Sophia Zou headshot

Welcome to my corner of the internet!

I am a Senior from Cincinnati, Ohio 🏠 attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 📚 majoring in Computer Science 💻 and minoring in Business Administration 💼. You can usually find me lifting 💪 at the gym or on walks 🚶‍♀️ around campus. Some fun facts: I was a figure skater ⛸️ for 13 years and I have a dog 🐶 named Candi.

Experience

Volvo Group logo

AI Engineer Intern

Volvo Group · Greensboro, NC
Aug 2025 – Dec 2025
  • Onboarding into a role focused on building ML models to optimize part descriptions, categorization, and VMRS coding within a PIM system
Great American Insurance Group logo

Technical Product Manager Intern

Great American Insurance Group · Cincinnati, OH
May 2025 – Aug 2025
  • Designed a centralized Humio dashboard for real-time error monitoring across Predictive Analytics applications, cutting issue resolution time and authored documentation for 15 team members
  • Orchestrated an AI-driven automation workflow using Microsoft 365 Copilot to decommission legacy applications, reducing manual effort by 85%
  • Collaborated with engineering, design, and QA teams to define user stories, write acceptance criteria, and manage Agile sprint backlogs in Rally
  • Supported user interviews with 5 teams for a design system to gather feedback on components and identifying key pain points
Girls Who Code logo

CS Lead Teaching Assistant

Girls Who Code · New York, NY
May 2023 – Aug 2024
  • Promoted to Lead TA for excellence in teaching 300+ students game design basics with p5.js, guiding each student to develop their own Interactive Avatar Game, Choose Your Own Adventure Game, and Collection Style Game
  • Led debugging sessions and code reviews to reduce blocker resolution time by 50% during final project development
  • Managed corporate partner collaborations with RTX, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, and MetLife.
Procter & Gamble logo

Data & Analytics Intern

Procter & Gamble · Cincinnati, OH
May 2021 – Aug 2021
  • Leveraged Microsoft Azure and Power BI to analyze over $1M in cloud operating costs, developing dashboards that identified 10–15% potential savings and informed strategic decisions for senior stakeholders
  • Forged relationships with 10+ P&G leaders to gather cultural insights, synthesizing findings to 60+ interns and staff
Diversity On Ice Nonprofit logo

Founder

Diversity On Ice Nonprofit · Cincinnati, OH
Dec 2019 – Jan 2024
  • Founded a 501(c)(3) nonprofit offering free figure skating lessons to underrepresented individuals in the sport
  • Designed and maintained website, enabling hundreds of sign-ups

Projects

Pulse Workout App
ReactNext.jsTypeScriptSupabaseTailwind CSS

Co-developed a full-stack fitness app, defining and delivering key product features that allow users to log, track, and view workouts in real time.

Integrated Supabase for user authentication, secure data storage, and real-time database syncing.

Designed and implemented responsive UI using Tailwind CSS.

GitHub
Real-Time Yoga Pose Recognition
PythonPyTorchOpenCVComputer VisionMobileNetV2Transfer Learning

Co-developed a real-time yoga pose recognition and feedback system via webcam input by engineering a computer vision pipeline with OpenCV and Torchvision.

Achieved 78.4% classification accuracy on the Yoga-82 dataset by fine-tuning a MobileNetV2 CNN for multi-class yoga pose recognition

Implemented advanced data preprocessing, including cleaning, class balancing, and augmentation to optimize model training across 12 yoga pose classes.

Report
Akari Puzzle Game
JavaMVCJavaFX

Formulated and integrated complex algorithms to verify puzzle state completeness, including validation of lamp placements and corridor illuminations.

Utilized MVC framework to separate application logic, UI, and data modeling. Applied the Observer design pattern for dynamic UI updates.

Crafted a responsive GUI using JavaFX, focusing on user interaction.

GitHub
Sophia's Pokédex
Next.jsReact QueryTypeScriptTailwind CSSPokeAPI

Built a Pokédex web app to display paginated Pokémon data from the PokeAPI. Implemented client-side data fetching with React Query and server-side rendering for dynamic detail pages.

Play here
Wordle Clone
ReactREST APIsViteTailwind CSS

Recreated the Wordle game, complete with tile-based feedback and keyboard interaction. Integrated external APIs to validate user input and fetch random words, and deployed the game live using Vercel with a Vite setup.

Play here
This Portfolio
ReactNext.jsTypeScriptTailwind CSSVercelGoogle Analytics

Developed this portfolio to showcase my projects. Built with React and Next.js and styled using Tailwind CSS and Shadcn UI for a modern design. Deployed on Vercel and integrated with Google Analytics.

You're already here

Classes I've Taken

COMP 110: Introduction to Programming

Basic programming concepts, Python syntax, control structures

COMP 210: Data Structures and Analysis

Arrays, linked lists, trees, graphs, complexity analysis

COMP 211: Systems Fundamentals

Low-level programming, memory management, system architecture

COMP 301: Foundations of Programming

OOP, design patterns, code maintenance, testing

COMP 311: Computer Organization

MIPS assembly language, computer architecture, memory hierarchy

COMP 426: Modern Web Development

Full-stack web development, React, Next.js, Tailwind CSS, Supabase, TypeScript

COMP 455: Models of Languages and Computation

Formal languages, automata, grammars, computability

COMP 550: Algorithms and Analysis

Greedy algorithms, dynamic programming, NP-hardness, approximation algorithms

COMP 560: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence

Search algorithms, combinatorial search, probabilistic models and reasoning

BUSI 406: Marketing

Consumer behavior, marketing functions, distribution channels

BUSI 408: Corporate Finance

Cash flow analysis, capital structure, capital budgeting

BUSI 500: Entrepreneurship and Business Planning

Made $1,200 in profit for Make-A-Wish Foundation through selling bakery goods