Introduction
Once thinking he鈥檇 never study at a university, Daniel De Le贸n has been engaged in some deep learning for the past five years. Today he is a master鈥檚 student in computer science at 精东影视and a with a stack of internships under his belt.
鈥淚 graduated high school not focusing on any sort of schooling whatsoever,鈥 De Le贸n said.
Still, in an attempt to find some direction post-high school, he enrolled at Cabrillo Community College near his home in Santa Cruz, California, and took what would become a crucial intermediate algebra class.
鈥淭he instructor for the first time treated me as an adult. I think that, along with how he taught the math, just changed something for me. It gave me a whole new perspective on math,鈥 he said.
Working two jobs, De Le贸n took trigonometry and calculus classes with his instructor鈥檚 encouragement. Because his classmates were studying engineering, he decided to take introductory engineering and physics courses, which proved to be meaningful academically and personally.
鈥淢y parents are in a trio. They play Mexican music. I was always very subjectively into music and audio,鈥 De Le贸n explained. 鈥淪o, when it came to physics, we learned about audio objectively. The science behind audio and the acoustics blew my mind!鈥
De Le贸n stayed on at Cabrillo to take more engineering and programming classes and assist a circuits class taught by Carlos Figueroa, his first physics instructor, who encouraged him to keep learning.
鈥淗e was a big inspiration in my life, seeing that he was a Chicano Mexican-American in STEM,鈥 De Le贸n said.
In 2017, De Le贸n was accepted as an undergraduate engineering student at Cal Poly. He then obtained a Research Experience for Undergraduates internship with the , applying his programming skills to analyze the acoustics of whale sounds. This inspired him to pursue computer engineering.
鈥淭hat opportunity was really impactful in my life, classifying blue whale and fin whale calls using . I had never seen machine learning. I basically got to open my eyes to what , deep learning was,鈥 he said.
De Le贸n then joined the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science. He presented a poster on his whale acoustics research at the national SACNAS conference in Salt Lake City, gaining the attention of a Google journalist who noticed he had used TensorFlow software for the deep learning aspects of his project. Consequently, he was profiled in a from Google鈥檚 鈥淪earch On鈥 series.
鈥淭hat experience really showed that, regardless of your background, you can follow your curiosities,鈥 De Le贸n said.
De Le贸n鈥檚 curiosities led him to three internships with Intel Corp. from 2018 to 2020 鈥 first, working with circuits in Chandler, Arizona; next, testing engineering product prototypes in Hillsboro; and finally, working virtually on artificial intelligence applications with the company鈥檚 San Jose, California, campus. Intel was also important in another way.
鈥淚ntel was the real reason why grad school became a possibility,鈥 De Le贸n said.
Intel is De Le贸n鈥檚 corporate sponsor for his , through which a business and a university help fund graduate studies. Cue 精东影视 State鈥檚 , associate professor and senior researcher at the in Newport, who had also worked at MBARI before De Le贸n. Mellinger, who applies machine learning and deep learning to underwater audio recordings, is one of De Le贸n鈥檚 two faculty mentors. The other is , assistant professor of computer science at and supervisor of the , who applies deep learning to sound and music. Donnelly is also interested in bioacoustics, and all three collaborate on research.
鈥淢y project kind of combines these two forces of computer science with the application in bioacoustics,鈥 De Le贸n said.
Capping off his first year of graduate school, De Le贸n completed a research and development internship with to explore the possibilities of deep learning models in the production of . Additionally, he is the grad chair for the , recruiting graduate students to the organization and mentoring undergraduates, especially from underrepresented groups, on what graduate school is, how to apply, and tips to be successful. He also taught coding to Latino high school students in Mariachi STEAM鈥檚 #CovidCorridos workshop in the summer of 2020.
With all his experience, De Le贸n, who expects to graduate in 2022, will have numerous options. Initially, he plans to go into industry, but he hasn鈥檛 ruled out obtaining a doctorate. He鈥檚 sure about one thing, though:
鈥淚 don鈥檛 ever want to stop learning.鈥
