PhD Candidate in Electrical Engineering at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez
I grew up in Colombia, in a small town called Ocaña. I went to public school, and thanks to the inspirational teachers there, I discovered my passion for mathematics. I also got good grades in chemistry and physics, and I often won local STEM competitions. In high school, I took classes in software and electronics, and when I entered the Industrial University of Santander, in Colombia, I chose to earn my bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering. I completed that degree in 2014, which made me the first person from my father’s side of the family to graduate from college.
After taking on work as a calculus teacher at my alma mater and working as a researcher at the Colombian Institute of Petroleum, where I created a model to estimate the corrosion in oil and gas pipelines, I began thinking about graduate school. On my mom’s side of the family, a cousin was studying for a PhD in Puerto Rico, and he told me about the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez. I was convinced, and I earned a master’s in Applied Mathematics there in 2008. I remained for my doctoral studies in Electrical Engineering, which I’m now completing.I’ve been working on computational imaging and modeling with deep learning techniques, generating phase information from confocal microscopy images.
My goal is to become a faculty member with my own laboratory. I’d like to work on computational imaging problems and artificial intelligence models, focusing on creating new algorithms for classification and enhancing resolution properties (in time, space, and spectral domains) of multidimensional matrices. These improvements have an impact on medical imaging, remote sensing, and robotics, among other fields, so I hope to contribute to the development of innovative solutions to real-world problems.