"Perseverance is a virtue of the less brilliant."
"Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art."
Hello. In case you missed it, my name is Denis Laesker. I am a computer scientist, educator, musician, researcher, and engineer. I earned both a B.Sc. and a M.Sc. from the University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, I am passionate about teaching, music, and learning languages. Thus, it is not surprising that I am an aspiring professor; or an amateur musician and polyglot, for that matter.
I currently work as a researcher at the Neuro-Machine Interaction Lab (NMIL) under the lab-coordinator, Dr. Marvin Andujar. In the NMIL, you will more than often see me wearing funny looking hats that record brain electrical activity, or Electroencephalography (EEG), like the one I am wearing in Fig. 1. You should check out the lab's website (link above) to see what we are currently working on! For now, let me just say that my work in the lab involves the development of Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) applications.
I am interested in a wide variety of topics, some of which include music, languages, computer science, BCI, neuroscience, physics, mathematics, cognitive psychology, digital signal processing, and others. As a researcher and scientist, however, my current research interests lie in expanding the knowledge and understanding of how sound, music, and speech recruit intricate circuitry in the brain and the potential for music as therapy for neurological disorders. As an engineer, I want to develop tools for the benefit of researchers in music-related fields and for providing aid to those with neurocognitive disorders. Lastly, as an educator, I want to contribute to the success of future computer scientists and engineers, as well as to promote STEM education to people from underrepresented communities.
Contact
Education
| M.Sc., Computer Science and Engineering, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL | Spring 2019 - Fall 2021 |
| B.Sc., (Magna Cum Laude), Computer Science, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL | Fall 2016 - Fall 2018 |
| A.A., Liberal Arts with Science Emphasis, Hillsborough Community College | Spring 2013 - Summer 2014 |
Publications
Tezza, D., Caprio, D., Garcia, S., Pinto, B., Laesker, D., & Andujar, M. (2020, July). Brain-Controlled Drone Racing Game: A Qualitative Analysis. In International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 350-360). Springer, Cham.
Tezza, D., Caprio, D., Laesker, D., & Andujar, M. (2020). Let's Fly! An Analysis of Flying FPV Drones Through an Online Survey. In iHDI@ CHI.
Pinto, B., Laesker, D., Garcia, S., Caprio, D., Tezza, D., & Andujar, M. (2020) Design Guidelines for Artistic Immersive BCI applications. Paper accepted at 22nd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, 2020, Denmark.
Garcia, S., Laesker, D., Caprio, D., Kauer, R., Nguyen, J., & Andujar, M. (2019, July). An Immersive Virtual Reality Experience for Learning Spanish. In International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 151-161). Springer, Cham.
McClinton, W., Caprio, D., Laesker, D., Pinto, B., Garcia, S., and Andujar, M. 2019. P300-Based 3D Brain Painting in Virtual Reality. In Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '19). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Paper LBW1119, 6 pages
Garcia, S., Kauer, R., Laesker, D., Nguyen, J., and Andujar, M. 2019. A Virtual Reality Experience for Learning Languages. In Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '19). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Paper INT039, 4 pages.