Destiny Law is a second-year senior electrical engineering student at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. (Photo: T Radulovich)
Undergraduate Research Spotlight
Destiny Law is a second-year senior electrical engineering student at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. She attends Florida A&M University (FAMU) and hails from Orlando. Law is an undergraduate researcher in the Advanced Sensors Technologies for Applications in Electrical Engineering Research and Innovation Excellence Consortium (ASTERIX).
What is your study area?
As of now, I am between going into cybersecurity or software engineering. I might do both.
What is the ASTERIX program?
The ASTERIX program provides opportunities for minority students to help better their skills and futures in STEM careers. The most exciting thing about it is chance to work with women in engineering. In my experience, there are not many women in engineering that you look to for advice and guidance.
What is it like to work in research as an undergraduate student?
My research experience is very different from how I expected it to be. When I pictured myself doing research, I thought I would be doing more theoretical work like data collecting, similar to my engineering labs. Much to my delight, I use my recently gained knowledge of object detection, which I learned about during my spring 2021 semester in a research-focused mentorship program for women, “Computing to Change the World for Better.”
What kinds of things do you get to do as a researcher?
For my project, I can detect objects using edge computing, a Raspberry Pi 3B+, the Intel Openvino Toolkit, and the Intel Compute Stick 2. Since I only have a limited amount of knowledge of edge computing, the learning experience has been a rollercoaster. I am lucky to be working with an electrical engineering graduate student who has a similar project. She has been a great asset.
What are your long-term goals?
Long-term goals are a bit tricky. I am not exactly sure what direction I want to go in, career-wise. I do know that I am interested in learning more about cybersecurity and software engineering, and I want to get more hands-on experience with both before deciding on either—or both.
Who or what inspires you?
What inspires me are the life experiences of my family. I am the youngest out of my five siblings, but I am the first to attend and finish college. All of my siblings struggled due to having children young or making bad choices. Seeing their paths and choices, I knew that I wanted something different, especially after seeing my mom struggle to raise us. I knew that I had to break away from the norm and do something different.
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