CSE Graduate Student Profiles

Students enjoy a game of volleyball at the annual faculty / graduate student picnic

Borzoo Bonakdarpour

PhD student
Software Engineering and Network Systems (SENS) laboratory
Advisor: Sandeep Kulkarni

Research

My research interests are fault-tolerant & real-time computing, formal methods, and distributed systems.

We focus on the problem of automatic revision of real-time programs. We consider this problem in two contexts. First, we investigate the problem of automated addition of properties expressed in Metric Temporal Logic (MTL) formulas to existing real-time programs modeled in Alur and Dill timed automata. Then, we consider transformation problems, where we design synthesis methods to add fault-tolerance to existing fault-intolerant real-time programs. While both problems have been addressed in the literature for untimed programs in theory and practice, there is much to be done for real-time programs. To this end, we concentrate on filling the gap between theory and practice of automated methods for synthesizing real-time programs by characterizing the class of real-time programs and properties, where program synthesis is practically feasible.

About

I am a violinist in the MSU Philharmonic Orchestra and Campus String Quartet. I received third place in the 2006 MSU International Essay Contest. (Essay title: A Stranger in Paradise) [ pdf ][ doc ]. Prior to attending MSU, I worked as a software designer at Tecteon Plc in London, England and as a full-time research assistant at the Electrical & Computer Engineering Research Center (ECERC) of Isfahan University of Technology , Iran.

Why MSU?

Excellent research program at CSE
Excellent financial support by the department
Existence of many interdisciplinary programs
Beautiful large campus
Presence of huge number of international students
Multicultural environment of the campus

Paul Cornwell

PhD student
Embodied Intelligence Laboratory
Advisor: John Weng

Research

My research focuses on the integration of bottom-up and top-down attention in developmental neural models of cognition. A long-term goal is to design an autonomous agent that may (in the spirit of Jürgen Schmidhuber) surpass myself as a scientist and engineer. My inspirations range from the 1980's television animated series "The Transformers" to Isaac Asimov's works of fiction (and his character R. Daneel Olivaw in particular) to the human brain itself.

About

I am an avid reader, and a few of my favorite authors are Orson Scott Card, Ken Wilber, and Richard Bach. I graduated summa cum laude from Northern Michigan University with majors in Computer Science and Psychology as well as a minor in Mathematics.

Why MSU?

I was impressed by the content of the journal articles displayed upon the web pages of Dr. Juyang (John) Weng and the Embodied Intelligence Lab concerning Autonomous Mental Development. When I read those articles, I thought that the authors would make excellent collaborators in the pursuit of autonomous artificial intelligence. When an offer was made including financial support such as the Page Fellowship, the choice was easy to make.

Laura Grabowski

PhD student
Digital Evolution Laboratory
Advisors: Charles Ofria and Robert T. Pennock

Research

In our lab, we work with digital evolution. The lab studies the evolution of digital organisms both to better understand natural evolution, and to apply that understanding to computational problems. I am also involved in the Evolving Intelligence Project, working with Dr. Robert T. Pennock and Dr. Charles Ofria. The project is investigating the evolutionary emergence of simple intelligent behavior. I am particularly interested in simple behaviors that underlie navigation.

I am supported by the Evolving Intelligence Project , and so I have the opportunity to do interdisciplinary research, which I really love. Last year, I was supported by the MSU IGERT program.

About

I am now starting my 4th year at MSU. Before attending MSU, I taught full-time for nearly 20 years: 18 years on the faculty of Univ. of Texas-Pan American (17 years in performing arts, 1 year computer science), 1 year on the faculty of South Texas Community College).

I have a B.A. from Bowling Green State Univ. (OH) in French, M.A. from BGSU (Theatre), M.A. from Texas Woman's University (Dance), M.S. from Univ. of Texas-Pan American (Computer Science). Hobbies (when I HAVE spare time) include reading (SF/Fantasy is my favorite genre), music (both listening and making -- I sing and play piano), reading, movies.

Why MSU?

I was very interested by a number of the research projects at MSU: many of the research groups are doing very unique and innovative work.

John Hettinger

MS student
Computer Science and Engineering Graduate Student Association (CSEGA)
MSU Graduate Employees Union (GEU)
Head teaching assistant CSE 101

Research

Research is an important part of my present and future. I believe Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science are in the middle of a major paradigm shift, from top-down symbol and programmer driven systems, to bottom-up sensor, developmental and connectionist driven systems. It will take some time and a lot of work, but I look forward to making my contributions to the effort.

About

Teaching is just as natural, exciting and difficult as I imagined it would be. I have a long way to go in developing my pedagogical skills, but I now realize teaching is one of the things I need to be doing for the rest of my life. Not only am I pretty good at helping students develop their skills and nurture their drive for exploration and discovery, but I have a real passion for it.

Why MSU?

I am thoroughly enjoying my experiences here, from challenging and rewarding courses, to interesting and friendly peers, to career changing work as a TA in cse101. My first two semesters have confirmed my desire to change career paths and enter academia as a researcher, teacher and public servant. Service is important to me and I am an active member of the CSE Graduate Student Association and the Council of Graduate Students.

Steve Krawczyk

PhD student
Pattern Recognition and Image Processing Lab (PRIP)
Advisor: Anil K. Jain

Research

My research is currently focused on face recognition with applications to video surveillance and access control. My research interests include computer vision, pattern recognition, biometrics, and image processing. Some projects I have worked on include Continuous Biometric Verification , Human-like Similarity Measure for Face Recognition , Local and Global Fusion for Signature Verification , and Signature and Voice Authentication for Tablet PC.

About

I am a long term Spartan, first obtaining my Bachelors from MSU in 2003, my Master's in 2005, and have now been in the PhD program since 2006. After my Master's, I worked for one year at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC where I first started research in the area of face recognition. The potential of this field influenced me to pursue a PhD where I could make an important contribution.

Recently, during the summer of 2007, I worked as an intern at Cognitec, a leading face recognition company based in Dresden, Germany. I investigated methods to utilize video sequences in order to increase the signal to noise ratio of individual frames. Methods to accurately register consecutive frames and various methods of image fusion were also explored. This opportunity gave me the desire to join the industry in the future, where I can see my research quickly being put into action and real use.

Why MSU?

MSU is a great environment to produce quality work given the desire to learn. The faculty are extremely intelligent and dedicated, the classes are both challenging and fun, and the university is well stocked with courses that satisfy an interest in almost any area. The diversity of MSU's research programs provide the opportunity to create some very interesting collaborations. The fulfilling experience that MSU and the computer science department provides keeps me coming back.