Maria Irimie

If you had taken a look at my belongings or my phone growing up, the one thing you could be sure you’d find was some kind of puzzle. I had books with sudoku and logic puzzles, would print out word searches and race my friends to complete them, and often download random puzzle games to keep my brain engaged in problem solving. There’s a certain beauty to picking up a problem and poking and prodding to find how to solve it, but even more in discovering what else that problem and solution have to offer.

I didn’t discover my love for computer science and software development until I was older. I began my studies at Michigan State University (MSU) pursuing Materials Science and discovered that it involved a lot of observing metal and performing calculations. The engaging nature of this field felt like racing against my classmates to complete a puzzle again. I graduated with my Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from MSU, and to this day I greatly enjoy spending time investigating how every part of a coding problem fits together.

In my senior year at MSU, I had the opportunity to work with the Department of Linguistics, Language, and Culture. My team and I developed a machine-learning pipeline for offline audio transcription, and along the way gained experience in consultancy as a process adjacent to software development. I, along with the rest of my team, won the Auto-Owners Exposition Award for our presentation at Design Day, Michigan State’s end-of-semester exposition of all senior design projects.

In my spare time I enjoy trying my hand at a number of artistic pursuits as well as playing board games with friends (and still the occasional sudoku puzzle or two).