Three alumni of The University of Texas at Dallas received National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships this summer to advance their studies of machine learning, data science and protein design. Aimuyo’s research focuses on how computers involved in machine learning can communicate more quickly and efficiently with each other. Large machine learning accelerators — central processing units that speed up calculations — can process data quickly, he said. “This experience really illuminated to me the inner workings of machine learning algorithms and the role of mathematics in machine learning,” she said, adding that the experience also allowed her to learn technical writing and improve her public speaking. Chen, a computer science graduate, was awarded the NSF fellowship to support her research on developing machine learning models for designing proteins.