Joshua Tse earned his Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Florida and is extending his academic career in Gainesville to pursue a Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering. Since arriving on UF’s campus in the Fall of 2017, he joined the university’s football team and is currently playing his fifth and final season for the Gators. Being an active athlete, he is passionate about biomechanics and kinesiology as they relate to healthy versus injured/disease states of the human musculoskeletal system. His career aspirations are to enter the industry of Orthopaedic medical device companies as an engineer focusing on Research & Development or Product Design/Development.

Faculty Mentor: Scott Banks

Angela Hail has an undergraduate degree in environmental engineering from New Mexico Tech. The two deciding factors that set her on her current career path were previous STEM experience and a personality test that characterized her best as an “environmental engineer”. All jokes aside, she interned for Sandia National Laboratories in high school creating spreadsheets to model the hazardous and mixed waste generated at Kirtland Airforce Base; participated in research for microporous membranes destined for water desalination; and is currently employed part-time as an EIT at a consulting firm helping design water treatment facilities. She is motivated to earn a master’s degree in chemical engineering to gain a deeper understanding of the underlying phenomena that will enable her to solve the most challenging water remediation problems. 

Faculty Mentor: Jason Butler

Reecha Khanal is a current a master’s in computer science student at the University of Florida. She is also an ambassador for Women in Data Science (WiDS) Kathmandu 2021. Reecha is originally from Nepal and came to the states for her undergraduate degree. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of New Orleans with a major in computer science and a minor in Electrical Engineering. Reecha has worked as a data scientist, a software engineer for the DXC Technology and Gainwell Technologies. She co-led DXC New Orleans’ Women-in-Tech during her time at DXC.

Her interest lies in problem solving, software engineering, and data. She is interested in gaining in depth knowledge about computer science, algorithms, software engineering, and machine learning. She hopes to apply her knowledge in computer science and experiences towards solving real-world problems across different domains.

Faculty Mentor: Jamie Ruiz

John Ng is from Albuquerque, New Mexico and received his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of New Mexico. During undergrad, John participated in numerous research-oriented internships through Sandia National Laboratories, Northrop Grumman Corporation, and the Air Force Research Laboratories. John is now working towards his Master’s degree in Computer Science at the University of Florida. John is interested in applications of computer vision and human-centered computing.

Faculty Mentor: Jaime Ruiz

Leonidas Lavdas grew up in Ocala, Florida. He completed his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Florida. During his undergraduate years, he took part in several internships, interning both for Rayonier Advanced Materials as a Project Engineer and for Texas Instruments as a Design Verification Engineer. Additionally, he participated as a research student for the Florida Institute for Cybersecurity (FICS), where he co-authored several publications on optical attack techniques in hardware security. As a Master’s student continuing his pursuit in Electrical Engineering, he hopes to expand upon his undergraduate research in FICS while developing a deeper insight into EE topics and skills that will prepare him for industry.

Faculty Mentors: Navid Asadi

Tashfique Hasnine Choudhury received his bachelor’s degree in electrical and electronic engineering from Islamic University of Technology, Bangladesh. While there he performed research in reconfigurable computing and intelligent transportation. He also participated at international rover challenges and earned prestigious positions for his country twice. Following his graduation, Tashfique has gained professional experience teaching undergraduate students for a year and a half at a university in his own country. He is currently pursuing his master’s in electrical and computer engineering focusing on controls system and automata along with the applications of ML and AI.

Faculty Mentor: Sandip Ray

Gustavo Aguilar graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering (with honors) from the University of Florida. Go Gators! Prior to graduate school, he took part in a research project that is developing a self-centering semi-active banded-rotary-friction-device base isolation system that will be used to mitigate seismic hazards of buildings. As a graduate student, Aguilar will be conducting experimental research on the wind resistance of building cladding materials such as discontinuous metal roofs. Gustavo is currently pursuing a Master of Engineering in Civil Engineering with a specialization in Structural Engineering at the Civil & Coastal Engineering department within the Engineering School of Sustainable Infrastructure & Environment.

Faculty Mentor: Gary Consolazio

Swathi Basavaraj Dhulappanavar is from Banglore, India. She has completed her bachelors in Electronics and Communication from KLE Technological University in Hubli, India. She is pursuing her Master’s in Coastal and Oceanographic Engineering. She plans to apply the skills she has learned and the knowledge she will gain through her graduate degree to help reduce the calamites that occur at the coastal region.

Faculty Mentors: Alex Sheremet

Prathyush Reddy Raghava Reddy earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Anna University. He’s interested and passionate about pursuing his master’s in industrial and systems engineering at the University of Florida. During his undergraduate studies, Reddy gained industrial experience while interning at companies like Hyundai and Mahindra limited where he was part of the design and validation team. He worked to improve the component failure cycle and analyzed the vehicle manufacturing cycle using DFMEA and PFMEA and worked in the designing using computer-aided tools.

Prathyush’s major projects include sustainable supply chain management analysis and industry benchmarking which involve conducting a research study on analyzing the implementation of sustainable supply chains in the market and I formulated supply chain benchmarking for various MNCs to display interdependence using environmental aspects. Here at the University of Florida he wants to develop his research and dive deep into supply chain management and operational research to gain more insights into the
subjects.

Faculty Mentor: Karen Hicklin

Nathaniel Smith is from Jupiter, Florida, and a first year Aerospace Engineering graduate student. Academically, he is interested in applied math and control theory. Smith is currently working in the SYBORGS lab here at UF with model free control problems. Outside of school, Nathaniel greatly enjoy spending time with friends, cooking, and UF club jiu-jitsu/wrestling. 

Faculty Mentor: Amor Menezes

Chia-Ling Lee received her bachelor’s degree from the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics in National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan. During her time as an undergraduate, she conducted research on designing controllers for servo motor position and speed control. Her goal is to become a successful researcher/engineer with the ability to apply the knowledge and skills obtained to improve the lives of others. As a master’s student in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida, her research interests include controls and autonomous systems.

Faculty Mentor: Warren Dixon

Logan Piner is from New Braunfels, Texas. He received his bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M University in Biomedical Engineering. During his time as an undergraduate, he became interested in the biomaterial side of Biomedical Engineering, which led him to Florida. His research interests include tissue engineering, nanoparticles, and polymer scaffolds. In his research, he hopes to achieve breakthroughs involving artificial tissues and organs.

Faculty Mentors: Dr. Josephine Allen