In Spring 2021, I actively participated in the Algorithmic Self-Assembly Research Group (ASARG) at UTRGV while taking Algorithms & Data Structures. The course curriculum served as a great complement to work done in the research group; in conjunction with the new concepts I learned about in class, I employed BST structures, graph-walking algorithms, and dynamic programming in research to solve an open problems.

After outlining what I discovered about this research area, and about research as a whole, I reflect on how this opportunity has prepared me to be a stronger collaborator within ASARG, and within other computer science research groups, for the future