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For engineering undergraduates, preparing for life after graduation is no easy task. Technology is changing faster than ever and in-demand skills may shift by the time a student enters the job market. Interning at a research lab is one way that students can stay on the cutting edge of science and engineering, but lab training also tends to be highly specialized with narrow job paths that may not fit every student’s goals.

To meet this challenge, in spring 2025, Associate Dean for Research Jelena Srebric founded the Nebula Research Data Fellowship, which trains University of Maryland (UMD) engineering students on advanced and highly transferrable data analysis skills in partnership with various Clark School research labs.

“Research is no longer just for the laboratory,” Srebric explained. “It is the primary driver of the modern workforce. I founded Nebula to bridge the gap between abstract data and physical engineering infrastructure. By mastering 'data-neutral' analysis, our students learn to transform complex datasets into the real-world solutions that power our physical world.”

Now in its third semester, the Nebula Fellowship has exceeded all expectations of what students can achieve from a lab research experience. Following a competitive selection process, Nebula undergraduate fellows are matched with graduate student and postdoctoral lab mentors to work on real datasets and learn analysis tools that are broadly applicable to different data sources and engineering topics—training that will help students stand out in whatever career path they choose.  With the help of their lab mentors, these exceptional students have learned advanced coding and data analysis skills to analyze large and wide-ranging datasets produced by Clark School labs, such as sonar scans of oyster beds, electrolyte-based battery failure mechanisms, gas emission profiles from spoiled meat, and much more.

For example, Nebula fellow Brandon Kiv (Fall 2025) developed a Python-based tool that extracts heat transfer data from existing literature, significantly speeding up a process that is too cumbersome to perform manually at large scale. “This makes it easier to compare and track coolant parameters so we can see which coolants perform better, both for research and for general use,” Kiv said.

Meanwhile, Nebula fellow Nurahmed Multezem (Fall 2025) compared connectivity patterns in the enormous fMRI datasets available from the Human Connectome Project to better understand how different parts of the brain communicate with each other. “My contributions have focused on building and validating the computational tools needed to support this work,” Multezem explained, listing a variety of analysis methods, like “partial correlation, channel capacity, distribution analyses, clustering, etc.” that will aid him far beyond the end of his fellowship.  

Of course, data-analysis means little without also communicating the results. For this reason, the Nebula fellows are required to present their research at the end of the program, both as an opportunity to share their exciting work with their peers but also to practice valuable communication skills. “Participating in the Nebula program was a transformative experience,” said Nebula fellow Adedamola Owolabi (Spring 2025). “It sharpened my data analysis skills and revealed how much I enjoy working with numbers to interpret and communicate research findings.”

Notably, the Nebula fellowship focuses on constructing new relationships between undergraduates and research labs. Rather than serving as a source of funding for existing undergraduate researchers, the goal is to forge new connections and opportunities. “I had zero research experience as an undergrad,” said mentor Jianan Jian and described how he would have loved this kind of experience to “explore a research direction, prepare myself for working in a research team, and having a close mentoring relationship.” These valuable partnerships between Nebula fellow and mentor are encouraged to continue even after the fellowship has ended. “One of the most rewarding outcomes was the opportunity to continue collaborating with the graduate student from my Nebula project,” said Owolabi (Spring 2025). “That ongoing partnership has deepened my understanding of data analysis and allowed me to apply those insights directly to my own research.” 

Indeed, mentorship is a key aspect of the Nebula Fellowship. “As an undergrad, you just don't have exposure to what real problems look like or what skills practitioners actually use,” said mentor Benjamin Wu (Fall 2025). “Mentors give you strategic perspective: is this worth pursuing? What should I learn next? How do I think about this problem? Those aren't questions you can answer by reading more blog posts. You need someone who's been there to guide you…A mentor provides compressed learning - you get to skip mistakes they already made…we're all better off when knowledge transfers efficiently.”

And it’s not just the undergraduates who benefit from this training. In addition to helping their host labs draw faster conclusions in their research by accelerating data analysis, Nebula mentors have the chance to develop valuable project management, teaching, communication, and leadership skills, which like their mentees, will aid them in their own developing careers. “As a mentor, I’ve learned how to break down complex topics into ideas that are approachable for an undergraduate. It has also helped me practice project planning, setting milestones, and giving feedback,” said mentor Diako Abbasi (Fall 2025).

The data- and tool-based focus of Nebula projects also provides synergistic opportunities that can be shared more widely in the college. For example, Dr. Jarred Callura (Fall 2025) is a lecturer in Biocomputational Engineering (BCE) who mentored Nebula fellow Braden White (Fall 2025) to develop a multi-user bioinformatics platform to support the BCE program. “The goal is for BCE students to have easy access to a customized platform to run the bioinformatics algorithms reviewed in ENBC455. As a demonstration, we are using the platform to analyze microbiome data generated in the Spring 2025 BCE lab course,” Callura explained. “I've wanted to offer this tool to my students for years but never had the time to teach myself everything that I needed to know to pull this off. Braden has done a great service to me and to his fellow BCE students.”

Now as the third, and largest yet, cohort of Nebula fellows begins their own research projects this spring, we are excited to see how these students and mentors will find further chances to grow.  

-Alexandra Brozena