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Marquis Scholar Ashley Wesmiller ’03 (Pittsburgh, Pa.) is researching ways to detect land mines and may make inroads into helping rid the planet of these deadly relics of war.
Continuing a project that began over the interim session, Wesmiller is collaborating as an EXCEL Scholar with Ismail Jouny, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering.
“We’re taking scanned images of land mines and other objects and using signal processing techniques to try and determine efficient ways to differentiate the images of the dangerous mines from the other objects,” says Wesmiller, who is majoring in electrical and computer engineering. “We hope to determine which is a land mine without actually taking the risk of trying to dig them out of the ground.”
According to Jouny, part of the work involves writing code for a computer program used in mine detection.
“Ashley is writing code in a program called Matlab that will study the composition of wavelengths. Based on her data, we will see if the algorithm we have arrived at is going to help us find reliable mine detection methods,” he says.
The research is part of an international effort aimed at stemming the tide of innocent deaths, injuries, and land use waste that result from minefields.
“We are using scanned images from DeTeC, the Demining Technology Center,” says Wesmiller. “DeTeC is a European Union project to try and develop anti-personal de-mining methods to help solve the problem of acres of land going unused because of the dangerous mines that still exist in the land in these areas from past wars.”
There is a obvious humanitarian component to the project in addition to the usual rigors of research, says Jouny. Wesmiller was particularly attracted to the former.
“I thought it seemed like a really interesting project, especially because it had such a real life purpose,” she says. “For me, this connection to a real life project is the best part of it.”
The work also has helped Wesmiller narrow her future career interests.
“I am very interested in programming and some of the signal processing aspects of the electrical and computer engineering field, so whatever I do, I feel that this project will prove helpful,” she says.
Her EXCEL work has been one of many positive opportunities for Wesmiller at Lafayette.
“Lafayette is a great place for a project like this. The engineering labs and resources are great,” she says. “Lafayette allows students to work one-on-one with professors while at the same time working with high quality equipment. It does not seem that many schools offer such a great combination of both worlds at the undergraduate level.”
A graduate of Mt. Lebanon High School, Wesmiller is a recipient of the Eugene P. Chase Phi Beta Kappa Prize, given to sophomores who have demonstrated scholarship as first-year students; the Rexroth Prize in German Language Studies Award, given to students for meritorious achievement in German; and the Lehigh Valley Section of the ASM Award, given annually to the student with the most impressive record in the introductory engineering materials course.
Wesmiller maintains a 3.95 cumulative GPA. She is a McKelvy Scholar and studied abroad in Brussels, Belgium, in the spring of 2001. She is a member of Tau Beta Pi, the national engineering honor society, as well as a volunteer peer mentor for local Lehigh Valley soccer players.
Wesmiller is captain of women’s varsity soccer and was selected for the Verizon District II Academic All-America Women’s Soccer Team this season and was the Patriot League women’s soccer scholar athlete for 2000-2001. A goalkeeper, Wesmiller helped lead Lafayette to a program-record 11 wins for the second straight season in 2001. In the process, the Leopards qualified for the Patriot League Tournament for the first time since 1992. Wesmiller played in 13 games and posted a 1.10 goals against average and a .812 save percentage. The team captain also managed shutouts over Lehigh and Iona and made five or more saves on five separate occasions. In 2000, she led Lafayette to 11 wins and an appearance in the postseason at the ECAC Tournament. Following that season, she was named the Patriot League Women’s Soccer Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
Marquis Scholar Ashley Wesmiller ’03 combined her knowledge of computers with humanitarian goals in EXCEL Scholars research on ways to detect land mines with Ismail Jouny, professor of electrical and computer engineering.