UMass Lowell Grad Built an AI Course Advisor and Landed at Nvidia

A new AI course advisor built by a UMass Lowell senior drew 200 users in two weeks from launch. The free website, called Hawk Advisor, helps students pick elective courses that line up with a specific target career, from front-end engineer to biostatistics. Its creator, Jessica Vu ’26, also collected a full-time software engineering offer from Nvidia and is currently awaiting work authorization to accept it.

Hawk Advisor, Built by a Student Who Lived the Problem

Hawk Advisor is a free AI course advisor that maps UMass Lowell electives to specific career goals for students in computer science, computer engineering, and applied mathematics and statistics. The site presents average salary, projected job growth, and the elective courses it judges most relevant to each career path it surfaces. It also surfaces career paths a student may not have previously considered. Within two weeks of going live, the site had attracted roughly 200 users, per a UMass Lowell press release on Vu’s Hawk Advisor project.

Vu began developing the Hawk Advisor concept in early 2025 and spent months planning before starting development in her senior year. The same period produced an offer for a full-time software engineering position at Nvidia, where she had interned on autonomous vehicle simulation. She is currently awaiting work authorization to accept it. Several students have already joined the project to keep improving the platform. Vu hopes to secure university funding to expand the team.

• 200 users in the first two weeks after launch
• 3 majors supported: CS, computer engineering, applied math and statistics
• 2 prior internships at Bosch Global Software Technologies and Nvidia
• 1 full-time Nvidia offer, pending work authorization
• Free to use for UMass Lowell students

The Elective Gap She Couldn’t Find on Paper

UMass Lowell’s computer science major gives students a finite set of named tracks. The Miner School of Computer and Information Sciences offers degree pathways in cybersecurity, data science, and bio-cheminformatics, plus a general option. Students pick a track and pick electives around it. The track names describe the destination in broad terms.

The narrower question, the one a junior with a target job in mind actually asks, is different. Students interested in specific industry roles such as front-end engineer or quality assurance engineer often have to determine for themselves which electives will best prepare them for those careers. There is no role-keyed map handed to them.

Vu spent her own time in that gap, and that experience drove the build. Hawk Advisor is her attempt to hand the next student a head start.

• Cybersecurity
• Data science
• Bio-cheminformatics
• General option (no specialization)

What Hawk Advisor Returns for Each Career

The tool works as a career-to-course lookup, not a course catalog. A student picks a target role and the site returns the salary band, projected job growth, and the UMass Lowell electives the tool flags as most relevant. The site is free, and currently available to students in computer science, computer engineering, and applied mathematics and statistics. The data lives next to the recommendation, so a student can read the basis for a suggestion rather than just take it.

An applied mathematics student interested in biostatistics, for example, may discover public health courses that could strengthen their preparation for the field. That cross-major handoff pulls in courses from outside the CS department, and the platform can also surface career paths a student may not have previously considered.

200 Users, Two Weeks After Launch

Hawk Advisor launched in Vu’s senior year and pulled in roughly 200 users inside two weeks, per the UML press release.

That number is a real count of students who used the tool within two weeks of launch. The press release treats the figure as a milestone, and it is one for a single-developer senior project. The metric is the only external signal of fit the tool has shipped so far.

Vu has said the underlying infrastructure was designed to scale and could eventually support students at other UMass campuses. If there is demand, she may also create a mobile app version. Several students are already helping improve the platform as an unfunded side project. The work to make scaling happen is unfunded for now.

Faculty Mentors Who Shaped the Platform

Vu did not build Hawk Advisor in isolation. Two Miner School faculty members shaped the technical foundation, both through courses Vu took as part of her CS major.

Associate Teaching Professor Sirong Lin taught the mobile app development course that contributed to Hawk Advisor’s back-end architecture. Assistant Teaching Professor Johannes Weis taught the cloud computing course that introduced Vu to technologies foundational to the platform. Vu started developing the concept in early 2025 and began building in her senior year. Faculty guidance ran alongside her own planning.

Lin described Vu’s work in entrepreneurial terms. Her approach, in his view, came from solving problems she had experienced firsthand as a UML student, not from completing a class assignment.

Jessica focused on solving problems she had experienced firsthand as a UML student. What impressed me most was her willingness to transform that experience into a practical solution.

Sirong Lin, an Associate Teaching Professor in UMass Lowell’s Miner School of Computer and Information Sciences, said this in the university press release. Weis, who has known Vu since she was a first-year student, called her growth inspiring and called Vu proof that UML students can do extraordinary things.

Built to Sit Beside the Academic Advisor

Vu has positioned Hawk Advisor as a complement to academic advising. She has stressed that the role of a human advisor is irreplaceable, and that students should keep working with their assigned advisors. The tool’s job is to surface options and data the faculty advisor might not have on hand for every specific role. The advisor’s job is to know the student.

Vu also sees a second purpose for the platform beyond course selection. She hopes it can become a real-world development project in which future UML students gain practical experience building software used by their peers. Several students are already contributing to the platform as an unfunded side project.

If we just have plans, it will always and forever be a plan, and nothing will be real.

Jessica Vu, the project’s creator, said this in a UMass Lowell press release published Friday, June 12, 2026. The line closed her remarks on Hawk Advisor in the press release.

A Visa Wait and a Campus-Wide Question

The Nvidia offer sits in Vu’s inbox while a different process runs in the background. She is currently awaiting work authorization that would allow her to accept the position, per a UMass Lowell profile of her Nvidia co-op. The detail is the kind universities usually footnote, and for an international student it changes the timing of everything.

Hawk Advisor’s next phase is similarly dependent on a process outside Vu’s hands. She hopes to secure funding from the university to expand the student team.

Vu has also said the underlying infrastructure was designed to scale. The site could eventually support students at other UMass campuses, in her telling. If there is demand, she may also create a mobile app version of the platform. For now, both the campus rollout and the mobile version remain stated plans, dependent on demand and university funding that have not yet materialized.

What is committed is the early student team. Several students are already helping improve the platform, and Vu’s hope is that Hawk Advisor can become a real-world development project for future UML students to gain practical experience. The framing matches her pitch to the UML press office: a tool that lets a student build something a peer will use, in a setting where most academic projects end when the semester does. The Nvidia job and the visa wait are running in parallel. None of them is gated on the others.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Hawk Advisor?

Hawk Advisor is a free, AI-powered website built by UMass Lowell graduate Jessica Vu ’26. It helps students in computer science, computer engineering, and applied mathematics and statistics pick elective courses aligned with a specific target career.

How does Hawk Advisor recommend electives?

The site pairs each target role with the average salary, projected job growth, and the UMass Lowell electives it judges most relevant. An applied math student who picks biostatistics as a target, for example, may see public health courses flagged as relevant, even though public health is not a CS track.

Is Hawk Advisor free to use?

Yes. The UMass Lowell press release describes the website as free to use, and Vu has not announced any paid tier. Several students are already helping improve the platform as an unfunded side project.

Will Hawk Advisor expand beyond UMass Lowell?

Vu has said the underlying infrastructure was designed to scale and could eventually support students at other UMass campuses. There is no announced timeline, and expansion depends on whether she can secure university funding to expand the student team.

Who built Hawk Advisor?

Jessica Vu ’26, who graduated from UMass Lowell with a bachelor’s in computer science. She also has a full-time software engineering offer from Nvidia that she has not yet started.