Celebrating the Achievements of SMART Master Lab Cohort 1.0

On April 17, 2025, we marked the culmination of a brilliant journey for the SMART Master Lab Cohort 1.0 students. After 10 weeks of in-depth research, collaboration with doctoral researchers and principal investigators, the students presented their exceptional work during the final presentation event.

CRC members joined us in celebrating the achievements of the first cohort, engaging with the students’ research outcomes, and reflecting on the invaluable learning experience.

Schedule of the Day

The event began promptly at 09:30 with an opening by SMART Group Leader Nadine Binder. The students presented their research questions and findings from the last 10 weeks. Each lasting 20 minutes, followed by a 10-minute Q&A session.

Topics included (in the order scheduled):

• Initial conditions of ordinary differential equation systems using large language models presented by Muhammad Ali (research project B03)
• Leveraging small data and AI for risk prediction of significant prostate cancer towards reducing unnecessary biopsies presented by Maximilian Glienke (A02)
• Convergence of the Baum Welch Algorithm to Hidden Markov Models presented by Yunlin He (C01)
• Comparison of the linkage model and the admixture model presented by Irmak Alp (C01)
• Image generation with canonical code representation presented by Sejal Jadhav (B05)
• Investigating the robustness of machine learning models to noise in time series data presented by Anushka Khatri (B02)
• NeuroAlign3D: Aligning 3D brain microscopy images presented by Yusuf Salcan (Fusion Hub)
• Transformer architectures for estimating intrinsic dimensionality in neural time series data presented by Maksim Velikanov (Fusion Hub)
• Developing a custom reinforcement learning environment for an offline dataset presented by Jingtao Xiong (C04)

The event ended at 16:00 with closing remarks and handing over of certificates by SMART Coordinator Iván Acevedo.

Prize for Best Presentation

To acknowledge outstanding communication skills, prizes were awarded to Sejal Jadhav, Yusuf Salcan, & Maksim Velikanov for the best presentations of the day. Presentations were judged based on clarity of the research question, coherence of the presentation, and slide design. Congratulations to the prize winners!

Thank you Cohort 1.0!

We thank everyone who participated, asked insightful questions, and shared their thoughts as we celebrated the achievements of our first cohort of SMART Master Lab students. We look forward to seeing what they will achieve next!

Applications opening for Cohort 2.0 soon

The next SMART Master Lab program is planned for August 4 to October 2, 2025! Applications will be open from May 4 to May 31. Find all details here: https://www.smalldata-initiative.de/career/smart-master-lab/

Marc Schumacher

Institute of Medical Biometry and Statistics,
Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center –
University of Freiburg