Brianna D’Urso ’25, a double major in computer science and physics with a minor in cybersecurity, is traveling to the International Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society’s (FLAIRS) AI conference in May in Miramar Beach, Florida, thanks to a National Science Foundation Student Travel Award. There she will be presenting research at the FLAIRS conference that she completed with Computer Science Professor Ingrid Russell about machine learning models for predicting severe weather.
Brianna explains the original plan was to do research on predicting tornadoes. “After looking into how that's usually done, we found that conventional tornado prediction techniques are often dependent on expensive, and locally deployed and specialized equipment—such as radar, so we turned to the use of satellite data as an alternative.”
She credits Professor Russell with helping her apply for the travel award to ensure she would have the funding to attend the conference and says that she’s looking forward to talking with others there who have performed similar research.
Brianna is also working on a second research project with Physics Associate Professor Dan Liu that involves 3D real-time calculation/simulation of the forces in a user's muscles. She explains data is captured from a laptop webcam as the subject moves around. The motion capture data is gathered from MediaPipe, an open-source framework that allows developers to build machine learning pipelines for images and video. “Since MediaPipe's depth output is rather inconsistent, we've been working on extrapolating depth from the other two dimensions of the data, which has been a rather interesting problem to solve,” says Brianna, who is planning to attend graduate school and is interested in interdisciplinary studies involving computer science and physics
Brianna says her favorite thing about UHart is the small class sizes. “It encourages asking faculty questions, whether it’s about how you are doing in class, or about the course material. It makes it easier to talk with professors and form relationships with them.
Outside of schoolwork, Brianna says she spends her time working on projects at home.
“I like to learn, and I like to apply myself to things, so I tend to spend a lot of my free time working with computers and electronics or learning new things about whatever topic piques my interest at any given time,” she says.
Brianna D’Urso ’25, College of Arts and SciencesIf you are unsure of whether you may be capable of doing something as a student, such as a programming project, if it doesn't hurt to try it, then do so. You may surprise yourself. And if you get an opportunity to do something like a term project, make the most of it, and see what you can do. Pace yourself, but also push yourself.