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Welcome Back BBQ (and raffle) hosted by the @PSUEngineering Multicultural Engineering Program (MEP) and @Phillips66Co. Thanks to @dwayne_cormier, @TonyaPeeples, and the @PSUEngDiversity team for their hard work #Diversity #Engineering pic.twitter.com/cwigEj4RU8

— Christian Lopez (@CLopez_B) October 18, 2018

Once again, I was awarded a Tapia Scholarship to participate in the 2018  Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Student Research Competition (SRC) at the Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference (Sept. 19-22, Orlando, FL). In this competition, I presented my work titled “Towards personalized gamification to promote physical activity.” In this work, we presented a machine learning method that utilizes facial keypoint and heart rate data of users to predict their performance in physical gamified tasks.

This years conference was an extraordinary experience. I had the honor to meet the man of the hour, Dr. Richard Tapia. I was able to personally thank him for all his work on promoting and advocating for diversity in the STEM fields and making the ACM Tapia conference a reality, which each year keeps on growing. Here are just a few pictures of the conference and Dr. Richard Tapia. (more pictures to come…)

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) 2018 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences (IDETC) & Computers & Information in Engineering (CIE) Conference was a great experience. I had the chance to present my research and discuss with other researchers possible venues for future research. The conference was an excellent opportunity to learn about the state-of-the-art research in the field of Engineering Design and how Machine Learning is impacting the field.

I presented the work done in collaboration with Dr. Scarlet Miller and Dr. Conrad Tucker, titled: “Human Validation of Computer vs. Human Generated Design Sketches,“(see PDF)(see presentation) which was one of the few selected papers invited to the upcoming Journal of Mechanical Design special issue. In this new work, we expanded our research done on the functionality of sketches generated by deep learning generative models and explore the factors that affect humans perception of computer generated sketches as well as the value of using crowdsourcing to evaluate new computer generated sketch ideas.

In addition, we presented the work done by Kevin Lesniak and Dr. Conrad Tucker, titled: “Real-Time Occlusion Between Real and Digital Objects in Augmented Reality” (see presentation). Finally, we presented our work titled: “Integrating Co-Robots and Machine Learning in Engineering Lab Environments to Provide Personalized Feedback”(see PDF)(see Poster).

Thanks to Erin Hostetler for inviting us to the Graduate discussion panel for the 2018 Multi-Campus Research Experience for Undergraduates (MS REU) at Penn State. This was an excellent opportunity to debunk some of the myths and misconceptions about graduate school.  Along with other MEGA members, we provided students with valuable insights on how to succeed in the application process and their research work.

I was one of the 12 graduate students awarded a prize of $750 dollars for their research work submitted to the 2018 ASME Computer & Information Engineering Conference Graduate Research Poster session. In this session, we will be presenting our work titled: “Integrating Co-Robots and Machine Learning in Engineering Lab Environments to provide personalized feedback” (see PDF)(see Poster). Hence, in the upcoming ASME IDETC/CIE conference, taking place in Quebec City, Canada from August 26-29, 2018, we will present this work and our work on Generative Design Sketches. This work is a continuation of our last year’s ASME paper and our 2018 ASEE Conference paper.

This summer, Penn State welcomed 74 new international students. I helped the Penn State Global Programs in the Summer 2018 International Student Orientation (ISO), from Thursday 21st to Saturday 23rd. I had a great time sharing my own experience as an international student, advising new students how to succeed in their future endeavors at PSU and in the US, as well as getting to know students from all over the world and their stories during this summer 2018 ISO. Now we have to prepare for the big event, the Fall 2018 ISO, in which we will welcome a significantly larger amount of international student to PSU.

We had the great opportunity to present our work at the Penn State Hershey Childre’s Hospital Pediatric Research Day, Hershey, PA, May 24, 2018. There Dr. Conrad Tucker presented a lecture on “Advancing Personalized Healthcare through Big Data and Machine Learning.” In this lecture, he exhibited some of my research on using Machine learning and genomics to advance personalized medicine.

In addition, we presented our research titled “Towards Personalized Gamification to Promote Physical Activity.” In this work, we proposed a method that implements Machine Learning and non-wearable sensors to personalized Gamified applications with the objective to promote physical activity.

On April 17th, 2018, we were fortunate to be part of the first Distinguished Lecture on Engineering and Humanity from the Collge of Engineering at PSU. In this event, Dr. Claude Steele presented his work on “Stereotype Threat and Identity Threat: The Science of a Diverse Community.” I also had the privilege to represent the Multicultural Engineering Graduate Association (MEGA) on a student discussion with Dr. Steele held later on that same day. In this private meeting with students, Dr. Steele emphasized the importance of acknowledging diversity and working to foster trust in the community.

Once again, I had the opportunity to attend to one of the greatest innovation and creativity festivals from my alma mater: Imagine RIT. This was the11th year anniversary and my 7th year attending!!. It was so great to visit the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and my old  Industrial and Systems Engineering Department.

Image RIT is a great opportunity to see at first-hand the latest research and technology that are shaping the future, as well as to try some nitrogen ice cream 😛  (here are some pictures of the festival, look at PSU and RIT next to each other 😛 )

We are getting ready for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) 2018 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences (IDETC) & Computers & Information in Engineering (CIE) Conference. This will take place in Quebec City, Canada from August 26-29, 2018. We will be presenting our work titled: “Human Validation of Computer vs. Human Generated Design Sketches,” (PDF) done in collaboration with Dr. Conrad Tucker and Dr. Scarlet Miller.

In this work explored the perceived visual and functional characteristics of computer generated design sketches and the biases humans have towards computer and human generated sketches. The results of this work indicated that computer generated sketches were perceived as more functional than the human generated ones. In addition, the results revealed that participants had a negative bias towards human generated sketches. However, they were not able to accurately distinguish between computer and human generated sketches. This work provided evidence that supports the capabilities of deep generative design tools and their potential to assist designers in creative tasks.