Undergraduate student Jonas Schmidt receives Louisiana Space and Sea Grant Opportunity grant

Jonas Schmidt, an undergraduate senior double majoring in Computer Science and Mathematics with a minor in Psychology, has received a Louisiana Sea Grant/Louisiana Space Grant. Jonas is the student researcher on this project and M. Hassan Najafi, assistant professor in our School of Computing and Informatics is the principal investigator. In addition to his academic work Jonas is the chair of the UL Lafayette ACM-CSE student chapter. Jonas has expressed his appreciation to Drs. Sercan Aygün and M. Hassan Najafi, and the rest of UL lafayette's Emerging Computing Technologies lab for helping him with this achievement.

(Sercan and Jonas in the Emerging Computing Technologies Lab)

The title of the project is Emerging Computing for Underwater Image Processing. The project will explore the application of emerging computing techniques in underwater image processing. Within the scope of the project, the research team will develop and implement a lightweight hardware design for underwater image processing by employing hyperdimensional computing and stochastic computing. Hyperdimensional computing is effective in extracting abstract information from data, while Stochastic computing can perform complex operations using simple low-cost circuits. This study will address two fundamental computer vision problems – image filtering and image classification – and will propose novel hardware designs to address them.

Jonas' project is one of two undergraduate research projects beginning in September being funded by a Louisiana Sea Grant/Louisiana Space Grant (LSG/LaSPACE) collaboration. The joint program, called the Louisiana Space and Sea Grant Opportunity (LaSSO), is modeled after similar, long-established undergraduate research programs at both LSG and LaSPACE. Each project will receive $4,000 in funding. LaSSO is directed at science and engineering students who are working on projects in research areas deemed a priority by both the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The intent of LaSSO is to supplement and enhance the undergraduate academic curriculum by providing science/engineering students with a hands-on, mentored research experience relevant to space, earth, coastal and/or marine sciences.