Congratulations to Natalie Evelev and Christie Nguyen, who were recently selected as Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering University Scholars for 2018-2019!

The University Scholars Program introduces undergraduate students at the University of Florida to the exciting world of academic research. In the program, students work one-on-one with UF faculty on selected research projects. Through this initiative, students will take away an understanding of and appreciation for the scholarly method. A competition is held each spring at participating colleges for the University Scholars awards of a $1,750 stipend. The program will consist of undertaking a full research project during the fall and spring semesters of the academic year, under the guidance of a faculty member. The University Scholars Program serves as an exceptional capstone to the academic careers of UF students.

Natalie’s research is focused on detecting patients and non-patients in the room to quantify disruptions on patients. using deep vision techniques. Her goal is to use this data to analyze patients in the ICU. Using deep learning techniques, she was able to examine patient data and images to detect different aspects of interruptions during treatment.

Christie’s project utilizes Faster R-CNN to detect anesthesia equipment. In this project, she will be working on improving the accuracy of the system to detect surgical instruments in the operating room. The goal of this project is to reduce the amount of time it takes to check if all surgical instruments are present before surgery. This process will improve efficiency and reduce the rate of complications in the operating room.