Presented my research at CSUMB’s Spring Showcase!

This was such an exciting experience—I got to share my work on the impact of GitHub Copilot on student debugging skills with a wide range of people, including those outside of tech. It challenged me to explain my project in a way that was clear and meaningful without all the technical jargon—and that made it even more rewarding.

My research explores how code completion tools like GitHub Copilot can boost coding speed and help beginners get started—but also how they can lead to false confidence when the AI gets things wrong. For example, Copilot once generated a code snippet for me where a single pair of parentheses on line one caused hours of confusion. That small error made the rest of the code fail—something a beginner might completely miss.

Through this research, I aim to develop an educational tool that helps students become more aware of AI-generated code errors and strengthens their debugging skills. My methodology involves experimenting with how students react to different types of AI mistakes and seeing how they learn to identify and fix them.

My research is still a work in progress—but I’m proud of how far it’s come!

I also want to give a huge thank you to my mentor, Dr. Joshua Gross, for his incredible guidance and support throughout this research journey. His insights and encouragement truly helped shape this project.

And a big shoutout to my peers as well—thank you for all the feedback, motivation, and support along the way!

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