My name is Kadarice Joyce and I am a sophomore Computer Science major at Mississippi Valley State University (MVSU). I chose to attend MVSU because of the excellent department of Mathematics and Computer Science. They have taught me a lot about the Computer Science field such as what I should be looking forward to in the future with a B.S. Degree and how much farther we can go if I keep striving for success.

I am from a very small town in Mississippi called Itta Bena which is also where Mississippi Valley State University is located. In the future plan on giving back to my community when I become wealthy enough to do so. There will be many project groups started to help show young males how important an education is to their life.

I got started in computer science at the age of 15 when I was accepted into the NSF-HBCU UP Summer Science Program held at MVSU. I attended this program throughout my high school career. The program introduced me to the computer science field. My mentors and teachers there showed me how interesting it is and how much fun I could have with computers.

I am now doing research at Elizabeth City State University Undergraduate Research Experience in Ocean, Marine, and Polar Science (URE OMPS). The title of my research is, "Estimating the Distribution of CO2 Parameters in Surface Water of the Indian Ocean from Temperature and Salinity." I am under the direction of Jinchun Yuan. With our research, we take equations from both past URE OMPS teams and researchers that have measured salinity and temperature in different bodies of water. We then conduct a comparative analysis of the results.

I have attended the ACM Midsouth Conference, held in Gatilinburg, Tennessee. The keynote speaker at the conference was Martin Swaney. Mr. Swaney is a Professor of Computer and Information Science at the University of Tennesse. He discussed some of the research he conducted dealing with networking and high performance parrell computering.

Currently my goals include obtaining my Bachelors and Master's Degree and entering the corporate work force.After undergraduate school I will attend a graduate school in Mississippi and continue my education in either Software Engineering or Computer Networking. One thing that I have learned is that being involved in this field requires me to do a lot of hard work and dedication. This means that I have to put my best foot forward in everything.