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My research

This page will explain to you why I choose to do some algorithm improvement or design work. A project on stochastic resonance, an interesting phenomenon on signal processing, changed my college life. I would like to thank that I had no lab or funding when I was gonna do some projects on electronics circuit and system design. Otherwise, I won't do any research during my undergraduate study.

The most unforgettable thing in my undergraduate study is the research I had been involved in; as much because of the results as the process in achieving these results. I am getting closer and closer to my dream, to becoming a theoretical researcher of EECS (Electrical Engineering & Computer Science). Former experience on approaching it has granted me the greatest enjoyment. Results like published papers encouraged me to continue striving for it. I consider doing research on these fields as a challenge to measure the best of my energies and skills.

My interests were changed by a project on signal processing, which led me into the world of algorithms. When I was a freshman, a magazine called “Linux Focus” introduced me many circuits interacting with computers. I began to design and assemble circuits myself. However, it did not take long before I fell into the trouble of having no lab or funding. Thankfully, a PhD student guided me in doing a research on probabilistic signal processing. I learned a new way to satisfy my curiosity from that project- doing theoretical research, especially via computer simulation. As I lacked a lab and funding, I shifted to algorithm improvement on certain topics focused by both EE and CS people, such as networks. After delivering my creativity to the unbounded theoretical world, I have successfully published some papers on IEEE conferences and other journals.

Various things around me inspired my research topics. For example, during an internship in a bioinformatics lab, I developed a DNA sequence compression algorithms since I want to saved the disk space occupied by data. This is the initiation of my first IEEE conference paper. Some of my research generated new research. My project for graduate thesis was originally about routing in mobile Ad-Hoc networks at the beginning. During reading papers about it, I found another interesting topic, the clustering in WSNs. After finishing the job on the schedule, I joined in a research on improving an existing clustering algorithm.

My understanding to EE and CS research changed during the research. At first, I was interested in EE and thought that it had no theoretical work. After I switched my interests, the idea that EE is not only engineering formed in my mind. In my first project, when I was working on a phenomenon that could be used in image restoration, I realized that EE also needs scientists provide theoretical foundations which instruct the implementation of technologies. Later I found that some EE topics are also appealing to CS people, such as image processing. I began to felt that EE and CS are not two irrelevant fields. After joining an embedded system club, I felt really difficult to assert that some fields should belong to EE or to CS. They change our life interdependently instead of being two independent fields. I am very interested on their intersections so I have done some algorithm improvement over there. That is why I dislike to distinguish the two.

My future work will be on certain intersection of EE and CS. For example, in those fields I had already worked on, such as bioinformatics, networks and signal processing. According to my former experiences on these fields, I consider them as the research about problem solving and methodology investigation. Not only I am passionate on them, but also I have accumulated some knowledge and abilities for working on them.

My undergraduate research motivated me to pursue further study in becoming a professional researcher. In the past years of self-motivated research, I always felt that I was working in darkness without guidance. This made me deeply understand the importance of a supervisor. That is why I planned to get into a graduate school for more knowledge and proper training.