Advanced & Novel Control
Optimal control, robust control, and learning-based methods applied to robotic and surgical systems.
About
I am a Mechatronics Engineering student at Middle Tennessee State University, completing my Bachelor's degree with minors in Computer Science and Mathematics. Alongside my undergraduate studies, my graduate-level coursework focuses on advanced control, reinforcement learning, robotics, and AI.
Concurrently, I am a robotics researcher at Vanderbilt University's Machine Automation, Perception, and Learning (MAPLE) Lab, where my work centers on surgical robotics and machine learning.
My technical passions are rooted in complex algorithmic design — I am actively interested in pursuing work in optimal and robust control, novel learning methods for control, optimization, computer vision, and financial mathematics and engineering.
I look forward to further expanding on these areas this summer during the VUSE Summer Research Program at Vanderbilt, where my research will focus on 3D Kidney Reconstruction and optimal control.
Focus Areas
Computer Vision
Perception for robotics — surgical skill assessment, kinematic tracking, and 3D reconstruction from endoscopic video.
Optimization
Numerical optimization and convex methods grounding control synthesis, parameter estimation, and learning pipelines.
Financial Engineering
Quantitative finance and financial mathematics — stochastic modeling, optimization, and applied probability.
Credentials
Education
Middle Tennessee State University
B.S. Mechatronics Engineering
Minors in Computer Science & Mathematics
2024 – 2027GPA 4.003-Year Accelerated
Graduate-Level Coursework
Taken as an undergraduate (course number ≥ 6000)
- MATH 6300Optimization
- ENGR 6010AI in Robotics
- ENGR 6020Advanced Control and Applications
- ENGR 6030Reinforcement Learning
Undergraduate Coursework (Selected)
Course number < 5000
- CSCI 3350Machine Learning
- ENGR 4530Controls & Optimization
- ENGR 4580Mechatronic System Design
- ENGR 3510Circuits II
- ENGR 3520Digital Circuits
- ENGR 3540Intro to Feedback Control
Teaching Assistant
Write and grade labs, exams, homework, and quizzes. Hold weekly recitation/tutorial sections for Circuits II and Intro to Feedback Control.
- ENGR 3510Circuits II
- ENGR 3520Digital Circuits
- ENGR 3540Intro to Feedback Control
Leadership & Involvement
IEEE MTSU Student Branch — Founder & PresidentRobotics Club — PresidentMicromouse — Programming LeadSociety of Manufacturing EngineersQuantum Computing ClubAssociation for Computing Machinery
Awards & Recognition
VISE Summer Fellow
Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering — 2026
Selected for the VUSE Summer Research Program — 3D kidney reconstruction and optimal control.
AI Scholar
VALIANT — Vanderbilt
Selected as an AI Scholar for the Vanderbilt Lab for Immersive AI Translation.
1st Place — MechTech Course Project Award
MTSU — 2026
First place at the 2026 MTSU MechTech award for BalanceCV.
IEEE Student Branch — Founder & President
MTSU
Founded and currently lead the MTSU IEEE student branch.
Robotics Club President
MTSU — SME-affiliated
Leading MTSU's Robotics Club; member of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers.
Certificate of Achievement
LIGHTSPEED Hackathon — Team Neural Nexus 6
Recognition from the LIGHTSPEED hackathon for the NeuralNexus6 / Optura submission.
View certificate (PDF)Experience
- Mar 2026 – PresentVanderbilt University
VISE Summer Fellow (VSF)
Advisor: Dr. Jie Ying Wu
Accepted to the 2026 Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering Summer Fellowship — research focus on kidney reconstruction from endoscopic videos.
- Mar 2026 – PresentVALIANT — Vanderbilt
AI Scholar
Connecting skill classification, optimal & robust control, and computer vision to bring interdisciplinary mechatronics perspectives into the MAPLE Lab's surgical robotics research.
- Sep 2025 – PresentMAPLE Lab — Vanderbilt
Research Assistant
Advisor: Dr. Jie Ying Wu
Built deep-learning models — LSTM, 1D-CNN, TCN — to automate surgeon skill prediction on the da Vinci Research Kit (dVRK). Processed high-dimensional kinematics, contact forces, jerk, and entropy streams in Python; validated and visualized multivariate temporal data in MATLAB.
- Jan 2025 – Aug 2025Optics & Mobile Robotics Lab — MTSU
Research Assistant
Advisor: Dr. Hongbo Zhang
Designed and built a six-wheeled moisture-sensing robot for agricultural irrigation. Established wireless MQTT and ESP-NOW networks across ESP32 nodes and a Raspberry Pi gateway. Implemented closed-loop control in Arduino IDE and Python.
- Oct 2024 – Jul 2025RoboThink — Middle & East TN
Lecturer / Instructor
Instructed students ages 8–14 on robotics fundamentals — DC motors, microcontrollers, and intro programming.
Research & Major Projects
Original research, autonomous robotics, and full-stack engineering builds. Click any project to view full details.
Hackathons & Software Builds
Rapid prototyping, hackathon submissions, and supporting software projects. Click any card for details.