Iris Beltran - Computer Science Major

The classroom is just the starting point for learning at Lamar University. Through the Honors Program, the McNair Scholars Program and individual initiative, many LU undergraduates are engaged in significant research and creative activity with the help of faculty mentors. Here are a few examples of outstanding achievement by Lamar University students.

Major: Computer Science

Research topic: Navigational research in autonomous robotics

Synopsis of research: Beltran began robotics research as a freshman under the WIRED (Women in Research Development) program and has continued under the INSPIRED (Increasing Student Participation in Research) program. These programs, funded by Texas Workforce Development, ExxonMobil and National Science Foundation grants, were created to increase the participation of women and minorities in computer science. Teams of undergraduate computer science majors paired with graduate students are working to design software for autonomous robots with the long-term goal of creating a team of robots that can communicate and cooperate with each other to perform their tasks without instructions from humans.

Dates of research: 2004 to present

Presentations: Presentation at Texas Academy of Science in 2006 won third place in the undergraduate division and the Dr. Ali Amir-Moez Endowed Prize for best mathematics presentation.

Faculty mentor: Dr. Peggy Doerschuk

Iris Beltran: “This semester we’re focusing more on outreach than research. We’re doing summer camps for middle school and high school kids where we teach them a little bit about robots and Web development. We get them interested in computer science. It’s like research in itself because we’re trying to figure out how do we get these kids interested and how can we teach them better.”