Persistence Pays Off: Mimi Lertsaroj Finds Thesis Sponsor and Research Opportunity Through Pizza and Prof
By Samuel Cavalheiro
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Mimi Lertsaroj is a senior computer science major and a math/psychology minor. At a Pizza and Prof talk during Spring 2024, Lertsaroj found a faculty sponsor for her Honors Thesis. After hearing about the event from CHC staff, she was excited to attend when she found out professor Erik Learned-Miller would be there. Learned-Miller is the chair of faculty at the Manning College of Computer and Information Sciences and the director of the Computer Vision Lab at CICS.
According to Lertsaroj, professor Learned-Miller has written impactful papers in the field of computer vision, which piqued her interest as she approached him for research opportunities. After making an initial connection and sending a few persistent emails, Lertsaroj met with Learned-Miller. She notes that research requires tenacity, especially in computer science.
“Research is very competitive in the department, persistence makes all the difference.”
She tells the story of another lab she is currently working in with PhD candidate Cooper Sigrist, which took almost three years of communication and persistence to join. In the end, it was all worth it for Lertsaroj. As a result of her persistence, she has begun work on her Honors Thesis, “Complex Terrain Navigation for Dynamic Bipedal Robots,” sponsored by Prof. Learned-Miller and Prof. Donghyun Kim, director of the Dynamic and Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARoS) Lab.
Lertsaroj explained her work in computer vision for these robots.
“Regular cameras have very slow frame rate and for robots, that’s not good enough. Think about how a human walks, we process things so quickly and we need that speed in order to properly move. For example, if you see a rock, you need to process the rock then move accordingly. With any delay, you could trip and fall, the process needs to be instantaneous,” she said.
Her research includes working with specialized cameras that process up to 10,000 frames per second to adequately capture the world around them. Lertsaroj credits Pizza and Prof as the crucial step in getting into this lab.
“If it weren't for Pizza and Prof, I wouldn’t have this research opportunity because I wouldn't have been able to have that initial conversation with Prof. Learned-Miller. That first face-to-face contact is the first step to your research and I’ve found that cold emailing your professors is not the most effective way to reach out… The reality is that professors receive thousands of emails a day and it's easy for yours to slip through the cracks,” she explained.
Our next Pizza and Prof event will be on Thursday, November 14, with Daniel López-Cevallos, associate professor of Community Health Education. Come chat and discover the exciting research opportunities offered here at UMass!
