Student News
Graduate Student Sujish Kumar to Participate in Build Project
April 15, 2025
Sujish Kumar, a graduate student in the data science program, was recently accepted into a prestigious initiative by the Open Avenues Foundation. With over 1,100 applicants, the Build Project, titled Unveiling Health: Data Discovery Expedition, focuses on healthcare data analysis, from the data collection process to the construction of predictive models.
Open Avenues is a nonprofit organization that focuses on helping students and professionals within the STEM and business industries collaborate on real-world projects. Grand Valley and Open Avenues agreed on a memorandum of understanding last year to spark collaboration and opportunities of experiential learning, career development, and more. As an international student, Kumar said this is one of the main reasons he is excited to be a part of the project.
“This experience is helping me strengthen my technical skills and apply classroom knowledge to real-world problems—an important step as I prepare for the transition into the professional field after graduation.”
Kumar will also gain valuable skills in data collection, data cleaning, exploratory analysis, and more. As the project lasts 2 months, it will help him work at a professional pace as well. Alongside these technical skills, he will present his findings and get valuable feedback while expanding his professional skills, such as public speaking. The Build Project also emphasizes data-driven decision-making.
Throughout the process, Sujish will be working alongside Coaine Richards, a Data Science Fellow with 15 years of data science and mathematics experience. Collaborating with professionals is a valuable experience for Sujish, as it will help him gain real-world experience before he graduates, a focus of the College of Computing.
Written by Maxwell Ritchie.