MSU undergraduate helps make complex computer science more accessible

When Montana State University junior Ben Holmgren explains topological data analysis to someone, he sometimes asks them to imagine that they just took a photo of a rabbit.

If that person were to see a different photograph of a rabbit later, they could look at the relative position of the rabbit’s features — the ear tips in relation to any distinguishing spots, for example — to assess whether the two photos are of the same rabbit, said Holmgren. That's topological data analysis, or TDA. "TDA is basically about analyzing the shape of data," said Holmgren, a Bozeman native who is double-majoring in computer science and computer engineering salary.

Holmgren doesn't just explain TDA for fun — it's part of his job as a member of an MSU research team that specializes in the subject. "We've struggled with how to best explain and teach it," said David Millman, assistant professor in the Gianforte School of Computing in MSU's Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering. An up-and-coming computing technique, TDA can be used for detecting misshapen cancer cells, comparing road networks or recognizing faces. Because data is increasingly woven into everyday life, TDA is something that MSU computer science faculty want undergraduates to be familiar with, Millman said.

"TDA is a very powerful tool," Millman said, but its roots in complex mathematics make for a steep learning curve. "That's where Ben comes in. He has done a tremendous amount of work to make it easier for students to understand." Since joining the TDA research group as a freshman, Holmgren has blended research and outreach to develop a series of tutorials that introduce the concepts of TDA and teach basic proficiency with TDA-related software. The tutorials were an outgrowth of Holmgren's own struggles to understand the topic — although computer programming came naturally to him, he recalls that the "hard-core math" of TDA "was really abstract and over my head."