This summer, we are hosting 19 students from around the world in our 2024 summer research program at UC San Diego. Meet our students by reading their bios below:

Student Researchers

Ludwig von Schoenfeldt is a co-project lead of the Acoustic Species Identification team and an incoming 4th-year ECE Computer Engineering undergraduate student at UC San Diego. He has been on the team since Fall 2023, exploring various deep learning architectures, leading the team's participation in the BirdCLEF 2024 competition, and researching how to combine template matching with deep learning to enhance classification. Over the summer, Ludwig deepened his work with transformer-based architectures and supported the development of a desktop application to facilitate user interaction with the deep learning models. Currently, he is refining transformer architectures and implementing an inference method for the desktop app using Rust. In his free time, Ludwig enjoys reading, meeting friends, surfing, and cycling.

Tongfei is a third-year computer engineering student at UCSD. She is interested in machine learning/AI, computer vision, and image processing. During the summer, she is working on the grouper moon project, including testing fish segmentation model and training AI models for fish detection. In her free time, Tongfei enjoys going to the beach, doing pilates, and trying different coffee spots.

Zhuo (Cecilia) Chen is a rising junior at Bryn Mawr College double majoring in Computer Science and Pure Mathematics. In 2024 summer, she worked on Robust Scientific Machine Learning, specifically analyzing the Neural Network performance when the dataset contains different amounts of noise. After undergrad, she would like to do research in TBD field. Cecilia loves to do hot yoga, hike, try different foods, and listen to jazz.

Tianqi "TQ" Zhang is a rising junior at UC San Diego studying Data Science. He's been on the Acoustic Species ID team since the fall of 2023, and has been a project lead for the team since 2024. This summer, he's primarily been looking into new ways to interpret model outputs and new, learnable representations for audio data. In his free time, he loves to play and listen to music, build LEGOs, and eat delicious food.

Gage is a rising senior at Pomona college majoring in Computer Science. This summer, he is working on machine learning models for the Mangrove Monitoring project. After collge, he wants to do research in some area related to machine learning and autonomous agents. Gage enjoys playing on the computer, vehicle repair, motorcycling, and poker.

Tyler is a rising senior at the University of California, San Diego majoring in Computer Science. This summer, he is working on collecting and finalizing results from the Baboons on the Move project. After college, he hopes to continue to work robotics for wildlife conservation. Tyler enjoys overcomplicating tasks by trying to automate them, and animals.

Zach Lawrence is a co-lead of the Mangrove Monitoring team and a rising third year undergraduate at UC San Diego majoring in Computer Science and minoring in Physics. He has been on the team since spring of 2023. Over the summer, he is currently working on provisioning, networking and deploying an AWS infrastructure to host the Mangrove Monitoring web platform. In his free time he enjoys writing music, reading, and rock climbing.

Ben is a rising junior at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts studying Computer Science. During the summer and throughout the following school year, he is working on computer vision problems for FishSense. When he's not doing research, Ben tutors computer science, runs the robotics club, and promotes research awareness and inclusivity for undergraduate students. He enjoys writing music, watching soccer, hanging out on the boat, and learning new things.

Aaryan Panthi is a rising junior at Howard University, pursuing a B.S. in Computer Science. This summer, he is contributing to the software development team for Project Mangrove Monitoring, focusing on creating reproducible website code for cloud deployment and enhancing the backend pipeline for image processing. In his free time, Aaryan enjoys outdoor activities with friends, mainly playing soccer or biking around Washington, D.C.

Antara Chugh is an incoming junior at UCLA majoring in computer science and minoring in history. During the summer, she is working on Smartfin, developing and testing the software for a scheduler to allow for sampling multiple sensors with minimal conflict. She also assists with manufacturing the fin, specifically helping with the potting process. Her research interests lie in using robotics and machine learning to study environmental sciences, and at UCLA develops neural networks to model molecular interactions. Outside of research, she enjoys running, swimming, and helping promote UCLA student musicians.

Surangana Aryal is a rising junior at Howard University. She is majoring in Computer Science. This summer, she worked with the acoustics species identification. She was involved in building a dekstop application that would help the users better interact with the machine learning model. Besides that she also designed a database schema that would handle a very large amount of datas and metadatas related to the acoustic bird species. During her free time, she enjoys watching movies and tv shows.

Kaiying Han is a senior undergraduate major in Computer Engineering in the Chinese Univerisity of Hong Kong, Shenzhen. He is interested in computer vision and systems. This summer, he is working on developing a machine learning pipeline for semantic fish segementation in FishSense, which overcome underwater noise with image enhancement and depth guidance. Out of research, he enjoys TRPG and video games, and watching movies.

Jonathan He is an incoming sophomore at Johns Hopkins University, enrolled in the combined BS/MS program in Computer Science and Computer Integrated Surgery. As part of the Acoustic Species Monitoring project, he has been working on implementing a transformer-based model for avian species identification, comparing it to existing CNN counterparts. This summer, Jonathan embarked on various adventures around the San Diego region, including skydiving, surfing, and trips to Anza Borrego. As a result, he’s more tanned than ever before.

Hannah Cutler is a rising second year at UC Santa Barbara studying Electrical Engineering. She hopes to apply her studies to oceanography and earth sciences, especially in the areas of signal processing and sensor design. This summer she is working on the Smartfin project, debugging and testing the Smartfin PCB version 3.0 with its firmware, and developing a python model to understand the effects of scheduler delays on data accuracy. In her free time, she loves playing with her cats, going for beach walks, drinking lots of tea, and reading science fiction.

Karis Lewis is a junior at Howard University studying computer science and minoring in electronic studio art. As a Matthew Henson Fellowship recipient, she is working with the Simplifying Meshes team throughout the year to use neural networks as data structures to query shortest path lengths on large-scale terrain graphs. Karis is also working on implementing two mesh simplification algorithms. In her free time, she enjoys music, video games, and game development.

Allen Kan is a rising junior at UC San Diego and is pursuing a degree in Electrical Engineering. For this summer, he has been working on writing a database to assist in storing metadata for the mobile app. He has been out on boat trips to validate features of the mobile app and to address any mobile issues that arise. In his spare time, he enjoys reading, cooking and spending time with his family.

Meena Annamalai is a rising second year at UCLA studying Electrical and Computer Engineering. This summer, she is part of the Smartfin team where she is working on PCB testing, continuing to develop firmware for version 3 of the device, and helping with the fin manufacturing process. In her free time, Meena enjoys playing tennis, exploring beaches, and trying new food.

Rahual Rai is a rising junior at Howard University, Computer Science. Rahual is part of the software development team for Project Mangrove Monitoring, focusing on implementing an authentication layer to ensure secure user access and managing the database architecture for efficient data handling. Besides that, Rahual loves exploring the outdoors, especially with his doggo.

Derick Mathews is a 2nd-year computer science student at UC Santa Cruz. This is his second summer he working on a project with the Scripps Institute of Oceanography to develop a location system for a swarm of underwater robots. The team hopes to study ocean currents and the creatures they transport, including plankton. He's always had passion for robotics and loves building rockets and drones in his free time. He also loves mountain biking with friends and playing guitar.

Mentors

Sean is a Project Lead of the Acoustic Species Identification project and an incoming PhD student in the computer science department of UCSD. His key research interests include machine learning with a focus on low-resource acoustic and scientific datasets as well as improving environmental monitoring and conservation. Should the notion of free time exist, Sean enjoys traveling around San Diego, visiting family, playing games with friends, and having the cats in his apartments tolerate him.

Christopher Crutchfield is a fifth-year Ph.D student working under Professor Curt Schurgers and Professor Ryan Kastner. His Masters was in Intelligent Systems, Robotics, and Control. He is now putting that background to work by developing sensors for understanding the health of our oceans by developing underwater depth cameras with FishSense, a project which he leads. Through the use of these cameras, he hopes to be able to help scientists monitor the biodiversity of our oceans and the health of the underwater ecosystem. When not working to help protect our environment, he enjoys a quiet day at home, with his wife and three cats.