When Adam Khadre first enrolled at Ohio State Marion in 2023 as a high school junior through the campus's dual enrollment program, he was looking for a head start on a degree in computer science and engineering. What he found was an opportunity that would shape his academic path, launch a successful research career and open doors to competitive internships at some of the world's most recognized organizations.
Beginning coursework at Ohio State Marion while still in high school, Khadre entered the computer science and engineering pipeline early and quickly sought opportunities beyond the classroom. In May 2024, after noticing a call for research assistants posted outside his professor's office, he joined a machine learning and artificial intelligence research project focused on cancer genomics.
"That experience gave me an early opportunity to work on open-ended problems, develop machine learning methods, and communicate results through scientific writing," said Khadre. "It also gave me concrete work to discuss when applying for internships and the confidence to pursue those opportunities."
The impact of that research experience became clear as Khadre entered the competitive internship market. A mentor at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory later told him that his undergraduate research experience was a key reason he was selected for an interview.
Over a two-year period, Khadre's research focused on applying machine learning techniques to better understand patterns in cancer mutations. Mentored by Ohio State Marion professors, Dr. Gol Mirzaei and Dr. Ruben Petreaca, his work contributed to two peer-reviewed publications. The first, published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences in 2025, introduced a cancer mutation-analysis pipeline. The second, published in Bioinformatics in 2026, described MS-ConTab, a self-supervised learning model designed to group cancers according to genomic patterns.
As his academic career progressed, he transitioned to Ohio State's Columbus campus in 2025 and secured his first professional internship through a cold-email outreach campaign. In 2026, after graduating from high school, he officially declared a major in computer science and engineering while also pursuing a degree in theoretical mathematics.
His growing experience in machine learning and software engineering led to a series of increasingly competitive internship opportunities. In summer 2025, he joined RWX, a Columbus-based startup focused on continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) technologies, as a software engineering intern.
The following summer, Khadre earned a research internship at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the center behind most of NASA's robotic space missions. There, he worked on machine learning systems, drawing directly on his research experience at Ohio State Marion.
Most recently, he accepted an internship with Amazon Ads in Palo Alto, California. Working with the company's off-search advertising recommendation team, he contributed to machine learning models for ad retrieval and ranking, supporting advertising experiences across Amazon's platform.
Currently taking a gap semester while working at Amazon, he credits his early research experience at Ohio State Marion with providing a foundation that extends far beyond technical skills.
"Today I am standing on the shoulders of my previous self who chose to do research at Ohio State Marion," Khadre said. "Beyond the hard skills I gained in machine learning and biology, I learned to investigate unfamiliar problems, work independently, and support my conclusions with evidence. I still talk about my work there in interviews all the time. I'm grateful that I had the chance to start developing those skills so early and for the guidance I received along the way."
Khadre's story demonstrates how undergraduate research opportunities at Ohio State Marion can provide students with meaningful hands-on experience, foster interdisciplinary learning, and help prepare them for success in graduate study, industry, and beyond. By participating in research at an early stage of their academic careers, students gain the opportunity to develop technical expertise, build professional confidence, and create experiences that resonate with employers and graduate programs alike.