Cheyney University Awarded $200,000 National Science Foundation Grant for Student Computer Science Research
(CHEYNEY, PA – August 19, 2019) – Cheyney University has been awarded a $200,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Historically Black Colleges and Universities Undergraduate Program (HBCU-UP).
The award is earmarked for Cheyney’s Computational Applications Research Engagement for Undergraduates (CARE-U) program led by David G. Cooper, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Computer Science.
“This award will fund 13 Cheyney students from multiple disciplines to research audiovisual activity detection of people for a variety of applications. Research activities include applying computer vision algorithms and audio analysis to existing video data sets,” Dr. Cooper said. “In addition, students will develop and carry out experiments to test audiovisual sensors to track the gestures, speech, and facial expressions of different numbers of people. The research activities will expose students to many of the steps involved in Data Science and Sensor Data research. In addition to performing the research, students will be given research training and will attend conferences to gain exposure to the greater scientific research community.”
Audiovisual activity detection has many applications including surveillance, behavior monitoring of students in a classroom, interactive video games, and integration of smart buildings for climate, lighting, and media control.
The grant will also fund the collaboration with co-project leader Dr. Michelle L. Rogers, Associate Professor of Information Science at Drexel University’s College of Computing and Informatics, to do parallel research with students at Drexel using the same data and sensors.
The collaboration is also supported by the Greater Philadelphia Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP). LSAMP will provide student support at Drexel as well as offer additional mentorship opportunities for student researchers at both Cheyney and Drexel.
“Participation in this cutting edge research will give Cheyney and Drexel students experience relevant for the modern-day workforce,” according to Cheyney University President Aaron A. Walton. “We look forward to an ongoing collaboration with Drexel.”
About Cheyney – Founded in 1837, Cheyney University of Pennsylvania is the nation’s oldest historically Black institution of higher education. Building on this legacy, the vision for Cheyney is to become the premier model for academic excellence, character development, and social responsibility among not only Historically Black Colleges and Universities, but in all of American higher education. The campus is located on 275 acres straddling Delaware and Chester Counties. Read more at www.cheyney.edu.