In a quiet conference room in the center of campus, five students sat around the table sharing their highs and lows of the week.
“My high is being here today,” said third-year computer science student Ernesto Lopez with a slight smile.
Nods and murmurs of agreement came from the rest of the group — a sign of a positive working environment — as they prepared to share the data they gathered for the research project they volunteered to take on.
Leading the pack is computer science associate professor Theresa Migler, whose research often uses graph theory alongside thought experiments, such as tracking diseases along transportation networks or determining whether additional flights to developing countries would spread disease more quickly or help prevent it. This year, her research is focused on the discrepancy of flights to and from Africa and how inequity may correlate to lack of transportation networks which, in turn, can restrict access to critical resources.
Migler was studying a flight map one day when she noticed the lack of air travel in and out of Africa. Lights representing each flight illuminated the map around the world, or at least most of it.
“There were no lights in Africa,” she said.
She shared this observation with her classes and set out to gather concrete evidence of air travel inequity. The idea eventually became a 2025 senior project. The work continued into the new academic year as seven computer science students went all in on the project.
Lopez, Christopher Morales, Matt Acarregui, JB Diei, Robert Cruz Diaz, Sam Williams and Rucha Damle were ready to commit their time to this research.
In November 2025, the project was accepted as part of the Computing Alliance for Hispanic-Serving Institutions (CAHSI), meaning two students would have their research sponsored. The opportunity allows students and faculty to engage in impactful, meaningful research projects aimed at developing solutions to real-world problems.
Cruz and Williams were selected to join the official CAHSI Local Research Experiences for Undergraduates research team. While the rest of the crew earned funding for different projects, they continued their work on this one unofficially, each for similar reasons.
“I like graph theory,” Acarregui said. “It’s cool to see what effect graph theory can have in the real world.”
“Especially for developing countries, flights can add robustness and a flow of information and medicine, like health-care clinics,” Lopez added.
Diei has a more personal connection to the topic.
“Both of my parents are from Africa, and I was interested in a problem to solve,” he said. “It’s great to be able to use machine learning and graph theory to solve health-care issues.”
The goal is to use data to prove what is widely understood: A lack of flights to Africa often correlates with limited access to resources, such as aid during times of crisis.
“Thinking just about accessibility, places in Africa would need airfields in case they need medicine brought over,” Diei said. “We need to open it up to the rest of the world.
Students plan to demonstrate this firsthand by analyzing current flight data and mapping it using their own graph models.
“It’s cool to read up on current research and realize that I already knew how to recognize and find vertices in the data,” Diei shared.
As the quarter progresses, the team hopes to share its findings at upcoming computer science conferences and present others with the thought-provoking questions the group continues to explore.
As all meetings do, this one ended with a new task: to ask a graph theoretical question and answer it. With a buzz of excitement and wheels turning, the students began discussing what they would work on next.