Devika Prasad

Year in School
Senior

Major
Computer Science

Research Interests
Artificial Intelligence

Research Mentor
Prof. Julia Hockenmaier

Research/Engagement Experience
PURE, IMSA SIR

Interests
Guitar, travel, trying new things!

Project Title
Alexa Prize Simbot Challenge - Team Kingfisher

How did I get interested in Computer Science?
I became interested in computer science after taking a computational science course in high school where we modeled physics with code!

What social interests matter to me?
I am passionate about promoting equity in the technology industry and the democratization of unwritten rules of professionalism. I am also partial toward all initiatives that uplift women in underrepresented spaces.

What is my most impactful college experience?
Being an ENG 100 ELA and getting to mentor so many new first-year students at such a personal level.

These are a few of my favorite things!
Good music and days in the sun with my friends!

Research Description
Under the guidance of Professor Julia Hockenmaier, I am currently part of the UIUC team competing in the Amazon Alexa Simbot Challenge. Our goal in the competition is to develop a simulated agent in a goal-oriented dialogue setting. This involves combining a vision model with a language model to take user input in natural language and convert that to actionable tasks.

Biography
Devika Prasad is a senior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign majoring in Computer Science through the Grainger School of Engineering from Naperville, Illinois. On campus, she is the Internal Chair for the Technology and Management program's student board, Director for the Engineering Council EXPO, a member of the Engineering Council executive board, and was Lead ELA for CS Engineering 100. Her research interests are in Natural Language Processing, and she has been working most recently in Professor Hockenmaier's lab competing in the Amazon Alexa Prize competition. In past summers, Devika has interned at Meta, Apple, and Motorola Solutions, working on projects about Facebook search, Siri, and anomaly detection systems respectively. Devika's passions include providing mentorship to incoming students to best bridge the barrier between the world of professionalism and engaging underrepresented members in the computer science community.