Sylvia E was honored with the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, a prestigious award established by Congress in 1986 to honor Senator Barry M. Goldwater's legacy. Nationally, only 438 students were chosen from the 1,353 nominees to receive this esteemed award. The University of Illinois is proud to be one of only eight institutions with five awardees.

Sylvia is currently majoring in brain and cognitive science and philosophy, carving her path toward a profound understanding of the intricate workings of the human brain.

At the core of Sylvia's research lies a profound curiosity about early lexical-semantic development in infants and young children. Her multidisciplinary approach combines elements of computational modeling and behavioral analysis to glean insights into the intricate language acquisition process. Under the mentorship of esteemed electrical and computer engineering professor Ujjal Kumar Bhowmik, Sylvia was an integral part of an undergraduate team that designed a cutting-edge machine-learning pipeline. This pipeline aimed to enhance handheld object detection in computer vision models, showcasing Sylvia's prowess in integrating diverse fields to tackle complex problems.

Furthermore, her involvement in the Learning and Language Lab, under the guidance of Dr. Jon A. Willits, has allowed her to delve deeper into the realm of children's conceptual development. Through rigorous experimentation and modeling, Sylvia continues to unravel the intricate tapestry of human cognition.

This summer, she plans to conduct neural, behavioral, and computational studies of infant language learning at the University of British Columbia through the Fulbright-Mitacs Globalink Program.