My Curiosities and History

My name is Jonathan Koch and I am a B.S. in Computer Science Student at the University of South Florida. I love robots. I do research in Robotics; learning and perception in object maniplation. I am passionate about the future of robotics and AI in terms of generative action models devised to solve problems. My research focus has been in learning reperesentations of sensory data in armed robotics for enabling the learned ability of sophisticated manipulation tasks. I am actively searching for graduate roles and lab opportunites.

Much of the work that has inspired me includes the itinerary of Sergey Levine from RAIL, Multi-Agent Emergent Tool Use from OpenAI, Human Representation Learning from Dr. Angela Radulescu at Princeton, and Generative Agents from Stanford Lab.

My passions outside of Computer Science include classical music, playing the guitar, and brazilian ju-jistu. I also find inspiration in the nostolagic game of Minecraft, and much of my work in this field has stemmed from my interest in this game. Below, you will find a brief timeline of my professional developments.

Timeline

• June 2024: Started as a Software Engineer @ Topaz Labs

  Working on desktop applications, developing the interface between the user and the image editing models being developed by the research team at Topaz Labs.

• May 2024: Left the Data Science Team @ CAE USA

• May, 2024: Graduated from the University of South Florida with Honors

  After four long years, I was able to graduate from the University of South Florida with Cum Laude. TBD: where I decide to go for graduate school.

  

• November 23th, 2023: Brought onto Data Science Team @ CAE USA

  Selected to lead effort for Generative AI development, Data Science & Data Engineering @ CAE USA. Work on Machine Learning models, natural language processing and intelligent agents. Brought various representation learning and deep learning techniques to the table; developed pretraining pipelines for BERT models, created a text augmentation library for text classification samples created via structured generation. Expanded LLM software capabilitites, made general purpose software for tackling various language understanding problems.

  

• November 20th, 2023: Hosted IEEE Fall Banquet

  Organized IEEE's 2023 Fall Banquet. Showcased our Campus and Engineering footprint in Tampa Bay and at USF. Over 70 students and 15 IEEE professionals attended to learn more about our Organization's recent engineering impact.

  

• November 14th, 2023: IEEE AI Workshop: Neural Networks in PyTorch

  Presented and led a technical workshop detailing how to train Nerual Networks in PyTorch with a Google Collab available. Find the resources for this workshop here.

  

• August 10th, 2023: Started as UGTA

  Selected to lead discussion sessions for Data Structures and Program Design in C.

  

• July 25th, 2023: Founded USF IEEE's AI Group

  The purpose of this group is to promote the discussion and development of AI on college campuses through the IEEE Student Chapters. Our mission is to enable students to learn and develop with AI technologies and provide an environment where AI project development can occur. Also, the group will participate in one main project a year where students can collaborate on different aspects of software, hardware and engineering. We extended this collaboration to other universities such as ... via open-source software and extension of GPU access.

  

• Summer, 2023: Taught CoderSchoolAI Summer Camp

  Educated younger audience in the core concepts involving artificial intelligence. Ran a curriculum based in Python and a custom software library developed by myself.
  
  Topics include: Python, Search, Agents, Game logic principles, supervised learning, reinforcement learning

  

• April 28th - April 31st, 2023: Competed in VEX Worlds Competition in Dallas, Texas.

  Travelled and represented USF at the largest VEXU competition in the world.
  
  Team: Terri-BULL Robotics

  

• Febuary 11th - Feburary 12, 2023: Hosted IEEE's Lab Tour at USF's Engineering Expo

  Planned and oversaw Lab Tour, set up Robot Soccer Competition for the lab visitors.

  

• May 2022: Started as Junior Software Developer at CAE USA in Tampa, FL

  

• November, 2021: Started as a Programming Instructor at theCoderSchool Tampa

  

• October 2021: Started as a Research Scientist at RPAL(Robot Perception and Action Lab)

  

• August 2021: Transferred to University of South Florida for Computer Science

  

• October, 2020: Joined UAlbany USF Student Chapter

  Participated in workshops, Coding Interview practice, and shared side project development. Introduced to sophisticated robotics systems.

  

• August, 2020: Started Degree at SUNY Albany, Bachelors of Science Computer Science

  

• Spring, 2015: Released alpha of Custom Minecraft Prison Server

  Server featured: Item shop, factions, custom skills, purchasable farms and resource mines, permissions system.