Center for Urban Informatics and Progress Alumni
Tegan Childers
Graduation Date: August 2020
Degree: Master, Environmental Science
Thesis Title: “Where the Zigzags go: a Microhabitat Analysis for the Plethodon Dorsalis Complex within the Tennessee River Gorge”
Tegan Childers is a Master’s candidate in the Environmental Science program here at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. She earned her B.S. in Biology at Dalton State College where she began focusing her research on amphibians and reptiles. Much of her education is wildlife centric as she has focused on Herpetofauna Biology and Ecology. Her Master’s thesis has focused on understanding the spatial ecology of a native Tennessee species; the Northern Zigzag salamander. This work helped to develop her passion for novel applications in geospatial problem solving. Tegan also volunteers caring for critically endangered African and Asian turtles in partnership with the Turtle Survival alliance. She joined the IGTLab in January of 2020 to assist the CUIP with optimizing CARTA travel. During her free time, Tegan enjoys spending time with her animals at home, and exploring wildlife in new places.
Jose Stovall
Graduation Date: May 2020
Degree: Master, Computer Science: Data Science
Thesis Title: “Video Analytics on the MLK Smart Corridor Testbed”
Employment: Base Camp Health, Chattanooga, TN
Jose Stovall received his B.S. in Computer Science: Software Systems in May 2018 and is now pursuing his M.S. in Computer Science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He currently works on developing Chattanooga’s Smart Corridor. He has worked in the connected vehicles and urban mobility projects using machine learning and computer vision.
Pete Way
Graduation Date: May 2020
Degree: Master, Computer Science: Data Science
Thesis Title: “Vehicular Accident Occurrence Analysis and Prediction”
Employment: Digital Metrics Branch of the Office of the Associate Director for Communication At the Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, GA
Pete Way received his B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in May 2018 and is now pursuing his M.S in Computer Science at UTC. Currently, Pete is researching predictive data analysis in regards to emergency services.
Kathryn Rouse
Graduation Date: May 2020
Degree: Master, Computer Science: Data Science
Graduation Date: May 2020
Employment: Data Engineer at FreightWaves, Chattanooga, TN
Katie received her B.S. in Computer Science: Scientific Applications with a minor in Biology in August 2018 and her M.S. in Computer Science: Data Science in May 2020. Katie spent her undergraduate time conducting research with Dr. Hong Qin in the Health & Biological Systems Lab and working for UTC Outdoors. Her research involved the impact of anomalies, through machine learning anomaly detection, in relation to company electrical billing strategies.
Rebekah Thompson
Graduation Date: August 2018
Degree: Master, Computer Science
Thesis Title: “Data-fused Urban Mobility Applications for Smart Cities”
Employment: Steam Logistics, Chattanooga, TN
Rebekah received her B.S in Graphic Communications Management from Georgia Southern University and her M.S. in Computer Science in Summer 2018. Her research in Smart Communications and Analysis Lab (SCAL) was related to predictive data analysis, computer image processing, and mobile application development.
Austin Harris
Graduation Date: December 2017
Degree: Master, Computer Science
Thesis Title: “MSTROKE: Methods of Fall Detection and Data Storage”
Employment: Center for Urban Informatics and Progress, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Chattanooga, TN
Austin graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in Fall 2017 with his M.S. in Computer Science. He his research at Smart Communications and Analysis Lab (SCAL) was based around motion analysis and cooperative routing. He is now an employee at Variable Inc.
*Austin received the 2017 Outstanding Masters Student in Computer Science award.
Daniel Velasquez
Graduation Date: May 2018
Degree: BS, Computer Science
Employment: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee, Chattanooga, TN
Daniel graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with his B.S. in Computer Science in May 2018. He joined Smart Communications and Analysis Lab (SCAL) in the fall of 2017 and focused on cooperative mobility simulations and mobile applications for traffic congestion in smart cities. He is now an employee at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Chattanooga.
*Daniel was the recipient of the 2017 CHATECH Scholar award.
Brian Williams
Graduation Date: August 2015
Degree: Master, Computer Science
Thesis Title: “Methods to Obtain Pedestrian Distance Walked Via Inertial Measurement Units”
Employment: Integration Analyst at Erlanger Health System
Brian, originally from Connecticut, received B.AS. in Mathematics and Computer Science before moving to Tennessee. He Received his M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in August of 2015.
Brandon Allen
Graduation Date: December 2015
Degree: Master, Computer Science
Thesis Title: “Objective Real-Time Motion Analysis Using Wearable Devices for Post Stroke Rehabilitation”
Employment: Squad Manager at deepwatch
Brandon graduated with his M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, research focused on motion analysis. Brandon received the Outstanding Graduate Student Award in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in May 2015. He also won the prestigious Sigma Xi Graduate Student Award in April 2015.
Alnour Alharin
Alnour received his BSc. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from UofK at 2015. His major was Electronic Systems Software Engineering. After graduation, he worked in different roles such as Android developer, back-end developer and data engineer. After three years in the software industry, he returned to academic life again and joined CUIP as machine learning graduate research assistant. Right now he is working on reinforcement learning interpretability.
Dr. Khashayar Kotobi
Graduation: PhD, Pennsylvania State University 2017
CUIP: 2018-2019
Employment: Senior Software Engineer, Technology Development at Federated Wireless, Arlington VA
Dr. Kotobi received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tehran in 2009, his M.S. in Telecommunication from Delft University of Technology in 2011, and his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Pennsylvania State University, University Park, in 2017.
His research interests cover from wireless communication to data science and include cross-layer design in wireless networks and dynamic resource allocation using machine learning techniques in cognitive radio networks. He is a member of IEEE, and his personal website and publications can be found HERE.
Le Phan
Le is currently a Master student in Computer Science: Data Science at UTC. He earned his Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology in 2006. During his nine years of working in the software development industry, his work fostered his current interest in machine learning. Thus he returned to his academic journey to learn more and began a new chapter at CUIP as Graduate Research Assistant.
Toan Tran
Toan is a former research assistant at CUIP and graduated recently with his Master's from UTC. He obtained a bachelor's degree from Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, Vietnam in 2020 under the supervision of Prof. Van-Hoai Tran. He had great time working with Prof. Hironori Nakajo at TUAT, Japan during his summer internship in 2019. His current research interests include intelligent transportation systems, data-driven methods, and optimization in transportation.
Kameswari Sree Deepthi Nukala
Sree received her undergrad in Electronics and Instrumentation at JNTU Affiliated University. She worked with Amazon for over two years. Though her title at Amazon was Quality Assurance, she also played the role of Business Analyst and Data Analyst. Sree moved to the USA in 2014 and loves to sketch and paint. Sree is a certified Data Scientist through IBM.
