{"id":16035,"date":"2026-03-18T00:25:31","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T04:25:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/machine-learning\/?page_id=16035"},"modified":"2026-04-06T17:15:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T21:15:34","slug":"alumni-graduate-students","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/machine-learning\/people\/alumni-graduate-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Alumni – Graduate Students"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ph.D. Alumni<\/a> | M.S. Alumni<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you an alumni of the lab? Keep us updated! Let us know how you are doing and what you are upto!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ph.D. Alumni – Graduates<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Aditya Dutt<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science<\/strong>
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
May 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science, Computer Science<\/strong>
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
May 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor of Technology, Computer Science<\/strong>
Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Noida, India
July 2017<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ph.D. Thesis: A MultiModal Alignment Network for Domain Translation and Fusion<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Matthew Cook<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical & Computer Engineering
<\/strong>University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
May 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science Electrical & Computer Engineering
<\/strong>University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
Dec 2015<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor of Science Electrical & Computer Engineering
<\/strong>University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
May 2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ph.D. Thesis: Competency Awareness using Null Space Projections<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Spencer Chang<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical & Computer Engineering
<\/strong>University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
May 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science Computer Science
<\/strong>California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA
Jun 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor of Science Computer Engineering
<\/strong>California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA
Jun 2017<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ph.D. Thesis: Enhancing Semantic Segmentation with Locally Learned Histogram Features<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Justin Pitts<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doctor of Philosophy in Agronomy
<\/strong>University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Aug 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science Foresty
<\/strong>Mississippi State University, Starkville, MS
May 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor of Science in Biology
<\/strong>Stetson University, Deland, FL
May 2018<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ph.D. Thesis: The Future of Coffee and Peanut Cultivation under Further Climate Change<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Xiaolei Guo<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hired at Meta as a Machine Learning Engineer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doctor of Philosophy Electrical & Computer Engineering
<\/strong>University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor of Science Electronic & Information Engineering
<\/strong>Beihang University, Beijing, China
2016<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ph.D. Thesis: Interactive Segmentation with Deep Metric Learning<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"A<\/figure>
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Yiming Cui<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hired at TikTok.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doctor of Philosophy Electrical & Computer Engineering
<\/strong>University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science Control Science & Engineering
<\/strong>Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China
2017<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor of Science Control Science & Engineering
<\/strong>Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China
2015<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ph.D. Thesis: Weakly Supervised Point Cloud Semantic Segmentation with Graph Convolutional Networks<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"a<\/figure>
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Weihuang Xu<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hired at intel as a AI Applied Research Scientist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doctor of Philosophy Electrical & Computer Engineering
<\/strong>University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science in Chemistry
<\/strong>University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
2017<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor of Science in Chemistry
<\/strong>Nanjing University, Jiangsu, China
2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ph.D. Thesis: Deep Morph-Convolutional Neural Network: Combining Morphological Transform and Convolution in Deep Neural Networks<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Connor McCurley<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hired at Orbital Sidekick as a Machine Learning Scientist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doctor of Philosophy Electrical & Computer Engineering
<\/strong>University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering
<\/strong>Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK
2017<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ph.D. Thesis: Discriminative Feature Learning with Imprecise, Uncertain, and Ambiguous Data<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Joshua Peeples<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hired at Texas A&M University as Assistant Professor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doctor of Philosophy Electrical & Computer Engineering
<\/strong>University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering
<\/strong> University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL
2017<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ph.D. Thesis: Connecting the Past and the Present: Histogram Layers for Texture Analysis<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Dylan Stewart<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hired at makepath as a Senior Machine Learning Engineer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doctor of Philosophy Electrical & Computer Engineering
<\/strong>University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor’s in Engineering Physics
<\/strong>Murray State University, Murray, KY
2017<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ph.D. Thesis: Domain Translation and Image Registration for Multi-Look Synthetic Aperture Sonar Scene Understanding<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Ron Fick<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hired at University of Florida as a Research Scientist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doctor of Philosophy Electrical & Computer Engineering
<\/strong>University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor of Science Computer Engineering
<\/strong>University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ph.D. Thesis: Robust GANs for Semi-Supervised Classification<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Guohao Yu<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hired at Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doctor of Philosophy Electrical & Computer Engineering<\/strong>
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science Optical Engineering<\/strong>
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China
2011<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor of Science Electrical Engineering<\/strong>
Harbin Engineering University, Harbin, China
2008<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ph.D. Thesis: Weakly Supervised Image Segmentation with Multiple Instance Learning Neural Network<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

M.S. Thesis: Thermal property for repetition pumped Nd:glass rod amplifier<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Sheng Zou<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hired at Norfolk Southern Corporation in Atlanta, GA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doctor of Philosophy Electrical & Computer Engineering<\/strong>
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
April 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science Electrical & Computer Engineering<\/strong>
University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
December 2016<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor of Science Applied Physics
<\/strong>Northeastern University, Shenyang, China
2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ph.D. Thesis: Classification with Multi-Imprecise Labels<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

M.S. Thesis: Semi-supervised Interactive Unmixing for Hyperspectral Image Analysis<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"a<\/figure>
\n


Xiaoxiao Du<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hired at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI as Engineer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alina Zare’s former student at the University of Missouri<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doctor of Philosophy Electrical & Computer Engineering<\/strong>
University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
December 2017<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science Electrical & Computer Engineering
<\/strong>University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
December 2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ph.D. Thesis: Multiple Instance Choquet Integral For Multi-Resolution Sensor Fusion<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

M.S. Thesis: Accounting for spectral variability in hyperspectral unmixing using beta endmember distribution<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"a<\/figure>
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Changzhe Jiao<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hired at The Xidian Univerisity, Xi\u2019an, China as a Tenure Track Assistant Professor; Last we heard, Changzhe was promoted to Huashan<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scholar Associate Professor at Xidian University<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alina Zare’s former student at the University of Missouri<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doctor of Philosophy Electrical & Computer Engineering
<\/strong>University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
December 2017<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ph.D. Thesis: Target Concept Learning From Ambiguously Labeled Data<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"a<\/figure>
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Chao Chen<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hired at Mathworks, Boston, MA; Last we heard, Chao is now at IBM Research<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alina Zare’s former student at the University of Missouri<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doctor of Philosophy Electrical & Computer Engineering<\/strong>
University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
May 2016<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ph.D. Thesis: Partial Membership Latent Dirichlet Allocation<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

M.S. Alumni – Graduates<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"a<\/figure>
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Luke Saleh<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hired at Apple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science in Computer Engineering
<\/strong>University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Dec 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering<\/strong>
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
May 2024<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"a<\/figure>
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Yury Lebedev<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science
<\/strong>University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Dec 2024<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"a<\/figure>
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Anthony Khoury<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hired at CapitalOne<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science
<\/strong>University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Aug 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor of Science Computer Engineering, and Minor in Finance<\/strong>
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
May 2023<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"a<\/figure>
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Austin Kreulach<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science computer & information science & engineering
<\/strong>University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
December 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor of Science Computer Science and Mathematics<\/strong>
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR
2020<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"a<\/figure>
\n


Justin Rossiter<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hired at CACI as a DSP Engineer, Sterling, VA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science Electrical & Computer Engineering
<\/strong>University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
December 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor of Science Computer Engineering<\/strong>
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
May 2022<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"a<\/figure>
\n


Aaron Zygala<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hired at Stealth Startup company as a Junior Research Specialist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science Electrical & Computer Engineering
<\/strong>University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
December 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor of Science Computer Science<\/strong>
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL
2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

M.S. Thesis: What mind matters? Machine learning approaches to linking structural variation in the brain to individual differences in spatial behavior<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"a<\/figure>
\n


Arielle Stevens<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hired at Schneider Electric in St. Petersburg, FL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science Electrical & Computer Engineering<\/strong>
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
April 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor of Science Electrical Engineering & Physics<\/strong>
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI
May 2015<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"a<\/figure>
\n


Hudanyun Sheng<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hired at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, MO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science Electrical & Computer Engineering<\/strong>
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
November 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science Industrial and Systems Engineering<\/strong>
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
2017<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor of Science in Science and Technology of Optical Information<\/strong>
Tongji University, Shanghai, China
2015<\/p>\n\n\n\n

M.S. Thesis: Switchgrass Genotype Classification Using Hyperspectral Imagery<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"a<\/figure>
\n


James Bocinsky<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hired at the American Express as Software Engineer II<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science Electrical & Computer Engineering<\/strong>
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
April 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor of Science Computer Engineering<\/strong>
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
2017<\/p>\n\n\n\n

M.S. Thesis: Learning Multiple Target Concepts from Uncertain, Ambiguous Data Using the Adaptive Cosine Estimator and Spectral Match Filter<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"a<\/figure>
\n


Shashank Avusali<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hired at the VirtueSense Technologies as Algorithm Software Engineer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alina Zare’s former student at the University of Missouri<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science Electrical & Computer Engineering<\/strong>
University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
July 2018<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor of Technology Computer Science & Engineering<\/strong>
Jawaharlal Nehru Techonological University, Hyderabad, India,
2012<\/p>\n\n\n\n

M.S. Thesis: Three Dimensional Reconstruction of Plant Roots via Low Energy X-ray Computed Tomography<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"a<\/figure>
\n


Princess Lyons<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continuing Ph.D. in Cybersecurity<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science Electrical & Computer Engineering<\/strong>
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
July 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor of Science in Electrical & Computer Engineering<\/strong>
University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
2017<\/p>\n\n\n\n

M.S. Thesis: Anomaly and Target Detection in Synthetic Aperture Sonar<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"a<\/figure>
\n


Hao Sun<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alina Zare’s former student at the University of Missouri<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science Electrical & Computer Engineering<\/strong>
University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
December 2016<\/p>\n\n\n\n

M.S. Thesis: Map-Guided Hyperspectral Image Superpixel Segmentation Using Semi-Supervised Partial Membership Latent Dirichlet Allocation<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"a<\/figure>
\n


Anand Seethepalli<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hired at The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alina Zare’s former student at the University of Missouri<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science Electrical & Computer Engineering
<\/strong>University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
December 2016<\/p>\n\n\n\n

M.S. Thesis: Multi-Camera High-Throughput Plant Root Phenotyping System<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"a<\/figure>
\n


Piyush Khopkar<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hired at Mathworks, Boston, MA<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alina Zare’s former student at the University of Missouri<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science Electrical & Computer Engineering<\/strong>
University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
May 2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bachelor of Engineering Electronics and Communication Engineering<\/strong>
Mahakal Institute of Technology, Ujjain, MP, India
June 2009<\/p>\n\n\n\n

M.S. Thesis: Hyperspectral unmixing and band weighting for multiple endmember sets<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"a<\/figure>
\n


Josephine Dula<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hired at Mathworks, Boston, MA<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alina Zare’s former student at the University of Missouri<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Master of Science Electrical & Computer Engineering<\/strong>
University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
December 2012<\/p>\n\n\n\n

M.S. Thesis: Landmine classification using possibilistic K-nearest neighbors with wideband electromagnetic induction data<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ph.D. Alumni | M.S. Alumni Are you an alumni of the lab? Keep us updated! Let us know how you are doing and what you are upto! Ph.D. Alumni – Graduates Aditya Dutt Doctor of Philosophy in Computer ScienceUniversity of Florida, Gainesville, FLMay 2025 Master of Science, Computer ScienceUniversity of Florida, Gainesville, FLMay 2019 Bachelor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":686,"featured_media":0,"parent":15803,"menu_order":7,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/page-sidebar-none.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"featured_post":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-16035","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/machine-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/machine-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/machine-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/machine-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/686"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/machine-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16035"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/machine-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16351,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/machine-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16035\/revisions\/16351"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/machine-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/15803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/machine-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}