Meaningful Contributions

September 10, 2024

Dakota State University’s research exchange program is growing in size, impact, and reputation.  

For three years, Dakota State University has hosted an industrial immersion program for graduate students from DSU and Swedish universities. Students are split into teams that research a certain topic or look for solutions to industry-related problems.

“This is like a melting pot of students from all over the world,” said Dr. Mark Spanier, co-director of the program. “While it is something like an internship, the students are able to really dig into a single problem to make a meaningful contribution.” In 2023, one of the teams created an intrusion detection system that was 95% effective for Case New Holland.

The program was created through a networking connection between the DSU president José-Marie Griffiths and Dr. Mats Nordlund, head of the AI Labs at AI Sweden.

Nordlund said that the first two years were something of a pilot program, but it has now grown beyond that, making an impact with the partner companies, the students personally, and their universities.

This summer, several of the students shared their experiences with DSU’s governing body, the South Dakota Board of Regents. The board’s questions and positive comments proved to Griffiths that these students “changed [the Board’s] perception of Dakota State.”

The 23 students (12 from Dakota State and 11 from Swedish universities) were split into five teams to work on projects for companies such as Volvo, Case New Holland International, and the Swedish Navy through the Swedish Defense University.

Along with the tangible technical knowledge gained, the students gathered experience with intangible learning outcomes, such as the importance of group work, communication, and presentation skills.

Cross-team collaboration was another interesting facet of this year’s process. Several groups studied the aspects of honey pots, a security feature in many programs that acts as “bait” to lure in and catch cyber hackers. This feature allows programmers to study what the hackers are looking for and their methods. Two groups working on different aspects of honey pots combined their efforts to determine their works’ limitations or integration possibilities.

“This process can be synergistic,” said Oscar Palmqvist, a data science graduate student from Chalmers University in Sweden.

Throughout the 10-week summer program, a momentum is created in the learning process, said Mats Hanson, Senior Advisor with AI Sweden. Along with learning research methods, they gain experience with the social, political, and ethical aspects involved in working with technology. Frank Parker, a DSU master’s degree student in Computer Science, saw this. “By working with international students, I was able to learn about political differences with AI laws.”

He added, “This was a tremendous experience. I got more out of this than I expected.”