In Spring of 2022, the INIT Lab had its first two undergraduate research assistants complete their senior theses! While we have had a long history of including undergraduates in our research, some of whom have led projects, first-authored papers, and gone on to graduate programs, these are our lab’s first official senior undergraduate honors theses. In both cases, the students proposed their own project ideas to Dr. Anthony, who served as their thesis advisor and chair.

In alphabetical order, our first undergraduate senior thesis was by Angelica Almeida, an undergraduate biomedical engineering major. Her thesis, entitled “Design Recommendations for eHealth interventions for People with Eating Disorders“, reflected her interest in graduate research in clinical and health psychology, and was inspired by her research experience in the INIT Lab working on the TIDRC project. Angelica participated in the undergraduate BME Research Day on April 14th, where she successfully defended her thesis to her committee, which included Dr. Parisa Rashidi and Dr. Ruogu Fang.

Our second undergraduate senior thesis was by Emily Pilley, an undergraduate computer science and visual arts double major. Her thesis was entitled “Modifying $P Recognition Algorithm for Children’s Gestures” and extended prior work by the INIT Lab in understanding gestures and the $-family of recognition algorithms. Here is a screen capture of Emily defending her thesis on April 13th to a virtual audience and to her committee, which included Dr. Jaime Ruiz and Dr. Angelos Barmpoutis:

Both theses will be available soon on our Publications page, and both students are pursuing official publication of their thesis research results. Stay tuned!