Sam Hincks ’11 was recently awarded first place in the student research poster competition at the Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges Northeast Region Conference.   His poster was titled "The Optimal Mind-Reader: Data Maining Schemes That Decipher FNIRS Output." Hincks attended the conference, which was held at Western New England College in Springfield, Mass., on April 15-17, with Stephen Harper Kirner Chair of Computer Science Stuart Hirshfield.

Hincks’ poster was one of 43 posters submitted into the contest by undergraduate students representing colleges and universities from throughout the Northeast. Hincks’ research was conducted as part of his honor’s thesis in computer science, and dealt with the potential applications of cutting-edge technology that measures brain-computer interaction. His poster discussed the potential future of functional near-infrared spectroscopy, which measures brain function terms of the relative propensity of oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin in the frontal lobe.