Swapna Adavikolanu is from Hyderabad, India. She completed her bachelors in Computer Science and Engineering from Geethanjali College of Engineering and Technology, Hyderabad, India. Along with a strong academic background, she was actively involved in several projects based on machine learning and artificial intelligence during her undergraduate course.
She is curious and passionate about learning new things. She is fascinated by the world of ML and is intent on gaining in depth knowledge about it, including exploration of various algorithms related to it. She aims to apply her knowledge in computer science towards solving real world problems faced by various sectors.

Faculty Mentor: Eakta Jain

Sydney Iszler earned her Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida and is currently pursuing her Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. In her undergraduate study she interned with Siemens Energy in research and development and in their innovation center for multiple years. Iszler is currently a Lab Fellow in UF’s Merge lab where she acts as lab manager for EML4501 and conducts research on the effects of discussion on information retention and hopes to use her experience and skills gained through this program to pursue a career in prototyping.

Faculty Mentor: Matthew Traum

Siddharth Vipankumar Abrol graduated with a Bachelor Of Computer Engineering from Savitribai Phule Pune University. He realized his interest and passion in this field, particularly supply chain management when he did his final year capstone project as a Project intern in Fluid Controls Pvt. Ltd. Pune. The project was based on supply chain analytics using Python. At the University of Florida, he would like to conduct research on various topics focusing on Supply Chain Management and how supply chains and production systems function in the 21st century.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Elif Akcali

Derek Perdomo earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Engineering at the University of Florida this past spring. He took advantage of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering’s combined degree program to pursue his graduate studies in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Currently, Derek is continuing his M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Outside the classroom, he continues to participate in robotics and engineering organizations on campus such as the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE). Additionally, he pursues his robotics and computer vision interests by conducting research in the Smart Systems Robotics Lab.
Besides maintaining a 4.0 GPA, he has interned at Lockheed Martin Aerospace (LMAero), Northrop Grumman, and Chevron. As a Software Engineering Intern at LMAero, Derek developed and tested warning software for the C130-J, served as the team Scrum Master, and drafted system-level requirements. Moreover, he developed an automated File Cleanup Utility and provided testing and documentation for 16 utilities used by field maintenance engineers. Additionally, as a Northrop Grumman College Technical Intern, he completed many projects such as developing and packaging applications to download E-2D aircraft data from Removable Storage Media and automating the drafting of Test Oriented Wire Lists for the United States Navy. Throughout this internship, Derek was recognized by top executives for his extraordinary commitment to saving the company more than $1 million.
Within the Smart Systems Robotics Lab, Derek will work on creating an occlusion resilient approach to 3D pose estimation utilizing Extended Leading Fields. This enhanced estimation model will allow robotic arms to be further aware of their surroundings including humans, tools, and other robotic arms.
Throughout his endeavors, the words of Walt Disney remain true in his heart: “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”

Faculty Mentor: Christophe Bobda

Charishma Modem earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical and electronic engineering from JNTU, Anantapur. Before her graduate studies here at the University of Florida, Charishma worked as a Design, Analysis, and simulation engineer in the department of Engineering Services and Supports at SEG Automotive, India. During her employment, she was responsible for the Design and analysis of PMSMs and their controllers in electrical vehicles. Her expertise in tools like Ansys RMxprt, Maxwell 2D/3D, and MATLAB/Simulink helped her to analyze and compute the energy consumption of two-wheelers and three-wheelers for given drive cycles. Her research interests include the development of cost-effective and intelligent control systems for Light electrical vehicles focusing on improving the safety and functional ability of electrical vehicles.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Zoleikha Biron

Zeyuan Jin is from Hangzhou, China. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the university of Florida and is now continuing his academic career in UF to pursue a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. During the undergrad, he participated in Solar Gators club, Bio-mechanical lab that studies cancer cells. He did internship in Bekaert Corporation about the wire in different usages tires. Zeyuan is interested in Robotics and control systems. He is working on a X-ray machine for large animals with Dr. Banks.

Faculty Mentor: Scott Banks

Venkata Vijaya Karthik Narisetty is from Andhra Pradesh, India. I did my Bachelor’s in Biomedical engineering. In my Engineering I have done two projects “Third Eye for Blind Based on Ultrasonic Sensor “which is intended to assist blind people in traversing alone. The second one is about “Smart Wearable Talking Hands for Physically Challenged People” using a smart glove with a sensing element that mimics a set of predefined vocal commands to aid individuals with speech disabilities. Basically, I always try to find the solutions from the problem. I’m more interested in the application of electronics for medical problems. In the future I want to be a biomedical instrument designer.

Faculty Mentor: Lakiesha Williams

Maximus Onuoha graduated Cum Laude from Coppin State University, where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in Biology with a minor in Chemistry. He has done extensive research understanding the chemical compositions and functions of molecules in clinical drugs, utilizing analytical chemistry instrumentation such as Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry and NMR spectrometry. After graduation, he acquired some industrial experience, working in the public health lab setting where he utilized automation to test  clinical samples for various diseases. Maximus is currently a highly ambitious Master of Engineering in Chemical Engineering student looking forward to research involving engineering of pharmaceuticals, drug-delivery and other related areas.

Faculty Mentor – Carl Denard

Holden Young earned his bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Florida and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Chemical Engineering. As an undergraduate student, he served as a peer tutor in the chemical engineering unit operations lab.  As a graduate student, he seeks to perform research in redox active colloids within the context of next-generation energy storage. Upon graduating, he hopes to work in the electrochemical industry. In his spare time, Holden enjoys cooking as well as watching college and professional sports with his friends and family. 

Faculty Mentor – Won Tae Choi

Akash Kumar holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Lovely Professional University, India, and is now pursuing a master’s degree in Computer Science at the University of Florida.

In pursuing his strong interest in Computer Science, he has been able to advance his logical reasoning and problem-solving skills over the years. In addition to an overall understanding of this scientific discipline, he developed particular interests in Data Structures, algorithms, Databases, and Object-Oriented Programming, some of the other areas that captured his attention. Due to his keen interest, he got good grades in these subjects. He loves the combination of creative and logical problem-solving skills and has experience taking seminars on the latest technologies and teaching basic programming to more than 150 undergrad students. He always likes to express what he learns and understands, so he created his YouTube channel named “CodeWithAkki” which was used to make a video on solving different levels of coding questions and provide the right resources like SDE sheets which help the undergrad students with their technical Interviews. He believes writing gives us a record of personal development and has written his interview experience and technical blogs on the Medium platform which crossed a total of 25K views.

He desired to gain exposure to the software industry, and this prompted me to take up various training and internships and have gained valuable experience as a Software Developer Engineer, where he worked on microservices based on Spring MVC and also completed multiple internships, where he developed a good knowledge of backend programming and architectures.

In addition, with a good programming profile on different platforms and actively take part in a variety of hackathons to ensure the development of his skills. In his free time, he loves to play basketball and explore new places and cultures.

Faculty Mentor: LAURA CRUZ CASTRO