{"id":74822,"date":"2025-05-05T10:56:46","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T17:56:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=74822"},"modified":"2025-05-13T11:37:24","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T18:37:24","slug":"nicole-sylvester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/nicole-sylvester\/","title":{"rendered":"Graduate Nicole Sylvester: Computing with compassion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fall 2020 was tough for <\/span>Nicole Sylvester<\/span><\/b>, as it was for most new college students. The Valley native, then a freshman, struggled through introductory science classes over Zoom and in half-empty classrooms, unsure whether biology was really the best fit for her. She and a close childhood friend spent hours isolated in their NAU residence hall, puzzling over how to make friends in the middle of a pandemic.<\/span><\/p>\n

Luckily, that first year wasn\u2019t a sign of things to come.\u202f<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn my sophomore year, things started to open up again, and I was able to get out and socialize,\u201d Sylvester said. Shortly after a guidance counselor pointed her toward an introductory computer science class, \u201cI started looking into extracurriculars and learned about Women Who Compute.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Nicole<\/a>
As an undergraduate, Sylvester found like-minded people in Women Who Compute.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That was the beginning of Sylvester\u2019s five-year career at NAU, one defined by compassion-focused computing projects and leadership. A year after earning a bachelor\u2019s degree and a Gold Axe Award, she\u2019s now set to graduate with a master\u2019s degree in computer science.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As an undergraduate, Sylvester found \u201clike-minded people\u201d in Women Who Compute, an NAU student organization aimed at uniting women and advocating for gender parity in computer science. She soon became president of the organization, hosting robot hackathons, potlucks, coding challenges and other fun, accessible events open to all students. Last year, she also secured funding from the women-owned company Openforce to send a handful of Lumberjacks to the virtual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Morgan Vigil-Hayes<\/span><\/b>, the club\u2019s faculty advisor and an associate professor in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems, said she watched Sylvester\u2019s leadership reinvigorate Women Who Compute after the pandemic. The organization\u2019s growth allowed more computer science-oriented Lumberjack women to meet and bond with their peers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe world needs more Nicoles,\u201d Vigil-Hayes said. \u201cShe rises to every occasion\u2014over and over again. Not only that\u2014others tend to rise with her. I think everyone is more likely to bring their best to the table when Nicole is part of their team.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Connecting rural communities<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

Women Who Compute wasn\u2019t the only space where Sylvester created meaningful change while at NAU. Working with Vigil-Hayes as an undergraduate, she helped create the Resource Resilience Database, a web application that connects Hopi youth with a wide array of mental health resources.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As a master\u2019s student, Sylvester trained and guided undergrads as they worked on the database. But she spent the majority of her master\u2019s year working on something equally important: a mobile app that keeps rural Arizonans entertained while gathering information on local internet speed.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Nicole<\/a>
As president of Women Who Compute, Sylvester hosted robot hackathons, potlucks, coding challenges and other fun, accessible events open to all students.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe idea for this was based on the <\/span>Federal Communications Commission map<\/span><\/a> that shows broadband speed,\u201d Sylvester said. \u201cBut the information comes from multiple sources, and people aren\u2019t always on the ground checking that this map is accurate. We\u2019re trying to find data that either confirms or challenges the FCC map.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Access to reliable mobile broadband coverage is crucial in rural, low-income areas, Sylvester said. For many in these communities, poor or no broadband connectivity can cut them off from medical patient portals, digital job boards, addiction support, online educational opportunities and other crucial services. By demonstrating broadband\u2019s rural shortcomings, Sylvester and the rest of the research team could help convince the federal government to fund improved connectivity in these areas.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe basic speed-checker app is really boring, so people have no incentive to use it,\u201d Sylvester said. \u201cWe\u2019re gathering more data by making things more fun and engaging for the user. We have a game called Scavenger Hunt where you can walk around your area and find local landmarks using clues. As you play, your phone is taking mobile broadband measurements, but you\u2019re not just staring at upload and download speed numbers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Vigil-Hayes said Sylvester took only a few weeks to convert the mobile app\u2019s Android code to iOS code, despite not having done that before. Her work will help the research team get the broadband testing app into more people\u2019s hands.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Nicole<\/a>
\u201cThe world needs more Nicoles,\u201d said Morgan Vigil-Hayes. \u201cShe rises to every occasion\u2014over and over again.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWhen I ask her if she is familiar with developing for new software environments, her typical response is, \u2018I\u2019ve never used that before, but I want to learn how,\u2019\u201d Vigil-Hayes said. \u201cIt\u2019s a really inspirational and encouraging mindset to work with.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Carving a niche in bioinformatics<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

Off campus, Sylvester returned to her biology roots by using her computer science talents to support public health. At Flagstaff\u2019s Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), she helped biologists translate their pathogen tracking data into accessible, interactive charts that helped policymakers protect community health.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things the lab does is wastewater surveillance\u2014they look for early signs of pathogens by looking at what\u2019s in the wastewater,\u201d she said. \u201cI make websites that help them share that data with the general public.\u201d\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sylvester said that while her future is still open-ended, she\u2019d be thrilled to stay in Flagstaff and find a career in bioinformatics. After all, the field is a force for good\u2014and when it comes to effecting positive change, Sylvester is on a roll.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I got to NAU, I didn\u2019t have any direction and I thought everyone was much more knowledgeable than me,\u201d Sylvester said. \u201cI never thought I\u2019d be president of a club at NAU. I never thought I\u2019d be working in a lab. It goes to show that it\u2019s important to take chances and never underestimate yourself.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/span><\/p>\n


\nJill Kimball | NAU Communications
\n(928) 523-2282 | jill.kimball@nau.edu<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fall 2020 was tough for Nicole Sylvester, as it was for most new college students. The Valley native, then a freshman, struggled through introductory science classes over Zoom and in half-empty classrooms, unsure whether biology was really the best fit for her. She and a close childhood friend spent hours isolated in their NAU residence…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":74824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}