Fall 2020 was tough for Nicole Sylvester, as it was for most new college students. The Valley native, then a freshman, struggled through introductory science classes over Zoom and in half-empty classrooms, unsure whether biology was really the best fit for her. She and a close childhood friend spent hours isolated in their NAU residence hall, puzzling over how to make friends in the middle of a pandemic.
Luckily, that first year wasn’t a sign of things to come.
“In my sophomore year, things started to open up again, and I was able to get out and socialize,” Sylvester said. Shortly after a guidance counselor pointed her toward an introductory computer science class, “I started looking into extracurriculars and learned about Women Who Compute.”
That was the beginning of Sylvester’s five-year career at NAU, one defined by compassion-focused computing projects and leadership. A year after earning a bachelor’s degree and a Gold Axe Award, she’s now set to graduate with a master’s degree in computer science.
As an undergraduate, Sylvester found “like-minded people” in Women Who Compute, an NAU student organization aimed at uniting women and advocating for gender parity in computer science. She soon became president of the organization, hosting robot hackathons, potlucks, coding challenges and other fun, accessible events open to all students. Last year, she also secured funding from the women-owned company Openforce to send a handful of Lumberjacks to the virtual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.
Morgan Vigil-Hayes, the club’s faculty advisor and an associate professor in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems, said she watched Sylvester’s leadership reinvigorate Women Who Compute after the pandemic. The organization’s growth allowed more computer science-oriented Lumberjack women to meet and bond with their peers.
“The world needs more Nicoles,” Vigil-Hayes said. “She rises to every occasion—over and over again. Not only that—others tend to rise with her. I think everyone is more likely to bring their best to the table when Nicole is part of their team.”
Connecting rural communities
Women Who Compute wasn’t the only space where Sylvester created meaningful change while at NAU. Working with Vigil-Hayes as an undergraduate, she helped create the Resource Resilience Database, a web application that connects Hopi youth with a wide array of mental health resources.
As a master’s student, Sylvester trained and guided undergrads as they worked on the database. But she spent the majority of her master’s year working on something equally important: a mobile app that keeps rural Arizonans entertained while gathering information on local internet speed.
“The idea for this was based on the Federal Communications Commission map that shows broadband speed,” Sylvester said. “But the information comes from multiple sources, and people aren’t always on the ground checking that this map is accurate. We’re trying to find data that either confirms or challenges the FCC map.”
Access to reliable mobile broadband coverage is crucial in rural, low-income areas, Sylvester said. For many in these communities, poor or no broadband connectivity can cut them off from medical patient portals, digital job boards, addiction support, online educational opportunities and other crucial services. By demonstrating broadband’s rural shortcomings, Sylvester and the rest of the research team could help convince the federal government to fund improved connectivity in these areas.
“The basic speed-checker app is really boring, so people have no incentive to use it,” Sylvester said. “We’re gathering more data by making things more fun and engaging for the user. We have a game called Scavenger Hunt where you can walk around your area and find local landmarks using clues. As you play, your phone is taking mobile broadband measurements, but you’re not just staring at upload and download speed numbers.”
Vigil-Hayes said Sylvester took only a few weeks to convert the mobile app’s Android code to iOS code, despite not having done that before. Her work will help the research team get the broadband testing app into more people’s hands.
“When I ask her if she is familiar with developing for new software environments, her typical response is, ‘I’ve never used that before, but I want to learn how,’” Vigil-Hayes said. “It’s a really inspirational and encouraging mindset to work with.”
Carving a niche in bioinformatics
Off campus, Sylvester returned to her biology roots by using her computer science talents to support public health. At Flagstaff’s Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), she helped biologists translate their pathogen tracking data into accessible, interactive charts that helped policymakers protect community health.
“One of the things the lab does is wastewater surveillance—they look for early signs of pathogens by looking at what’s in the wastewater,” she said. “I make websites that help them share that data with the general public.”
Sylvester said that while her future is still open-ended, she’d be thrilled to stay in Flagstaff and find a career in bioinformatics. After all, the field is a force for good—and when it comes to effecting positive change, Sylvester is on a roll.
“When I got to NAU, I didn’t have any direction and I thought everyone was much more knowledgeable than me,” Sylvester said. “I never thought I’d be president of a club at NAU. I never thought I’d be working in a lab. It goes to show that it’s important to take chances and never underestimate yourself.”
Jill Kimball | NAU Communications
(928) 523-2282 | jill.kimball@nau.edu