Why FSU?

I attend Florida State University because it is the best university for me! I love this university so much that I completed both my BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering at the Panama City campus. I then transferred to the Tallahassee campus for my doctoral studies. FSU is fantastic because it is a major research university, and it is also a close-knit community. All students are treated with kindness. Administrators, faculty, and staff are always willing to help us succeed. Since I attend the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, I also have the privilege of meeting hard-working students from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University.

Motivation to pursue a graduate degree

I am very motivated to obtain a PhD degree because I want to increase my knowledge base, expand my thinking, and conduct cutting-edge machine learning research. As a PhD student, I also get to meet other dedicated graduate students in many fields of studies.

Importance of research and work

My machine learning research will contribute to the continued success of the Navy’s excellence in littoral defense. Machine learning is a type of artificial intelligence. Computer algorithms are developed to analyze data and to use statistical techniques to draw conclusions from the analyzed data. Its objective is to get the computer program to think more like a human by repeatedly training it on a dataset. As the program iteratively trains itself, its accuracy and its performance improve. The trained algorithm is then employed to make predictions about new information. Machine learning is a very exciting field of study because it is a very powerful computational tool with numerous applications. Some applications include speech recognition, facial recognition, object detection, and object classification.

Advice for anyone considering graduate school

Determine which academic program will meet your personal and professional goals, make sure you and your advisor have similar research interests, and be prepared to work very hard.

Accomplishments during graduate career

I completed my preliminary examination in one semester. This schedule gave me the privilege of time to explore two research areas concurrently: machine learning and path planning. As a result of my machine learning studies, I am doing a machine learning internship with the Department of the Navy as part of my DOD SMART Scholarship. My path planning research resulted in the publication of two conference papers. Currently, I am working on a journal article relating to path planning. After I submit this journal article, I will conclude my work in path planning. I will then be working exclusively on machine learning research for the rest of my academic program because my true passion really lies in conducting machine learning research. The path planning papers that I have published are listed as follows: J. Jermyn and R. Roberts. “Path Planning Algorithms: An Evaluation of Five Rapidly Exploring Random Tree Methods,” presented at the 34th Florida Conf. Recent Advances Robotics (FCRAR), Pensacola, Florida, USA, May 13-14, 2021. J. Jermyn and R. Roberts. “A Review of Rapidly Exploring Random Tree Path Planning Algorithms,” presented at the 33rd Florida Conf. Recent Advances Robotics (FCRAR), Melbourne, Florida, USA, May 14-16, 2020. I have also been featured in many articles, including the following: 2020 Naval Science and Technology Future Force magazine, the SMART Scholar Showcase, Society of American Military Engineers Panama City Post Facebook, and the FSU Panama City Torch 2020 Issue.

Career aspirations

As a SMART Scholar, I will be employed by the Department of the Navy as a research scientist to work on national defense related projects.