Crowley LSU Student Named Astronaut Scholar 2021

By Rock Withers Last updated Jun 22, 2021

LSU student and Crowley native Benjamin Thomas was recently selected as Astronaut Scholar 2021 by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.

The scholarship honors STEM students who show initiative, creativity and excellence in their chosen field.

The scholarship, awarded by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, provides up to $ 15,000 to promising scientists while commemorating the legacy of the American Mercury 7 astronauts.

“We are very proud of Ben for his hard work and innovative and creative approach to STEM-related issues,” said Jonathan Earle, dean of Ogden Honors College. “When we say that Ogden students will change the world, we mean it very literally. The sky is the limit for what it can achieve. “

Thomas, a senior at Ogden Honors College, is studying Computational Mathematics at LSU College of Science with a double degree in bioengineering from LSU College of Engineering.

He says his journey at LSU began with a desire to become a doctor.

“I thought that being a doctor is the best job I can do if I want to help change people’s lives. I had already shadowed a general surgeon and volunteered at local hospitals for over 100 hours, ”said Thomas.

Through courses and independent research, he discovered his passion for mathematics at a higher level. Thomas said he realized that math would allow him to help people in other ways.

“My goal now is to use this mathematical knowledge to develop or optimize algorithms that can have a major impact on healthcare, such as the automatic detection of tumors in X-rays that identify different microbes on a slide, or AI- assisted surgery. ”he said.

Most of Thomas’ undergraduate research focuses on artificial intelligence, or AI.

According to LSU, Thomas is currently investigating whether there is an ordered configuration for how viral DNA is packaged in the capsid. At the beginning of this AI research, he had no programming experience or knowledge of higher mathematics. Through this experience, Thomas taught himself optimization, numerical linear algebra, probability, and many other topics that play a role in machine learning. He learned to code in Python and three other languages that encode various clustering algorithms such as neural networks, self-organizing maps, and generative topographic maps.

For his lead engineering project, Thomas’ team designed a prototype arm to help with the lobster harvest. As the project leader, LSU says Thomas was responsible for developing the code that would make the arm work.

Thomas said it forced him to learn more advanced coding and how different systems communicate with each other in order to be able to connect a controller to a Raspberry Pi to tell the arm how to move.

Thomas was one of two LSU students to receive Astronaut Scholars recognition.

Crowley LSU Student Named Astronaut Scholar 2021

Follow Us @passionpassport