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Derek Chibuzor, who is pursuing a masters in electrical engineering with an emphasis in machine learning and data science at USC, is seen pointing to a poster while another person listens to his explanation.
Derek Chibuzor, who is pursuing a masters in electrical engineering with an emphasis in machine learning and data science, says he would eventually like to found a new business or startup.
Computer vision

USC SURE student develops prototype algorithm to help automate spacecraft docking

Derek Chibuzor utilized his SURE experience to gain "exposure to an aerospace research project in a professional research environment."

By Staff writer
February 14, 2024
6 min read
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As a New Jersey native attending boarding school in Canada, Derek Chibuzor spent a lot of time on planes as a young student. The travel sparked an enduring interest in flight, and when he enrolled at the University of Southern California (USC), Chibuzor chose to major in aerospace engineering.

Chibuzor attended the prestigious Ridley College boarding school in Ontario, Canada, enrolling in an International Baccalaureate diploma program with a focus on STEM. After graduating from Ridley, he considered becoming a fighter pilot but ultimately chose to enroll in USC’s aerospace engineering program — in part because it would give him access to future internships at large aerospace companies.

His experience already has gone beyond the classroom. Through a unique summer fellowship in 2022, Chibuzor (who was then an undergrad) gained real-world experience conducting research that could help change how spacecraft dock with one another.

What impressed me most was his thirst for knowledge. He’s a student in aerospace but he wants to know about large language models, he wants to know about computer science — he really wants to know everything about everything.
Gérard Medioni

Chibuzor is one of dozens of students who have enrolled in the Amazon-sponsored Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE). The fellowship provides students from historically underrepresented backgrounds with a unique research experience at top-tier universities including USC.

As a SURE fellow in 2022, Chibuzor spent the summer after his first year at USC’s Space Engineering Research Center working on a research project, with visits to Amazon. As part of the program, he was also mentored by Gérard Medioni, Amazon vice president and distinguished scientist, and emeritus professor at USC.

“What impressed me most was his thirst for knowledge,” Medioni said. “He’s a student in aerospace but he wants to know about large language models, he wants to know about computer science — he really wants to know everything about everything.”

Medioni, who previously served as the chair of the computer science department at USC, was able to offer Chibuzor advice on “a set of different options that he could follow while trying to get a dual curriculum of aerospace engineering and computer science.”

“I’ve always been passionate about aerospace and engineering. But I think what the SURE program helped me realize is that I’m also interested in computer science and computer engineering,” Chibuzor said.

Valuable research experience

During USC’s 2022 SURE program at the Space Engineering Research Center, which is part of the school’s Information Sciences Institute and affiliated with the university’s Viterbi School of Engineering, Chibuzor participated in a project called “CLING-ERS”. The CLING-ERS project goal was to develop an autonomous spacecraft docking solution for the International Space Station.

Chibuzor, who was later joined by two other interns to take on the ambitious challenge, was tasked with developing a computer vision algorithm.

“To achieve autonomous rendezvous and docking, each CLING-ERS device is equipped with an infrared camera and a set of four infrared LEDs,” Chibuzor explained. “By detecting the location and orientation of the IR LEDs attached to the opposing device, each CLING-ERS device is able to determine its position, attitude, and range with respect to the other — enabling the pair of to navigate toward one another and dock. To facilitate this IR LED detection, my team developed a computer vision algorithm using OpenCV.”

Derek Chibuzor. left, is seen standing in front of some posters that were part of a presentation for a project called “CLING-ERS” which had the goal of developing an autonomous spacecraft docking solution for the International Space Station.
During USC’s 2022 SURE program at the Space Engineering Research Center, Derek Chibuzor participated in a project called “CLING-ERS” with the goal was of developing an autonomous spacecraft docking solution.

The team utilized SimpleBlobDetector, a tool which can extract blobs — a region in an image that is distinct from the rest in terms of brightness or color. “When docking, the IR camera of each CLING-ERS device captures live video of the IR LEDs attached to the opposing device,” he noted. “Our algorithm could then continually analyze this live video to determine the position, attitude, and range of the four IR LEDs.

“This proved challenging for a few reasons, but one of the more interesting problems involved lens flare,” he continued. “As CLING-ERS approached to dock, lens flare caused the shape of the light emitted by the IR LEDs to distort from circular to rectangular — limiting the efficacy of the algorithm at close range. To remedy this, we developed a feature that dynamically tuned the detection constraints of the algorithm as docking progressed.”

Chibuzor and his team presented their research and prototype solution to the SURE faculty team and their peer interns in August of 2022.

Expanding STEM representation

Chibuzor’s experience as a USC SURE intern demonstrates the potential of exposing undergraduates from underrepresented groups to real-world scientific research and Amazon’s culture of innovation.

“Amazon’s SURE program at USC aims to fulfill the mission of diversifying the pipeline of students in STEM, focusing on an array of projects including machine learning, AI and other areas that Amazon is focused on,” said Andy Jones-Liang, associate director of Viterbi Academic Services at USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering and the school’s SURE program lead. “We had a smaller SURE program at USC before Amazon’s partnership, but thanks to Amazon’s gift and sponsorship, we’ve been able to triple the number of students enrolling in the program.”

While I've always been interested in computers and computer programming, SURE was really amazing because I got exposure to an aerospace research project in a professional research environment.
Derek Chibuzor

“SURE is about purposefully looking at the talent in a very broad section of our community and understanding both how can we can become more aware of that talent and also help those students realize that their talents are useful to companies like Amazon,” Medioni added.

Each year, USC faculty volunteer to host SURE students for the summer. Students apply for projects based on their personal and academic interests. USC faculty and Jones-Liang then work together to select students who match up well with faculty projects based on their backgrounds and research potential.

Accepted students work on their research projects for eight weeks and prepare a poster presentation for SURE faculty and peer interns. They also participate in weekly professional development events, join weekly lunch-and-learns to hear about graduate fellowship opportunities, and participate in weekend socials to build relationships, expand their networks, and explore the local area. The fellowship includes the opportunity to visit Amazon’s local offices and receive direct mentorship from an Amazonian.

“SURE, and Amazon’s involvement in it, helps address the broader societal goals of increasing representation when it comes to solving the STEM problems we're encountering in the world,” Jones-Liang said. “Students can see what a future in STEM might be like — whether in academia or industry.

“For many of these SURE students like Derek, this is typically their first or second research experience,” he continued. “So a lot of the program is designed to familiarize them with the research environment and give them exposure to a real-world research project.”

“While I've always been interested in computers and computer programming, SURE was really amazing because I got exposure to an aerospace research project in a professional research environment,” Chibuzor agreed.

SURE projects also help students understand the iterative, trial-and-error nature of research.

“Much of the program is about fostering that intrinsic motivation to want to learn and get over the hurdles that always present themselves when you’re innovating and doing something new,” said Jones-Liang.

As part of his SURE fellowship, Chibuzor also visited Amazon’s Culver City office — meeting employees, listening to guest speakers from both Amazon and academia, and immersing himself in the Amazon environment.

“I was a student myself and as a student, you have a very limited visibility on the workforce and the environment where you may find yourself,” Medioni observed. “SURE opens the windows on the experience at Amazon in a way that is useful to those students.”

In the summer of 2023, Chibuzor furthered his experience in aerospace engineering through a second internship with Northrop Grumman. Chibuzor was recently admitted to USC’s graduate engineering school to pursue a masters in electrical engineering with an emphasis in machine learning and data science. Longer term, he would like to exercise his entrepreneurial muscles and found a new business or startup.

“The SURE internship exposed me to a lot of computer science and computer engineering, sparking an interest for me to further that and create something of my own,” he said.

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Join us at the forefront of Applied Science, where your contributions will shape the future of Robotics! Key job responsibilities As a Robotics Applied Scientist II Intern/Co-op, you will work alongside global experts to advance the state of the art in robotics and artificial intelligence, tackling innovative problems that bridge the gap between research and real-world robotics implementation to innovate and build solutions on behalf of our customers. We are particularly interested in students with specialization and expertise in one or more of the following research areas: - Robotics - Artificial Intelligence - Robotics Manipulation (e.g., robot arm, grasping, dexterous manipulation, end of arm tools/end effector) - Autonomous Mobile Robots - Mobile Manipulation - Multi-Robot Coordination - Autonomous Navigation - Locomotion - Motion/Path Planning - Controls - Perception - Sensing - Robot Learning - Machine Learning - Computer Vision - Large Language Models (LLM), Vision-Language-Action Models (VLA), Vision-Language-Models (VLM) - World Models - Human-Robot Interaction - Robotics Simulation - Optimization - And related! Key responsibilities may include: - Develop novel, scalable algorithms and/or modeling techniques that advance the state-of-the-art in science areas such as robotics, artificial intelligence, or related - Tackle challenging, innovative research problems within robotics, artificial intelligence, or related that bridge the gap between theoretical advancement and practical robotics implementation - Collaborate with cross-functional teams to solve complex problems, and to communicate research findings clearly, leveraging your expertise in robotics, artificial intelligence, or related - Demonstrate the ability to work independently, thrive in a fast-paced, ever-changing environment - Leverage AI-powered tools where applicable to accelerate research, experimentation, and prototyping. - Critically review and validate outputs from AI tools and automated systems. About the team Explore Robotics Teams at Amazon At Amazon, robotics is where innovative research meets real-world deployment. There are many different specialized robotics teams, including the few highlighted below. Learn more about Robotics at Amazon here: https://www.amazon.science/research-areas/robotics Fulfillment Technologies and Robotics We build dynamic partnerships between people and intelligent machines. This intricate collaboration helps Amazon fulfill orders with unmatched accuracy. Working in symphony with our robotic technology, you’ll have the opportunity to extend your technical capabilities by working alongside some of the industry’s most advanced technologies. This includes our fleet of autonomous mobile robots, sophisticated control software, and technologies like language perception, machine learning, object recognition, and semantic understanding of commands. These technologies help us deliver an ever-improving customer and employee experience, as well as improve the safety of our facilities. Amazon Robotics Amazon Robotics is at the epicenter of robotics innovation. We design, test, and build mobile robots and mechatronic systems. Our offices, labs, test floors, and factories are close together, which means we can design the hardware, write the code, test, build, and watch it all come to life. Our areas of focus include advancements in autonomous mobility, AI, robotic management software, and much more. Fauna Fauna is focused on building capable, safe, and genuinely delightful robots for everyday life. Fauna’s goal is simple: make robots people actually want to live and interact with everyday. Fauna develops tightly integrated hardware and software systems that make it faster, safer, and more intuitive to create real-world robotic products. Fauna’s work spans the full stack: mechanical design, control systems, dynamic modeling, and intelligent software. The focus is not just functionality, but overall experience. Amazon Fulfillment Technologies Amazon Fulfillment Technologies develops tech solutions that create network optimizations for all Amazon sites worldwide. We own network infrastructure and devices in all buildings and labor planning and scheduling technology for fulfillment centers in North America and Europe.
Principal Applied Scientist, FAIM (Full Funnel Agentic Intelligence and Models)
US, NY, New York
The FAIM (Full Funnel Agentic Intelligence and Models) builds the agentic AI systems behind next-generation advertising. The team develops multimodal foundation models and LLM-driven agents that power shopper understanding, audience-aware creative generation, and agentic advertising workflows. As a Principal Applied Scientist for the FAIM team, you will invent the models that help advertisers achieve desired outcomes. Today's state of the art models can setup ad campaigns to a specification, but do not understand advertising strategy well enough to help with abstract goals that real advertisers ask about like "how can I make more money." This is a rare charter to build foundational optimization science where little exists today, spanning campaign recommendation, cross-product budget allocation, incrementality measurement, and long-term-sales modeling. You will set technical direction for a growing team, partner with engineering and product to take models from research to production at Amazon scale, and directly move advertiser ROAS and new-to-brand growth. In this role you will - Own the science vision for developing evaluations of the Ads Agent - Partner with scientists from across Ads to develop best practices for evaluating agent performance both online and offline - Raise the science bar for all agent evaluations developed in Ads. - Own establishing a data driven foundation for making decisions about when new features are ready to launch in Ads Agent. Key job responsibilities - Define the long-term scientific vision for agent evaluations in Ads - Translate ambiguous advertiser needs and competing objectives into a concrete science roadmap. - Invent, prototype, and productionize machine learning and optimization solutions for joint budget allocation across sponsored ad products, spanning the shopper journey from awareness to purchase. - Develop rigorous approaches to incrementality measurement and long-term-sales modeling that ground optimization in true advertiser value. - Design and lead large-scale experiments and analyses to validate hypotheses and guide product direction. - Partner closely with engineering and product to define technical contracts, data schemas, and serving systems that carry models into production. - Raise the technical bar across science and engineering through mentorship, design reviews, and hands-on collaboration. - Grow scientific talent and publish impactful research internally and at top-tier venues.
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