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School of Engineering
Electrical & Computer Engineering
371 FAIRFIELD WAY, UNIT 4157
STORRS, CT 06269-4157
PHONE 860.486.4816
FAX 860.486.2447
www.ee.uconn.edu
An Equal Opportunity Employer
To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing this letter to strongly recommend Ms. Viktoria Grindle for employment at your
company. I met Viktoria this past summer when she participated in a Research Experiences for
Undergraduates (REU) program here at the University of Connecticut. I was the REU program
coordinator and I also helped her with some of her research during her time here.
Viktoria was an outstanding student and truly a model for what we expect out of the REU
program. Usually, for the REU program, research advisors pick a problem for their REU students.
The problem typically is associated with an existing graduate student who is already working on
the problem. This work usually consists of an implementation or evaluation/measurement
exercises, but rarely defining a new research problem. The interesting thing about Viktoria’s REU
project was not only was it a new research problem for the research advisor, Prof. Marten van
Dijk, it was also a research problem that Viktoria for the most part defined herself. Viktoria was
interested in creating a secondary authentication method for use by websites to replace or
supplement passwords. The key insight was that it might be possible to identify people through
unique personality traits. In this case, Viktoria displayed to the user multiple images that each
could be classified in different categories. The user selects images and by keeping of track of
which categories, the user selects, it will be possible to create a virtual fingerprint that uniquely
identifies the user’s personality. Viktoria conducted multiple studies and showed that the
approach has potential and needs further investigation. She wrote a final report, which was very
well written. My understanding is that Viktoria and Prof. van Dijk plan on expanding the work
and submitting it to a major systems security conference in the near future, which is a major
achievement for an undergraduate student.
Beyond the actual mechanics of the project itself, Viktoria had to learn about several research
processes along the way. Since the study required the study of human behavior, she had to file a
request with UConn’s institutional review board and thus learn about how to properly conduct a
study while protecting the privacy of the participants. Viktoria also used the Amazon Mechanical
Turk system as an effective way to enlist many participants in her study.
Even through she has strong research intuitions, Viktoria has indicated that she would like to join
a company after graduation before maybe at some point later returning to graduate school. I think
she would gain from this experience. She would, without a doubt, be an outstanding addition to
your organization. In summary, it is without reservation that I recommend Viktoria Grindle and
wish her the best in her further endeavors.
Sincerely,
John A. Chandy
Associate Professor and Associate Head
ECE Department
University of Connecticut
October 19, 2014