Upon reaching my senior year as a mathematics and physics major, I was unsure as to what career choice to make. Back then, I would not have believed you if you had told me that I would be a systems engineer today.

As a systems engineer, I work on the design of various systems that are used by the Army or Navy, usually in a combat role. These systems range from communications to automatic target recognition. My work generally consists of defining a way to accomplish a task (such as recognizing a target) and then creating software that does just that. Along the way, there are many obstacles that I must overcome using the skills that I learned as an undergraduate.

The current project that I am working on involves the use of wavelet analysis and neural networks to transmit images using the smallest amount of memory possible. This is important for the military because they want to be able to transmit high quality images quickly and efficiently (such as during reconnaissance missions). Having learned Fourier analysis and wavelet analysis in school, it is interesting to me to use these mathematical techniques to compress and then decompress images. I also enjoy using the matrix reduction techniques from my old text books to shrink matrices that are too big to transmit. I actually use many skills and draw on many experiences that I had as an undergraduate.