KEYS students learn how to build AI powered tools for making complex tasks feasible for research teams

The Keep Engaging Youth in Science (KEYS) research internship program with the BIO5 Institute continues to stand out as one of Arizona’s most respected summer training programs for high school students interested in STEM activities and futures. For 2025, 65 students were selected to participate in the seven-week program, where they contribute to research projects under the mentorship of University of Arizona faculty, graduate students, and lab professionals. 

Nirav Merchant, Director of the Data Science Institute, has supported KEYS since its early days nearly two decades ago and during the 2025 KEYS training week, he spoke to the students about reproducible research and practical computing practices. His presentation, “Concepts for Reproducible Research and Good Enough Practices in Scientific Computing,” offered clear guidance on maintaining reliable analyses and managing code and data in team settings.

Merchant currently mentors Saish, a high school student from the KEYS Phoenix cohort. On July 18, at the annual KEYS Research Internship Showcase, Saish presents his project, “Converse with Your Data: Reproducible LLM-Integrated Dashboards.”

Michele Cosi with DSI has assisted KEYS since 2023 and returned this year to lead sessions on using the high-performance computing systems including the U of A HPC and CyVerse. He also introduced students to the basics of AI workflows, from labeling data to deploying models.

Tyson Swetnam, who has participated with KEYS for the past five years, presented an overview of large language models and artificial intelligence during training week. He mentors Anvita Kar from the Phoenix cohort. Anvita’s work demonstrates how to integrate Model Context Protocol (MCP) tools and documentation (Retrieval Augmented Generation) in the CyVerse Discovery Environment. Anvita will deliver a virtual presentation on July 18th.

KEYS has a track record of helping students grow. As a high school student in the 2024 KEYS program, Tanmay Dewangan worked with his mentors, Tony Edgin with CyVerse and Nirav Merchant, to develop a new tool for organizing research data. After KEYS ended, Tanmay continued volunteering with DSI on the work he had started.  As a result, Tanmay was invited to present at the international iRODS User Group Meeting in Durham, NC where he was announced their Best Student Technology Award winner. His presentation, “Kando: An iRODS Compatible Data Organizer for CKAN,” highlighted how researchers can better manage large datasets in collaborative environments. Watch Tanmay’s slides and short video.

This year, KEYS partnered with Phoenix high schools, the Phoenix Biomedical Core and the U of A College of Medicine – Phoenix to develop a pilot program that introduced a KEYS cohort in the Phoenix area. Six high school students are the first Phoenix cohort and are fully integrated into the KEYS community. 

Read more about KEYS and the July 18th Research Internship Showcase.