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UAS Fall 2018 Biographies


	Alan Bohannon –Team Leader Alan Bohannon is a second-year student pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. As the team leader of the Imaging Team on the Unmanned Ariel Systems project, he wishes to gain critical insight on how to effectively delegate tasks to members. He previously worked as an intern at a radar company and built an imaging program to assist a contract’s goals in simulating radar performance. Alan hopes to one day launch and oversees his own business ventures in an engineering related field, which is what motivated him to join the UAS project, with its goals being built from scratch and tackling an age-old problem with recently developed technology.
	Christopher De La Cruz – WebMaster Christopher De La Cruz is a first-year majoring in Computer Science & Engineering at Merced. De La Cruz chooses the UAS project because of their interest in programming and the calculating of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). De La Cruz has worked on various programming projects outside of the UAS project and has gained much of their experience from working with various clients. De La Cruz’s professional goals are to double major in Criminology and minor in Psychology to eventually work for an intelligence agency.
	Felix Diego Solano Flores – Team Member Felix Diego Solano Flores is a fourth-year Mechanical Engineering student interested in working with the Engineering Service Learning, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles(UAV)team. Flores’involvement in the UAV team stems from his interest in unmanned aircraft systems(UAS) and past work with drones doing mini-projects including search and rescue missions, along with learning about the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) policies and regulations to be safe in the airspace. His goal is to help the UAV team be able to deliver their project to detect water stress that could be related to Pierce’s Disease in grapevines by implementing a UAS and help out the agriculture community.
	Lui Cheuk Ho -Team member Lui Cheuk Ho is a fourth-year Bioengineering and the team member of the Unmanned Aerial System Project. Being part of this project provides an opportunity to help out the California grape industry via an autonomous system. Academically, Cheuk Ho is interested in stem cell research and has been working in a stem cell lab at UC Merced. Cheuk Ho hopes to become an expert on using the knowledge of stem cells and engineering to improve health care. More specifically, Cheuk Ho plans on going to graduate school to have a deep understanding of bioengineering.
	Nathan Ibarra – Project Manager Nathan Ibarra is a third-year student striving to earn his degree in Mechanical Engineering and is currently the Project Manager of the UAS Engineering Service Learning Team. Nathan was also the Project Manager last year and stayed to continue leading the team toward accomplishing the project goal. He is very interested in how drones could be applied to everyday life and what the benefits are for doing so. He views the UAS team as the best environment to further his experience in drone applications/development and to continue onward towards a future career in this field of aviation.
	Jeffrey Ng - Assistant Project Manager Jeffrey Ng is a second-year Computer Science and Engineering student. He was previously a member of the imaging team and is currently the assistant project manager. Ng joined the team to gain practical experience managing a team as well as developing an impactful application. He saw this team as the best opportunity to work with aviation and leading-edge technology. Ng recognizes that this application has the potential to tackle a myriad of problems affecting life on Earth. He is passionate about dealing with environmental issues and intends to mitigate these issues through the use of UAS and computer vision in his career.
	Elsie M. Reyes - Communication Officer Elsie Reyes is a fifth-year Environmental Engineering student. She is the communication officer for the Unmanned Aerial System team of Engineering Service Learning. She chose this to work on this project to experience more hands-on engineering activities. She is interested in environmental-related works and she enjoys doing fieldwork outdoors. Other than environmental related fields, she is also interested in how mechanics such as drones could help the environment around us, especially in this growing modern world. In the near future, she hopes to work at a profession that she desires dearly. Which is to help our environment become a better place by implementing the experiences and skills she has acquired. Specifically, she wants to help the community she grew up in at her hometown, Philippines, where it needs a helping hand
	Asael Rivera - Platform Team Member Asael Rivera is a first-year student pursuing his Mechanical Engineering major at the University of California, Merced. Rivera is a platform team member on the UAS (Unmanned Aerial System) team, Engineering Service Learning project, where he is working to automate drone test flights to efficiently identify the Pierce’s Disease in crops. Rivera has a strong passion for machinery and has joined the Unmanned Aerial System team in hopes of gaining experience in working with a drone and a team. He hopes to use the experience he gained with the UAS team to assist him on his journey to becoming a Mechanical Engineer.
	Alejandro Sanchez –Team Leader Alejandro Sanchez is a second-year Mechanical Engineering student and the team leader of the Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) Platform team. Being a part of the UAS project has provided Alejandro an avenue into professional engineering development and an opportunity for him to lead and collaborate with students that share similar interests. Academically, Alejandro studies vector calculus, engineering statics, and dynamics, and is enrolled in an introductory Java programming course. Currently, he focuses on excelling in mathematics, engineering, and computer science, and aims to conduct research in aeronautical engineering by next Summer, where he hopes to gain experience working with AutoCAD, software development, and/or mathematical modeling.
	Annaliza Torres - Team Member Annaliza Torres is a fourth-year student pursuing a Bachelor’s in Materials Science and Engineering with a Nanotechnology Emphasis and Physics Minor. Torres is training to become a pilot for the UAS (Unmanned Aerial System) team, Engineering Service Learning project. Torres hopes to gain experience in working with drones and flight designs to assist her to become a Materials Scientist and Engineer.
	Sydney Washington - Intellectual Property Officer Sydney Washington is a third-year Mechanical Engineering student with a focus on robotics. Sydney joined the Unmanned Aerial Systems project because of her interest in drone research. This semester she will be the intellectual property officer and is a team member of the imaging team. Through this project, she hopes to learn a little bit about coding. Sydney plans to use her acquired knowledge from this project of java interphase on her further practices of robotics. In the future, she aspires to create affordable robotics that can be accessible to people of all income groups.