Sophomore accepted into competitive research program in Germany

Sophomore Aras Yilmaz has been accepted into the competitive DAAD–RISE (Research Internships in Science and Engineering) program in Germany for the summer.

Yilmaz, an international student from Istanbul, Turkey, is majoring in math and computer science with a minor in physics at Cornell. He says he was “jubilant” when he heard that he had received the award and is excited it’ll just be a three-hour flight from family and friends in Turkey.

“I am looking forward to traveling in Europe, meeting new people, and seeing different European countries during the weekends of my internship,” Yilmaz said. “Also, I am really excited to learn more about machine learning and apply it to forecasting methods.”

Yilmaz will travel to Technical University of Dortmund to start his 11-week internship on June 8. The German Academic Exchange Service, or the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) as it’s known in Germany, provides students with a travel stipend and a monthly stipend for living expenses. 

“The DAAD RISE program is extremely competitive, and I’m thrilled Aras will be participating this summer,” said Dungy Writing Studio Director and Director of Fellowships and Scholarship Laura Farmer. “Not only will he be conducting research, but he’ll be working with students and scholars from around the world. He’s a gifted scholar and writer, which came through in the various letters he had to write as part of his DAAD RISE application.”

Students are matched with a university based on their area of interest. 

“I will be researching forecasting models–mathematical models that use historical data to predict future trends,” Yilmaz said. “For example, these models can be used to predict the price of a stock sometime in the future, the weather in the next week, or how much a product is expected to be sold in the next month. My research consists of making such models faster and more accurate by implementing machine learning on the data. Even a slight increase in efficiency might result in huge profits for companies.”

Yilmaz said he learned about this opportunity from Laura Farmer, Fellowships and Scholarships Director, and Mark Kendall, Associate Director of Dimensions, when he stopped at an information table about summer STEM research opportunities in the Thomas Commons. He says he also used resources in Cornell’s Dungy Writing Studio and the Berry Career Institute to perfect the essays he submitted with his application.