Our Team

Elizabeth Schutte

Public Relations Officer

Public Relations & Spanish Undergraduate Student

Primary Role: Public outreach and event organization. This includes communicating on behalf of the team, planning and advertising events, designing and running social media, and working with applications for funding.

Hobbies: Writing, jogging, dancing

Favorite Penguin Species: Penguins are Elizabeth’s favorite animal, but her favorite species is the Little Blue penguin because this is the smallest species

Kushal Mamillapalli

Computer Scientist

Computer Science Undergraduate Student

Primary Role: Video data processing. This includes helping with setting up the neural network environments and converting 2D data into 3D.

Hobbies: Rubik’s Cubing, basketball, and code golfing.

Favorite Penguin Species: Macaroni penguin because its yellow crest stands out.

Xingyu (Amy) Xian

Data Scientist

Urban Science & Informatics MS Student

Primary Role: Data Science and Machine Learning. This includes using neural networks and computer vision to process video data.

Hobbies: Exploring delicious food, playing table tennis, and enjoying fresh air and sunshine

Favorite Penguin Species: Emperor Penguin because of its incredible endurance and the splash of warm yellow in its appearance.

Stacy Ashlyn

Director and Founder, resume

Mechanical Engineering PhD candidate

Primary Role: Mathematical modelling, robot development, and managing the team. This includes modelling and analyzing robot and penguin locomotion, designing new hardware, coding the robot controls, and advising other students working on the project.

Hobbies: Water Polo, piano, painting

Favorite Penguin Species: Tawaki penguins because they are the most mysterious as a result of living in hard to reach places.

Lalya Grant-Simmonds

Data Scientist

High School Student

Primary Role: Analyzing penguin data sets. This includes training neural networks for markerless pose estimation and performing statistical analysis.

Hobbies: babysitting, working out, reading, and baking

Favorite Penguin Species: King penguins because of how cute their flippers flare out

Lester Peng

Mechanical Engineer

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Student

Primary Role: Methodology and hardware. This includes coming up with new methods to solve existing issues in the data set along with testing and improving robot designs.

Hobbies: Table tennis and formula 1.

Favorite Penguin Species: Emperor penguins because they are so iconic and the chicks remind me of the movie “Happy Feet“.

Ajaykumaar Sivacoumare

Software Engineer

Graduated with Robotics MS in 2023

Primary Role: Addressing low-friction terrain stability challenges through machine learning and computer vision techniques. This involves modelling robot walking in MuJoCo and performing camera calibration to extract 3D biological data from 2D videos.

Hobbies: Chess

Favorite Penguin Species: Fairy penguins because their blue eyes make them stand out

Ka Seng Soo

Mechanical Engineer

Mechatronics & Robotics MS Student

Primary Role: Biomechanical Modelling. This includes generating anatomical penguin models from CT scans.

Hobbies: Drawing, playing the guitar, working out

Favorite Penguin Species: Rockhopper penguins because they have bright yellow crests and can jump high.

Victoria Przydanek

Data Scientist

High School Student

Primary Role: Data Analysis and Validation. This includes training, reviewing inputs, and correcting errors in the neural network data processing pipeline.

Hobbies: Reading, spending time outside with friends, and crocheting.

Favorite Penguin Species: Emperor penguins because wild Emperor penguins can only be found in Antarctica making it even more special to study them.

Alumni