Rachael Wei

Year in School
Senior

Major
Computer Science

Research Interests
Artificial Intelligence Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Computers and Education Data and Information Systems Interactive Computing

Research Mentor
Derek Hoiem and Jae Lee

Research/Engagement Experience
This will be my third year in CS STARS! Previously, I worked with Nancy Amato on an open-source motion-planning library to refactor, document, and test for boundary edge cases and at Carnegie Mellon's HCI Institute on an intelligent tutoring system as a research intern. Recently, I've been working with Jae Lee and Professor Derek Hoiem on Dynamic NeRF. On campus, I'm involved with CS124 Honors, a course that allows students to work on group projects centered around their interests. Previously, I have also been involved in WCS and Reflections Projections.

Interests
Computer Vision, AI, Interactive Computing

Project Title
Dynamic NeRF (Neural Radiance Field)

How did I get interested in Computer Science?
I've been interested in Computer Science since I took my first CS course in high school! I was also involved in Technovation, a student club where I collaborated with classmates to develop applications that addressed real-world issues such as natural disaster relief and environmental sustainability. It was cool seeing how the concepts I learned in class could be used to solve virtually any problem.

What social interests matter to me?
Despite computer technology's impressive advancements and commercial success, I think it's crucial to consider these creations' societal impact, especially for tools as powerful as AI. It is often too late before we start discussing its possible ethical violations. Some examples include Amazon's AI recruiting tool that showed bias against women and a US hospital's AI algorithm that favored white patients over black patients when predicting the necessary level of care. An ethical discussion regarding the technology's impact during its development can help us rethink our designs and be more proactive!

What is my most impactful college experience?
Involving myself in WCS and CS124 Honors and participating in their outreach opportunities has let me meet many passionate and inspiring people around me. When I was an incoming freshman, these organizations helped me feel less overwhelmed and made CS seem less daunting. I hope to provide the same experience to future students so that they can feel more confident as they pursue their interests.

These are a few of my favorite things!
Morning tea, Spotify playlists, ping pong matches, warm cities, painting with friends, and new books!

Research Description
This semester, I will be working with PhD student Jae Lee on developing a Neural Radiance Field (NeRF) based Novel View Synthesis method on videos with dynamic objects (namely, Dynamic NeRF). Currently, we are able to construct models using NeRF (Neural Radiance Fields) assuming that the inputs are static. Relieving a constraint to dynamic objects poses open challenges, where the problem is still actively researched. We propose that by using noisy LiDAR as additional input per frame, we can avoid multi-view consistency of dynamic objects across different time frames for solving per-frame depth. In addition, we will investigate how different modes of Neural Networks affect the convergence rate of the Dynamic NeRF.

Biography
Rachael Wei is a senior studying Computer Science at UIUC from Boston, Massachusetts. This semester, she will continue her CS STARS research under Professor Derek Hoiem with Ph.D. student Jae Lee on developing Dynamic Neural Radiance Fields. On campus, she's involved with the Taiwanese American Student Club, WCS, Disruption Lab, Reflections Projections, and CS124 Honors. She is really excited to continue this program and help bolster the computing community at Illinois.