, from astrophysics to history to politics. My research has been featured in over 100 media outlets and has been liked and shared tens of thousands of times on social of media.


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10 ARCHIVE
2013-15

Here are some of my favorite science fair projects from childhood :)

COMPUTATIONAL CARDIOLOGY (2015)

I wrote a simple signal processing algorithm to process stethoscope sounds and accurately detect the presence and type of a patient’s heart murmur. The project was inspired by my younger sister Kate, who was born with a heart condition (a bicuspid aortic valve) which causes her to have a heart murmur.

Method: The algorithm took the envelope of a pre-recorded heartbeat and isolated the systolic and diastolic sections by finding the local maxima of the filtered envelope. I diagnosed the heartbeat by convolving each section with simple geometric filters that matched profiles of common murmurs. I tested the algorithm against seventy-one prerecorded heart sounds from public websites dedicated to ear-training medical professionals. I identified normal heartbeats with a 100% success rate and murmurs with a 95% success rate. I categorized both systolic and diastolic murmurs with 70% accuracy.

This project was a great first look into the basics of signal processing for me.




SEWING SCIENCE (2014)

I loved to sew as a kid, so I decided to test what stitch type made the strongest seam (e.g. a straight stitch, zigzag stitch, sawtooth stitch, etc.)  I found that the straight stitch always performed the best, which is consistent with its use in high-stress devices such as parachutes, seatbelts, and automobile airbags!  I ended up winning the Broadcom MASTERS national middle school science fair with this project, and I was invited to the White House Science Fair in 2015 to present it.  I wrote more about the project here.

Some fun links:


BILLIARD BOTS (2013)

This is still one of my favorites :)  I tested out billiards trick shots using a robot.

For the unfamiliar -- there are a few standard ways you can hit the cue ball towards the object balls (e.g. solids/stripes) to sink balls at difficult angles.  When you hit the cue ball at an angle with respect to the object ball, you create what’s called “cut-induced throw” on the object ball, causing the object ball to travel tangent to the impact line. When you hit the cue ball with a clockwise or counterclockwise spin (i.e. by hitting the cue ball off center), you create “spin-induced throw” on the object ball, and the sliding friction propels the object ball left or right (for clockwise or counterclockwise spin respectively).

In my experiment, I attached a cue ball to a robot so I could hit an object ball with cut, spin, and a combination of both. Using simple trigonometry, I predicted the object ball’s trajectory in each shot.

The results?  I got marginally better at pool.

Small child (me) collecting data on the billiard bot.




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