Vikram, a recent Horizon Scholar and current high school junior from San Jose, California, was set on creating something medically useful and furthering his interest in computer science through a bioinformatics project. ​

After learning about Horizon from a friend, Vikram applied to Horizon's Academic Research Program with the primary goal of completing an independent college-level research project from start to finish that would make a difference in the lives of patients. Having family members diagnosed with autism, Vikram knew he wanted to apply deep learning to solve problems related to autism or brain disorder. With the help of his mentor, an expert in neuroimaging classification, he spent time searching for his specific research topic that would introduce him to subfields in deep learning.

Vikram's research centered on devising a deep learning model that employed facial expression recognition on pictures of young children to determine their likelihood of autism spectrum disorder. With a confidence interval of over 90%, Vikram's script succeeded in diagnosing autism in children, which is particularly useful in early detection of the disorder and correct care for the patient. "I then took output data from the model and applied PCR to create a three-dimensional representation of autism spectrum. The computer could then read through the different severities and it was particularly cool because I don't think that has ever been done before," Vikram describes.

As an aspiring engineer, Vikram admits the most gratifying part of his experience was recognizing his final results were better than he had anticipated. However, he also reveals that his experience has made him more cognizant that deep learning is much more than building models and having high accuracy- to him, it is about "solving a problem that makes someone else happy or that can make someone else's life easier."

Vikram mentions that Horizon's Academic Research Program is a great program because "it allows people who are passionate about research and making an impact to come out and build a product to make that impact." For Vikram, his research elevated the amount of work he can take on and his experience with Horizon helped pave the way for his current research role in data processing. He also feels inspired to pursue lab work in college. As he continues to work towards finalizing his publication in the Journal of Emerging Investigators, Vikram reflects that he could not have accomplished his near-final product without the continuous support from his mentors and his parents.