People – iMAPLE

CORE FACULTY

David Han

Professor

David Han is the inaugural holder of the Bruce Eisenstein Endowed Chair and professor of electrical and computer engineering. He is an ASME Fellow and an IEEE senior member. Dr. Han received his B.S. degree from Carnegie Mellon University and M.S.E. degree from the Johns Hopkins University. He completed Ph.D. degree at the Johns Hopkins University under the supervision of Andrea Prosperetti. He has previously held positions as a research and faculty member at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Army Research Laboratory, and the University of Maryland at College Park, and has additionally served as Distinguished IWS Chair Professor at the US Naval Academy. He spent over 11 years as program officer at the Office of Naval Research and served as its Deputy Director of Research, overseeing the Discovery and Invention portfolio of over $900 million from 2012 to 2014. He also served as Associate Director for Basic Research in Machine Intelligence and Robotics in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense Research & Engineering from 2014 to 2016, helping to oversee an over $2 billion annual research portfolio. Han has authored or coauthored over 120 peer-reviewed papers, including four book chapters.

Email: dkh42@drexel.edu

Phone: 215-895-5814

CURRENT MEMBERS

Amirreza Rouhi

Ph.D. Student

I am currently pursuing my Ph.D. degree at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Drexel University, under the supervision of Professor D. Han. I am interested in deep learning problems as well as their applications in computer vision. I am also interested in other machine learning problems like feature selection, dimensionality reduction in high-dimensional data, and ensemble learning. During my M.Sc. degree at the Polytechnic University of Milan, I have done research in the field of feature selection in highly sparse data (Single Cell Hi-C data) and Cell Stage prediction. At iMaPLe, I do research on object detection, classification, and identification using computer vision techniques.

Solmaz Arezoomandan

Ph.D. Student

I am working towards a Ph.D. in Machine Learning Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Drexel under the supervision of Dr. David Han. I received my B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Sadjad University. My previous research was focused on Genetic Algorithms and their application in optimizing power allocation in CDMA cellular systems. My research interests lie in machine vision, machine learning, and deep learning. As a researcher at iMaPLe, I am interested in using machine learning techniques to solve real-world computer vision problems. Apart from my academic studies, I enjoy photography, especially landscape photography in my favorite mode, black and white. Persian calligraphy is my other favorite activity in my free time.

Knut Peterson

Ph.D. Student

I am currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Drexel University under Dr. David Han’s supervision. I received my B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in 2021, and my M.Sc. in Robotics from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 2023. During my M.Sc. I also worked as a Software Engineer at Superlative Technologies Inc, a DoD Contractor for the U.S. Transportation Command. In my research I hope to explore different approaches to autonomous perception and decision making, and especially how learning techniques can be more effectively used in robotics applications. Apart from research, I have a wide variety of hobbies ranging from blacksmithing to solving Rubik’s Cubes.

Priontu Chowdhury

Ph.D. Student

I am currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Drexel University under the supervision of Dr. David Han. I received my B.Sc. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Constructor University, situated in Bremen, Germany. During that time, I have also worked as a Software Engineer for the Motorsport department at Bosch Engineering GmbH (Bosch Motorsport). Later, I worked at the Process Data Systems Engineering department of ZEISS Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology (ZEISS SMT) in the area of Data Quality Management. I did my thesis in collaboration with Bosch Motorsport, where the research involved the use of network simulation. As part of the research, I studied algorithms that could maximize data throughput on the Bosch Telemetry System when implemented during a race. My research interests involve signal processing and applied deep learning, and at iMaPLe I wish to explore the conjunction of both in acoustic scene understanding and source localization.

Quoc Thinh Vo

Ph.D. Student

I am currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Drexel University under Dr. David Han’s supervision. I received both my B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Computer Engineering from Drexel, with my Master’s thesis – also supervised by Dr. Han – focused on Machine Learning and Edge ML techniques for underwater and airborne acoustic signal classification, innovating Transformer architectures and Knowledge Distillation. I also work in Software Engineering, with a focus on the reliability, scalability, and automation of Developer Tools, Platforms, and Infrastructure. My current research at iMaPLe involves acoustic scene understanding, underwater sound source localization and its applications. Outside of work, I enjoy reading, cooking, playing soccer, and building mechanical keyboards.

Hadi Khorsand

Ph.D. Student

I am currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Drexel University, under the supervision of Dr. David Han. I earned my B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Noshirvani University of Technology in 2019 and my M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Amirkabir University of Technology in 2022, where I focused on machine learning and telecommunication systems. My research interests include machine learning, computer vision, and their practical applications. At iMaPLe, I am eager to leverage deep learning and machine vision to address real-world challenges.

Joe Woods

Ph.D. Student

I am pursuing my Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at Drexel University under the supervision of Dr. David Han. Within the lab, I am currently researching underwater acoustic source localization. My main research interests include machine and deep learning with limited compute such as on edge devices, as well as ML & AI applications in healthcare. Before coming to Drexel, I received my B.S. in Computer Engineering from The College of New Jersey in May 2024, during which I did work in computer vision and perception on edge devices. I have also worked internships at Crestron Electronics and Millennial Software, doing home automation and machine learning R&D, respectively. Outside of research I enjoy playing tennis, snowboarding, and reading (mostly sci-fi and fantasy).

Kaleb Lefkowitz

B.Sc./M.Sc. Student

I’m currently a B.S./M.S. student, majoring in Computer Engineering and Machine Learning Engineering, respectively, at Drexel University. My interests are rooted deeply in deep learning and computer vision techniques. I’ve worked in the medical imaging field as an AI engineer specifically in the Breast and Skeletal Health division at Hologic. At iMaPLe I work closely with the vision team on projects such as the Vision-Based Aerial Object Detection and 3D Scene Understanding.

Princie Shah

High School Student

I am currently a senior in the West Windsor-Plainsboro school district. I am interested to learn how engineering and machine learning apply to real world settings. Through my research with iMaPLe, I hope to gain new skills and apply research concepts to advance the field of robotic engineering.

ALUMNI