Congratulations to a trio of Missouri Cancer Registry and Research Center students who won first place in the MU Institute for Data Science and Informatics’ 2024 Hackathon as part of Show Me Research Week.

Nishant Jain and Mohammad Beheshti, Ph.D. students with the cancer registry, worked with Chelsea Page, a translational science student completing her rotation in the cancer registry, to compete in the Hackathon. The team’s project analyzed the gap between perceived health and life expectancy.

As part of the Hackathon, teams were presented with a complex dataset and problem to solve. They had 48 hours to create an AI implementation to identify a solution, which they presented to a panel of judges.

“Teams were tasked with deciphering datasets they’d never encountered before, racing against the clock to make sense of the information, train models, and generate predictions using advanced ML/AI methods,” said Dr. Iris Zachary, director of the cancer registry. “Our dedicated team embarked on this challenge with determination and ingenuity.”