 Patti Ordóñez Rozo PhD Candidate, Computer Science PROMISE Peer Mentor Former National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering University of Maryland, Baltimore County 1000 Hilltop Circle, ITE 376 Baltimore, MD 21250 Phone: 410-455-8790 Fax: 410-455-3969 Email: patti.ordonez AT umbc.edu | |
| I am a graduate student in computer science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. My research interests are in applying machine learning, data mining, and visualization to multivariate time series analysis, specifically to large repositories of clinical data. There are so many techniques that have been applied to financial and marketing data that can make a significant impact to improve the way medicine is practiced today. Thru collaboration between computational scientists and medical professionals, tools can be developed to create clinical decision support systems so that medical providers make better diagnosis and treatment plans by learning from the experience of previous providers who have had similar patients. It is an exciting time to be working in computing and medicine.
I am a non-traditional student, meaning I took a huge leap of faith while experiencing my mid-life crisis. Ages ago as an undergraduate, I was scared off by electrical engineering. After years of teaching high school math and Spanish and even more years of technical training, I decided to go back to school full-time to pursue a graduate degree and explore my mind's fullest potential. I applied for the PhD program realizing that without external funding I would not be able to accomplish this task. UMBC took a chance on me and accepted me with full funding in Fall of 2005 even though I did not have a degree in Computer Science. Thank you, CSEE department at UMBC! After two years, I was blessed and pleasantly surprised to win a fellowship from the National Science Foundation while I struggled to keep up with all the twenty somethings in graduate school. It's hard to believe I am almost finished. But, this road was not traveled alone. I have to give credit to UMBC's PROMISE program and to all the support I received from my family, friends, peers, mentors, and advisors. Credit also goes to the CRA-W, the CDC, and Anita Borg Institute for the wonderful programs they have to keep the underrepresented motivated. Other interests include traveling (see Education), dancing, and biking. |