Marquette Senior Selected for IEEE BigData Symposium
High school senior Ananthaa Madhavan will present machine learning research on hand movement recognition at a December conference in Phoenix.
Updated on Nov. 13, 2026 in Secondary Education
Marquette High School senior Ananthaa Madhavan was selected to present his research at the IEEE BigData 2026 High School Symposium. The project, which he completed over summer 2026 at Saint Louis University's Mecharithm Lab through Rockwood's PIE Summer Internship Program, focuses on recognizing hand movements with machine learning.
Why it matters
The selection recognizes a Marquette student's work on machine learning using three-dimensional data from a single camera. The research has potential applications in assistive robotics, giving local students a visible example of university-level research opportunities available through their school district.
Madhavan's most successful model reached roughly 94% accuracy across more than 1,000 test trials after he processed over 1,100 videos. The study does not state how this accuracy compares with existing hand-recognition benchmarks, and its real-world use remains untested.
The players
Ananthaa Madhavan
A senior at Marquette High School in the Rockwood School District who conducted the machine learning research and was selected to present it.
IEEE BigData 2026 High School Symposium
A high school track of the IEEE International Conference on Big Data, a major professional organization for computing and data science research.
Saint Louis University
A private Jesuit university in St. Louis, Missouri, where Madhavan completed his research in the Mecharithm Lab.
Rockwood School District
A public school district in St. Louis County, Missouri, that runs the Partners in Education Summer Internship Program Madhavan participated in.
The details
Madhavan's research applies machine learning to recognize hand movements using three-dimensional data captured by a single camera. He completed the work through Rockwood's Partners in Education Summer Internship Program at Saint Louis University's Mecharithm Lab, testing several models before selecting the strongest performer.
Timeline
Summer 2026: Madhavan completes his research internship project at Saint Louis University.
December 14-17, 2026: The IEEE BigData 2026 High School Symposium takes place in Phoenix, Arizona.
Education Pathways
Rockwood's Partners in Education Summer Internship Program places high school students in university research labs, and Madhavan's selection for the IEEE BigData symposium shows one result of that pipeline. Students who take part in such placements gain hands-on experience that few traditional high school courses provide.
Students in the Rockwood School District can apply to research internships through the PIE program, which places them in university labs during the summer. Families interested in similar opportunities should check with their school counselors about eligibility and application timelines.
The takeaway
Hands-on research placements can open doors for high school students well before college. Students curious about similar programs should ask their school about summer internships and university partnerships.
Further reading
For more on student achievement, explore Secondary Education coverage in Marquette.
Source note: This article includes information reported by West Newsmagazine.
