I am excited to write this support letter for Gary Zhu’s application to the Fields Undergraduate Summer Research Program. Gary was a fellow in our Data Science for Social Good program (i.e., “DSSG”; https://dsi.ubc.ca/dssg/) from May 2017 to September 2017. The DSSG program is an intensive summer research internship program where undergraduate and graduate students work in teams on focused, collaborative research projects that have the potential to benefit society. As the Program Manager for the DSSG program at the University of British Columbia, I was part of the Selection Committee that assessed Gary’s application and oversaw his work this past summer. Based on his contributions to our program and his outstanding academic and extracurricular achievements, I believe he is a fantastic candidate for your summer research program.
Entrance into our DSSG program is very competitive. The program is open to undergraduate (and graduate) students in all UBC programs—from the traditional STEM disciplines to the social sciences. Each year, we select only the top eight undergraduate fellows to participate in this program. Gary’s selection into the DSSG program is a reflection of his outstanding academic achievements, extensive research experience and coding knowledge. Moreover, Gary was one of the youngest DSSG
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The goal of this project was deliberately broad so that the fellows could exercise creativity and pursue topics and techniques that were of interest to them, while also helping the Ministry explore new sources of data and research direction. From the beginning, it was very apparent that Gary is a visionary with big research ideas and goals—he is driven and a high-achiever who wants to leverage all of his extensive knowledge and skillset to solve the research