Carlos Trujillo 

Over the years at UTEP, I have never had professors as open minded and encouraging as professors from the department of Computer Science together in one department. The most important aspect is that many times, professors have taken time off their busy schedules to sit down and help me by answering any questions regardless of how simple or complex.

I have had the privilege to have positive experiences in working one on one with well-respected faculty members. My first encounter was in Summer 1999 when I worked under Dr. Kreinovich as a student researcher as a participant in Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation directed by Dr. Arenaz. I previously had no knowledge of computer science and I was introduced to the robotics room by Dr. Kreinovich and I quickly became interested in programming as I learned to develop programs for nomad robots. In my second encounter, I was able to work closely with Dr. Gates and fellow students for creating an image data analysis tool, Scene and Countermeasures Integration for Munitions Interaction with Targets (SCIMITAR), for Army Research Laboratory. This project was in development for a year and a half and was delivered successfully on September 2003 for customer installation. Lastly, my most recent opportunity at UTEP came about on August 2003 where I was given the opportunity to work with Dr. Roach and his research students in developing a Ring Data Analysis Tool for NASA that will be used for the analyzing images of Saturn returned from Cassini Space Mission. This tool is quite a challenge to develop and will be used by scientists at NASA.

Word of advice: Find something that you enjoy doing. There is nothing better than working on something or reading material that you are personally interested in.

Special Thanks to: Dr. Kreinovich, Dr. Gates, and Dr. Roach.

Note: Carlos is now a manager at General Dynamics (May 2008).

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