IDSC is pleased to welcome four new team members. We are thrilled to have you at IDSC. You’re going to be a valuable asset to the U, and we can’t wait to see all that you accomplish.

• Erick Marin, Systems Administrator, IDSC Advanced Computing
• Dr. Phuong Nguyen, Scientist for  IDSC AI and Machine Learning
• Student Felipe Rangel working with Dr. Amin Sarafraz in IDSC AI and Machine Learning on an AI Recycling project, and
• Student Sophie Walenta curating datasets with IDSC Systems and Data Engineering.

Erick Marin

Erick Marin began his technology career in the Air Force as a satellite systems operator. For several years he worked on implementing and supporting VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) networks for the private sector. He would later receive a Bachelor of Science degree in Communications from Florida International University in 2007. Erick continued to work on satellite network-delivery systems and managing technical operations before joining IDSC in 2021 as a systems administrator.  He has extensive experience in networking engineering, systems administration, and operations management within the telecommunications industry.

Phuong Nguyen, PhD

Dr. Phuong Nguyen is a Scientist, Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning in the Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC) at the University of Miami/UHealth. She is also a Research Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) and an affiliated faculty at the NSF, Center for Accelerated Real Time Analytics (CARTA). She received PhD in Computer Science from UMBC in 2012. Her research interests are artificial intelligence, federated learning, distributed computing, and blockchain technologies with applications to multi-sensor data fusion, climate modeling, medical imaging, and digital health.

Dr. Nguyen has led the development of AI-based Computer Aided Diagnosis using an active semi-supervised learning algorithm that is able to assist Radiologists in diagnosis of early lung cancer using Computed Tomography images. She is currently collaborating with The Center for Vascular Research, University of Maryland School of Medicine to develop AI-based analytic models for Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) Risk Assessment using patient Electronic Medical Records (EMR). Dr. Nguyen have published Machine Learning emulation of Planetary Boundary Layer and Microphysics parameterizations to speed up Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model using Neural Network Architecture Search.

Previously, she was a Faculty Research Assistant at University of Maryland College Park and a Guest Researcher at National Institute of Standards and Technology where she made a contribution to develop segmentation algorithms and analytics/visualization tools for analyzing large microscopy images of Cell Biology. Dr. Nguyen mentored Undergraduate and Graduate Students. Her over forty academic peer-reviewed articles, talks, and book chapter have been distributed by prominent workshops, conference proceedings, and journals. In addition, she is served as Graduate Committee Member and IEEE/Springer conferences/journals’ Committee Member.

Felipe Rangel

Felipe is an undergraduate Foote Fellow junior student at the University of Miami pursuing a dual degree in Software Engineering and Economics with a minor in Japanese (Class of 2023). On campus, Felipe is the President of Google Developer Student Club, the Vice President of External Affairs for the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, and the Treasurer of the Cinematic Arts Commission.

During Summer 2021, Felipe pursued a software development internship at Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Washington DC! He enjoyed his time at Amazon and will return to AWS for a Summer 2022 software internship. Careerwise, he is open to pursuing a wide variety of opportunities in the software industry including cloud development, machine learning, and AR/VR.

Since the start of 2021, Felipe has been a research assistant under IDSC Research Assistant Professor Dr. Amin Sarafraz on his machine learning research. Most recently in mid-October of 2021, Felipe was hired by IDSC to work on a machine learning recycling project in collaboration with startup company Lid Vizion. His work will focus on training and fine-tuning an object detection machine learning model on thousands of images to detect a variety of recyclable materials including plastics, cardboard, electronics, etc.

Felipe is excited to join the IDSC Sytems and Data Engineering team and learn more skills for work in the software industry!

Sophie Walenta

Sophie Walenta is a student at the University of Miami pursuing a dual degree in Ecosystem Science and Policy and Marine Affairs with a minor in Geospatial Technology. In addition to her academic studies, she is also an intern with the P.E.E.R. Group and assistant for the Environmental Justice Clinic (EJC) at the University of Miami School of Law. She has a desire to investigate, formulate and present posing research in hopes of shifting power back to marginalized communities in South Florida using a combination of policy work and geospatial mapping.

Sophie is currently working with IDSC Systems and Data Engineering Director Chris Mader, and Data Scientist Tim Norris on curating and assembling datasets for the Geospatial Digital Special Collection.