Manish Kota (he/him)
Manish Kota (updated on July 29, 2024)
Mr. Manish Kota is an undergraduate student at Vanderbilt University. He is pursuing a degree in neuroscience and computer science. His research interests are in applying artificial intelligence to neuroscience, computational biology, cognitive science, and informatics.
During the summer of 2024, Manish participated in the REU Site on Smart and Secure Future Computing at UNC Charlotte’s College of Computing and Informatics. The REU Site was funded by the National Science Foundation (6th Site Award, NSF #2244424). Manish spent the summer working with and learning from his mentor, Dr. Denis Jacob Machado, the principal investigator of the phyloinformatics lab, and his colleague, Ms. Amariah Robinson.
The goal of Manish’s research was to develop deep learning models (Convoluted Neural Networks) to differentiate between bess beetle species (Passalidae). These beetles play a vital role in the carbon nitrogen cycle and their microbes may hold the key to carbon sequestration biotechnology. Unfortunately, Passalidae experts take too many resources to train and therefore the goal of the phyloinformatics lab is to increase the productivity of these taxonomic experts via artificial intelligence. This work will be used as pilot data for a collaborative proposal (UNC Charlotte, UNM, NC State, and Universidad del Magdalena) proposal to NSF’s Advancing Revisionary Taxonomy and Systematics (ARTS) program.