Prospective Applicants

Students-01                   Students-02

Thank you for visiting this page and for your interest in our research team.

Why ESP Lab? It is important to follow your passion and choose a research topic that you are most excited about. You should discover your passion on your own. I always encourage younger students to join research labs during their undergraduate years and contribute to a few pilot research projects which will hopefully help them to determine their interest. Aside from choosing the topic that interests you most, it is important to join an active and highly dynamic research lab, collaborate with talented fellow graduate students, and work on research problems with significant societal impact. ESP lab offers many of these advantages. We often consider wearable computers as system drivers which cover varied aspects of embedded systems. Hence, students in this lab will have the opportunity to choose and refine the topic that they are most excited about, whether it is algorithms, signal processing or system design including circuits and sensor design.

Why Texas A&M? Texas A&M is a tier one university and a major research institution. The engineering school ranks among top 10 public schools in the US according to the US News & World Report rankings. The University has world-class faculty, major research programs, and significant amount of resources. But more importantly, Texas A&M attracts some of the best students interested in engineering disciplines and has a very strong alumni network. The engineering school is going under transformational programs including the 25 by 25 initiative which aims to increase access for qualified students to engineering education to an enrollment of 25,000 engineering students by 2025. This can potentially transform Texas A&M engineering school to the largest engineering program in the US.

Undergraduate Students in Texas A&M: I often have openings for undergraduate research. If you are at Texas A&M and are interested in embedded systems, in particular, wearable devices and IoT, and want to spend 10-20 hours on research per week, read some of my papers and send me an email. Please include your CV , transcripts and a brief paragraph about your interest. Once I learn about your background and interest, and we discuss a potential project, I would ask you to provide a weekly schedule on how you like to spend time in the lab. I would require a schedule with blocks of 4 hours or longer on each day that you are planning to allocate to research. In other words, I don’t recommend spending less than 4 hours on research each day (e.g., half an hour or one hour time blocks between classes are not ideal). Most undergraduate research appointments will be paid.

Undergraduate Students not in Texas A&M: I do not have any position for undergraduate students not enrolled in Texas A&M. This includes internship opportunities (paid or unpaid).

MS Students in Texas A&M: Occasionally, when there is a perfect match and a project is suitable for an MS thesis, there might be opportunities for an RA. If you are interested in my research, I suggest that you take my classes on embedded systems, do well in the class and the final project. I will be watching all students in class and you will likely get an email from me to discuss potential opportunities if you do well!

PhD Students in Texas A&M: Congrats on the admission to our graduate program. I always have opening for motivated and talented graduate students. I can advise students from BME, CSE and ECE departments. If you are in any of theses programs and are interested in my research, I encourage you to read through my existing projects on the research page, maybe browse through some of the papers, and send me an email. Please include your CV, transcripts, TOEFL (if you are an international student) and GRE scores and a brief description on a project that you have done and you are proud of. I do not think GPA is always a definite indicator on research capabilities of the student, I would however pay attention to your grades in key engineering courses. Publications (top or good quality) often are very important indicators of your research capabilities.

Prospective PhD Students not yet admitted to Texas A&M: Thank you for your interest in our work. Our engineering program is highly competitive and selective, and only the most qualified candidates will be admitted. I have no control over the admission. If you feel you are among the qualified students, I would encourage you to read through the research projects and our publications. Once you realize there is a mutual match, send me an email. Please avoid sending generic emails. Include your CV, transcripts, TOEFL (if you are an international student) and GRE scores and a brief description on a project that you have done and you are proud of. Once again, although I have no control over the admission, after we set up an interview and get to know each other better, I may add my recommendation to your admission file.