ACM – W Scholarship is given to female college students and graduates who majored in Computer Science and related fields. The grant covers participation in the conference and is aimed at encouraging a student to continue to the next level of their professional or academic career as well as to participate in the Computer Science community.
Irina Petrova is a graduate of the Master program in Applied Mathematics and Informatics of ITMO University’s Department of Computer Science. She’s one of the five recipients of the international grants that covers participation in GECCO (Genetic and Evolutionary Computational Conference) that will take place on July 11 – 15, 2015 in Madrid.
“I’ve already had a chance to present at international conferences that published anthologies of presented works,” said Ms. Petrova. “In December, I participated in ICML (International Machine Learning Society) Conference in Detroit. At GECCO I’m going to present my project as part of a stand session. I’ve been working on it over the two years in the Master’s program. My research is focused on an algorithm in a stationary medium used for solving the traveling salesman problem. The point is to find an optimized route that would go through all stated cities and returns to the city of origin. There are a lot of studies devoted to this problem but I used my own algorithm.”
Ms. Petrova has applied for several scholarships in the past but this was her first success, which also included a GECCO Travel Grant to the same conference.
“I decided on my major back in 11th grade. I’ve always loved math, and since 8th grade I studies at the St. Petersburg Physics and Math School. I studied at the Computer Science Department for six years together with the ACM ICPC champions, but I’ve always been more interested in research. There’s something creative in finding algorithms. So far my plan is to pursue post graduate work at ITMO University and work at the International Laboratory ‘Computer Technologies.’”