For some Pinewood seniors, learning does not stop when the school day ends. Instead, it continues through research projects that extend far beyond the classroom.

   Senior Aretha Liu spent much of high school researching Parkinson’s disease, inspired by her grandfather’s experience with the condition. Another senior, Tony Wu, took a very different path, exploring how artificial intelligence can recognize different human emotions.

   Liu wrote a systematic review focused on environmental risk factors for Parkinson’s, a project that became deeply personal for her and her family.

   “My grandfather suffered from Parkinson’s for as long as I can remember,” Liu said. “Researching and writing this paper was a way for me to connect with him when he could no longer communicate well.”

   Liu completed her project through the Cambridge Centre for International Research, where she worked with a neurologist and professor from Cambridge University. She spent months reading literature and taking notes before even writing.

   Although the process was difficult, Liu said seeing her work officially published made the hard work worth it.

   “It was very personally impactful,” Liu said. “Although my grandfather passed before I was able to publish it, my family was very proud of my work.”

   On the other hand, Wu’s project focused on creating an AI model that used both audio and video recordings to predict emotional states.

   “AI in particular can help a lot of people,” Wu said. “My project is specifically tailored for people with disabilities like autism.”

   The idea first came to him at the pre-college program COSMOS where he was studying acoustics and sound analysis. There, Wu was praised by a professor for his research work and  encouraged to continue working on it in hopes of getting it published.

   The project itself experienced some changes between the camp and publication.

   “Initially, we wanted to only use audio, but the accuracy of the model ended up being too low,” Wu said. “By incorporating the video into it, we increased the accuracy.”

   Wu spent about a year developing the project, changing the neural network architecture, and refining the model. Eventually, his paper was accepted by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and presented at their conference in China.

   Despite working in completely different fields, both students emphasized how, while the results are very satisfying, they endured a lot of hardships along the way.

   “Research is not for the faint of heart,” Wu said. “You have to be super persevering, but if you pull it off, it’s super rewarding.”