Viterbi Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE)

Meet the 2022 SURE Fellows


USC Viterbi School of Engineering hosted a total of 42 SURE fellows for the 2022 summer program. The SURE 2022 SURE cohort came from 30 different colleges and university across the country and represent a diversity of academic backgrounds and engineering interests. SURE fellows were placed in 24 different laboratories within Viterbi and conducted research under the guidance of over 50 faculty members, postdocs, and PhD students. Funding for SURE fellows was supported by various partners, including Amazon, USC-Meta Center, USC Viterbi and Pasadena City College. 

Sanskar Agrawal
Viterbi SURE Fellow
Villanova University
Electrical Engineering

Lab: Space Engineering Research Center
Faculty/PI: David Barnhart
Department: Astronautical Engineering
Project: Quidient: Software for Spacecraft Maintenance and Orbital Debris Recognition

Alexa Alcala
Amazon SURE Fellow
UC Berkeley
Engineering Physics

Lab: Space Engineering Research Center
Faculty/PI: David Barnhart
Department: Astronautical Engineering
Project: Autonomous Docking Mechanisms for Orbiting Space Platforms

Quentin Anderson-Watson
Amazon SURE Fellow
Penn State University
Mechanical Engineering

Lab: Haptics Robotics and Virtual Interaction (HaRVI) Lab
Faculty/PI: Heather Culbertson
Department: Computer Science
Project: Designing a Haptic Pillow for Anxiety and Stress Management

Ayomide Ayowole-Obi
Amazon SURE Fellow
Texas Christian University
Computer Science

Lab: Knowledge Capture and Discovery Lab
Faculty/PI: Yolanda Gil, Emmanuel Johnson
Department: Computer Science
Project: Towards Intelligent Tutoring Systems for Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) Skills Training

Nicholas Azpeitia
Amazon SURE Fellow
UC San Diego
Computer Engineering

Lab: Space Engineering Research Center
Faculty/PI: David Barnhart
Department: Astronautical Engineering
Project: LEAPFROG (Lunar Entry and Approach Platform For Research On Ground)

Janelle Baker
Amazon SURE Fellow
Stanford University
Biomedical Engineering

Lab: Biomedical Microsystems Lab
Faculty/PI: Ellis Meng
Department: Biomedical Engineering
Project: Monitoring Flow of Cerebrospinal Fluid with a Microfabricated Electrochemical Parylene Flow Sensor

Kush Bhagat
USC-Meta Center SURE Fellow
University of Texas at Dallas
Computer Science

Lab: Grounding Language in Actions, Multimodal Observations and Robots (GLAMOR) Lab
Faculty/PI: Jesse Thomason
Department: Computer Science
Project: Action Conditioned Segmentation for ALFRED

Matthew Burke
Viterbi SURE Fellow
University of Pennsylvania
Computer Science

Lab: Analog/RF Integrated Circuits, Microsystems, and Electromagnetics (ACME) Lab
Faculty/PI: Constantine Sideris
Department: Electrical and Computer Engineering
Project: Machine Learning Assisted Photonic Circuit Design

Hayley Chang
Amazon SURE Fellow
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
Computer Science

Lab: Wireless Devices and Systems (WiDeS) Group
Faculty/PI: Andreas Molisch
Department: Electrical and Computer Engineering
Project: Deep Learning Based Wireless Localization in GPS-Denied Areas

Derek Chibuzor
Amazon SURE Fellow
University of Southern California
Aerospace Engineering

Lab: Space Engineering Research Center
Faculty/PI: David Barnhart
Department: Astronautical Engineering
Project: CLING-ERS: Optimizing RPO Ease for Assembly Operations

Brian Cruz
Amazon SURE Fellow
California Institute of Technology
Electrical Engineering

Lab: Analog/RF Integrated Circuits, Microsystems, and Electromagnetics (ACME) Lab
Faculty/PI: Constantine Sideris
Department: Electrical and Computer Engineering
Project: Development of a Portable Point-of-Care Magnetic Spectroscopy Platform

Lucas Dahlke
Viterbi SURE Fellow
UC Davis
Mechanical Engineering

Lab: Aerodynamic Design Research Lab (ADRL)
Faculty/PI: Alejandra Uranga
Department: Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Project: Wing Tunnel Testing for Flying Configurations

Gaia Dennison
USC-Meta Center SURE Fellow
Cal Poly Pomona 
Computer Science

Lab: Optimization for Data Driven Science
Faculty/PI: Meisam Razaviyayn
Department: Industrial and Systems Engineering, Computer Science
Project: RIFLE: Robust Inference From Low-Order Marginals

Brendan Flanagan
Amazon SURE Fellow
University of Southern California 
Mechanical Engineering

Lab: Photonics in Complex Systems
Faculty/PI: Chia Wei Wade Hsu
Department: Electrical and Computer Engineering
Project: Noninvasive Optical Imaging inside Biological Tissue

Johany Flores
Amazon SURE Fellow
University of Texas at Arlington 
Computer Science

Lab: Knowledge Capture and Discovery Lab
Faculty/PI: Yolanda Gil, Emmanuel Johnson
Department: Computer Science
Project: Towards Intelligent Tutoring Systems for Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) Skills Training

Austin Froelich
USC-Meta Center SURE Fellow
Harvey Mudd College
Mathematics, Computer Science

Lab: Suen Lab
Faculty/PI: Sze-chuan Suen
Department: Industrial and Systems Engineering
Project: Racial Disparities in Disease Outcomes

Jacob Futterman
Viterbi SURE Fellow
University of Southern California
Mechanical Engineering

Lab: Robot Locomotion And Navigation Dynamics (RoboLAND) Lab
Faculty/PI: Feifei Qian
Department: Electrical Engineering
Project: Robot-Aided Exploration and Analysis of Muddy Environments

Jasmine Gonzalez
Amazon SURE Fellow
University of Southern California
Environmental Engineering

Lab: N/A
Faculty/PI: Najmedin Meshkati
Department: Industrial and Systems Engineering
Project: Offshore Wind Turbines as an Emerging Source of Renewable Energy: An Engineering, Safety, Health and Environmental Life Cycle Analysis

Cesar Hernandez-Reyes
Amazon SURE Fellow
UCLA
Mechanical Engineering

Lab: Space Engineering Research Center
Faculty/PI: David Barnhart
Department: Astronautical Engineering
Project: MAGNETO: Mechanical and Software design of 1.5U CubeSat 

Marissa Hsu
Amazon SURE Fellow
Johns Hopkins University
Electrical Engineering

Lab: Analog/RF Integrated Circuits, Microsystems, and Electromagnetics (ACME) Lab
Faculty/PI: Constantine Sideris
Department: Electrical and Computer Engineering
Project: Implementation of a Wireless Body Area Network Using Bluetooth Low Energy

Chidera Iwudyke
Amazon SURE Fellow
U of Maryland, Baltimore County Computer Science

Lab: Grounding Language in Actions, Multimodal Observations and Robots (GLAMOR) Lab
Faculty/PI: Jesse Thomason
Department: Computer Science
Project: Retention and Retrieval: Second Language Gestural Learning

Shruthika Kandukuri
Amazon SURE Fellow
University of Washington
Mechanical Engineering

Lab: Space Engineering Research Center
Faculty/PI: David Barnhart
Department: Astronautical Engineering
Project: Simulating Space Dynamics in a Low-Friction Environment for Satellite Development and Validation

Da Hee (Stephanie) Kim
Amazon SURE Fellow
University of Chicago
Computer Science

Lab: Information Science Institute
Faculty/PI: Mayank Kejriwal
Department: Industrial and Systems Engineering
Project: Lower-Order and Higher-Order Centrality Correlations in Real-World Networks

Yifei Liu
Amazon SURE Fellow
UC Irvine
Computer Science

Lab: Energy Efficient Secure Sustainable Computing Group
Faculty/PI: Peter Beerel 
Department: Electrical and Computer Engineering
Project: Synthetic Dataset Generation To Empower Ember Detection in Wildfire

Arturo Luna
Amazon SURE Fellow
Cal State Long Beach
Aerospace Engineering

Lab: Space Engineering Research Center
Faculty/PI: David Barnhart
Department: Astronautical Engineering
Project: LEAPFROG (Lunar Entry and Approach Platform For Research On Ground)

Luis Manzanarez
Amazon SURE Fellow
University of Southern California
Chemical Engineering

Lab: Armani Lab
Faculty/PI: Andrea Armani
Department: Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Project: Investigation of How Bacteria Responds to Mechanical Cue: The System And The Automation

Devin Martin
Amazon SURE Fellow
University of Southern California
Computer Science

Lab: USC-Amazon Center for Secure and Trusted Machine Learning
Faculty/PI: Vatsal Sharan
Department: Computer Science
Project: Examining the Effects of Spurious Correlations for Reliance of Machine Learning Systems on Data Biases

Nicole Nakamoto
Amazon SURE Fellow
University of Southern California
Chemical Engineering

Lab: Sharada Lab
Faculty/PI: Shaama Sharada
Department: Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Project: Developing Methods to Screen Transition Metal Catalysts: Linear Free Energy Relationships

Kensuke Nakamura
Viterbi SURE Fellow
Princeton University
Mechanical Engineering

Lab: Safe and Intelligent Autonomy Lab
Faculty/PI: Somil Bansal
Department: Electrical and Computer Engineering
Project: Online Update of Safety Assurances Using Confidence-Based Predictions

Maia Nkonabang
Amazon SURE Fellow
University of Southern California
Computer Science

Lab: Information Science Institute
Faculty/PI: Mayank Kejriwal
Department: Industrial and Systems Engineering
Project: Enron Network Analysis

Jordan Peiffer
Viterbi SURE Fellow
The Ohio State University
Biomedical Engineering

Lab: Photonics in Complex Systems
Faculty/PI: Chia Wei Wade Hsu
Department: Electrical and Computer Engineering
Project: Optimization of Perfectly Matched Layer for Electromagnetic Simulation

Megan Phi
Amazon SURE Fellow
University of Southern California
Industrial & Systems Engineering

Lab: Armani Lab
Faculty/PI: Andrea Armani
Department: Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Project: Millifluidic Channel Integration for Heat Mitigation in Electromagnetic Microscopy Mount

Alexander Quiachon
Amazon SURE Fellow
Colorado School of Mines
Engineering (Undecided)

Lab: Nweke Research Group, The N.E.S.T.
Faculty/PI: Chukwuebuka Nweke
Department: Civil and Environmental Engineering
Project: Seismic Site Characterization: Horizontal-to-Vertical Spectral Ratio (HVSR) for Determination of Site Periods

Jade Roman
PCC SURE Fellow
Pasadena City College
Biomedical Engineering

Lab: Armani Lab
Faculty/PI: Andrea Armani
Department: Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Project: Nano/Biomaterials and Photonics

Fabian Saldana
Amazon SURE Fellow
Ventura College
Mechanical Engineering

Lab: McCurry Lab
Faculty/PI: Daniel McCurry
Department: Civil and Environmental Engineering
Project: Identifying Disinfectant Byproduct Precursors through Derivatization and Oxidation

Henry Sazo
Amazon SURE Fellow
University of Southern California
Computer Science

Lab: Haptics Robotics and Virtual Interaction (HaRVI) Lab
Faculty/PI: Heather Culbertson
Department: Computer Science
Project: The Physical World for Visually Impaired and Blind People

Leilani Serna
Amazon SURE Fellow
University of Southern California
Chemical Engineering

Lab: Malmstadt Lab
Faculty/PI: Noah Malmstadt
Department: Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Project: Determination of Vesicle Unilamellarity by Fluorescence Quenching in a Microfluidic Channel

Matthew Sianarta
Amazon SURE Fellow
Victor Valley College
Chemical Engineering

Lab: Space Engineering Research Center
Faculty/PI: David Barnhart
Department: Astronautical Engineering
Project: Simulating Space Dynamics in a Low-Friction Environment for Satellite Development and Validation

Scott Sobolewski
Viterbi SURE Fellow
University of Southern California 
Electrical & Computer Engineering

Lab: Photonics in Complex Systems
Faculty/PI: Chia Wei Wade Hsu
Department: Electrical and Computer Engineering
Project: Exceptional Points in Laser Systems

Newton Tam
Viterbi SURE Fellow
Arizona State University
Aerospace Engineering

Lab: Aerodynamic Design Research Lab (ADRL)
Faculty/PI: Alejandra Uranga
Department: Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Project: Wing Tunnel Testing for Flying Configurations

Leo Tanaka
Viterbi SURE Fellow
Loyola Marymount University
Mechanical Engineering

Lab: Space Engineering Research Center
Faculty/PI: David Barnhart
Department: Astronautical Engineering
Project: ESPA Based Deployable Spacecraft Design

Yaoyue Wang
USC-Meta Center SURE Fellow
University of Southern California
Electrical Engineering

Lab: Cyber Physical Systems Group
Faculty/PI: Paul Bogdan
Department: Electrical and Computer Engineering
Project: Predicting Seizure Onset in Epileptic Patients

Published on October 19th, 2022

Last updated on December 1st, 2022