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Sainadth Pagadala Wins 1st Place at IslanderHack 2026
Congratulations to our graduate research assistant, Sainadth Pagadala, whose team won first place at IslanderHack 2026 with HatchWatch, a camera-based system that helps conservation teams find sea turtle nests on the Texas coast. A nesting turtle can come ashore, dig, and leave before a patrol reaches that stretch of beach. HatchWatch uses OpenCV-based computer vision on beach camera footage to detect digging activity and mark likely nest sites on a map. A dashboard brings together camera playback, mapped inspection points, and a site log, so volunteers can check each location and record whether a nest was found and protected. The team also built a 3D beach simulator to test detection, along with low-cost ESP32 camera hardware. Each team member received a 3D printer as the first-place prize. Following the win, Major League Hacking (MLH) invited the team to apply for its Commit Fellowship, a selective startup program that helps student teams turn their projects into ventures.
Hossein Naderi's paper has been accepted to present as a short paper at the ACMSIGSpatial 2026.
This paper, titled "Benchmarking Vision-Language Models for Urban Environmental Feature Extraction Using Human-Annotated Semantic Segmentation," focused on the comparison of the performance of LLMs in environmental features quantification. The collaborators are Amit Kumar, Ziba Abbasian (GCL Lab alum), and Dr. Lucy Huang. This paper will be presented at the ACMSIGSpatial 2026, Nov 3-6, 2026, at Riverside, CA.
Sainadth Pagadala Completes Software Engineering Internship at Esri
Our graduate research assistant, Sainadth Pagadala, completed a Software Engineering Internship with the ArcGIS Maps SDK for Swift team at Esri headquarters in Redlands, California, from May to August 2026. He was one of more than 100 interns, drawn from 60 schools, who joined Esri’s eight offices that summer. During the internship, he worked on developer tooling for the Swift SDK, including a Swift telemetry SDK and the migration of the XCTest suite to Swift Testing.
He also competed in Esri’s annual intern hackathon, the Weekend of Innovation 2026, which brought together 71 interns across 13 teams from five Esri offices. His team built Surplus Signal, an iOS app that connects donors of surplus food with food banks and community organizations. The app runs food-safety checks and matches each donation to a suitable recipient. It then uses ArcGIS service-area analysis and routing to show how far a pickup can travel in time and to plan efficient pickup and delivery routes. His experience connects directly to the geospatial technology work done at the GCL Lab.
Links: Welcome to the 2026 Esri interns · Esri’s 2026 Intern Hackathon · Esri celebrates its summer interns · Surplus Signal on Devpost
Sainadth Pagadala Competes in Invent for the Planet 2026
Our graduate research assistant, Sainadth Pagadala, represented TAMU-CC at Invent for the Planet 2026, an international 48-hour design challenge organized by Texas A&M University. This year, 32 universities in 17 countries competed simultaneously around the theme “Reimagining Food Systems for a Resilient Planet.” Sainadth’s seven-member team received a $1,050 award for their solution.
His team built Sprout Route, a supply chain platform that tackles food waste by giving every batch of food a digital “passport.” Low-cost temperature and humidity sensors record conditions from farm to store. The platform uses those readings to estimate remaining shelf life, then automatically discounts aging produce at retail and redirects it to food banks before it goes to waste. Shoppers can scan a QR code to see where their food came from, with an ArcGIS-powered map of its journey. Farmers get a signal back when their produce sells, helping them time future harvests.
Hossein Naderi has successfully advanced to Ph.D. candidacy
He has successfully advanced to Ph.D. candidacy. He passed the writing round qualification exams as well as the oral round. He could advance to Ph.D. candidacy on Nov 19, 2025.
Sainadth Pagadala Takes 2nd Place at IslanderHack 2025
Congratulations to Sainadth Pagadala, whose team earned second place at the inaugural IslanderHack, TAMU-CC’s “AI for Good” hackathon. The team built bAI Watch, an AI-powered emergency alert system designed to improve community safety during disasters. With one press of an SOS button, a user can speak about their emergency. The system transcribes the message, identifies the type of emergency (fire, medical, police, or accident), looks up the user’s location and emergency contacts, and places an automated AI voice call that relays the details and answers the responder’s questions.
Links: Devpost · Demo video · GitHub · TAMU-CC Engineering Newsletter
Emily Brennan successfully defends her thesis
Emily I. Brennan for successfully defending her thesis, titled “Understanding Obesity Self-Awareness in Corpus Christi, Texas Through Spatial Analysis.” Emily's research has focused on how sociodemographic, lifestyle, and neighborhood factors contribute to the accuracy of how individuals perceive their own weight category.
Hossein Naderi has presented his paper at the IEEE ICDM
He presented their paper on " Socio-Demographic and Spatial Determinants of COVID-19 Booster Uptake: A Graph Attention Network-Based Analysis" at the IEEE ICDM 2025 in the Data Mining conference, Washington D.C. This paper was presented at the 13th Workshop on Data Mining in Biomedical Informatics and Healthcare (DMBIH’25) on Nov 14, 2025.
Hossein Naderi successfully defends dissertation proposal
His research focuses on modeling disparities in COVID-19 vaccination uptake across spatial and demographic groups in Nueces County, Texas. He integrates survival analysis, Graph Neural Networks, and multimodal data (e.g., Street View imagery) to explore travel time barriers, social vulnerability, and neighborhood environments.
Madhukar Kuchavaram Presented His Research at the UCGIS Symposium
We are proud to share that our Ph.D. student, Madhukar Kuchavaram, presented his ongoing research at the UCGIS 2024 Symposium. His work focuses on integrating AI and GIS to enhance urban mosquito surveillance in under-resourced regions. Madhukar's innovative approach combines smart traps, citizen science, and optimization models like MGSurvE and MaxEnt to improve real-time mosquito occurrence prediction and inform public health strategies. His participation highlights the importance of geospatial technologies in advancing equitable and data-driven public health interventions.
Madhukar was Awarded the NSF Travel Award Recipient – GIScience 2025
We are excited to share that our Ph.D. student, Madhukar Kuchavaram, has been selected as a recipient of the prestigious NSF Travel Award to present his research at the GIScience 2025 conference in Christchurch, New Zealand. His work focuses on integrating AI and GIS to support urban mosquito surveillance in underserved communities. The travel award supports his participation and recognizes the impact of his ongoing contributions to geospatial public health research.
Madhukar Kuchavaram’s Research Featured in Transactions in GIS
We are excited to share that Ph.D. student Madhukar Kuchavaram’s research has been published in Transactions in GIS! His work on a GIS-based platform for real-time mosquito distribution prediction, leveraging PostgreSQL, MaxEnt modeling, and ArcGIS Pro, is a significant contribution to geospatial public health research.
Hossein Naderi Presents Research at IEEE Big Data 2024 Conference
We are proud to share that our Ph.D. student, Hossein Naderi, presented his research on AI-driven predictive modeling for public health at the IEEE Big Data 2024 Conference. His work explores the use of Graph Neural Networks for analyzing COVID-19 booster vaccination rates, contributing valuable insights to the field of big data and healthcare analytics.
REEU Students Shine at 2024 ASA, CSSA, SSSA International Annual Meetings in San Antonio, Texas
Our talented REEU students made a remarkable impact at the 2024 ASA, CSSA, SSSA International Annual Meetings, held in San Antonio, Texas. They showcased their innovative research projects through engaging poster presentations and captivated attendees by sharing insights and findings. With enthusiasm and expertise, these students highlighted the relevance of their work and engaged in valuable discussions, representing our program with pride and excellence.
Students Featured in Local News!
Discover how students in the AgTech REEU program are combining computer science and agriculture to tackle real-world challenges. From using soil sensors to deploying drones, participants are gaining hands-on experience with cutting-edge technology while working on innovative research projects.
Read more about their journey and the transformative impact of this program in this article by Kristin Haston: https://www.kiiitv.com/article/news/local/agrilife-students-computer-science-agriculture/503-b2e4bded-7a41-4673-9157-e8fa0186aeb6
Our AgTech Students Explore Crop Innovation
Students toured local farms during the San Patricio County Crop Tour, gaining hands-on knowledge about crop production and sustainable agriculture practices. Funded by the USDA, the program offers financial support, education, and research opportunities in agricultural innovation.
Spring 2024 Graduate Success
We proudly celebrate the graduation of Ziba Abbasian, who completed her Master's in Geospatial Systems Engineering in Spring 2024. Her dedication and contributions to the field have been exceptional, and we wish her continued success in her future endeavors.
Students Excel at AAG 2024 Hawaii Conference
Our students excelled at the AAG 2024 Hawaii Conference by showcasing their research through poster and oral presentations. Their contributions highlight the innovative work being conducted in geospatial science and its impact on real-world applications.
Madhukar - Esri EIP Student of the Year
Congratulations to our PhD student, Madhukar Kuchavaram, for being selected as the Esri Innovation Program (EIP) Student of the Year 2024! This prestigious award highlights Madhukar’s outstanding achievements and innovative contributions to the field of geospatial science.
Explore his work more at: 2024 Esri Innovation Program Student of the Year
Hossein - Best Student Paper Award
We are thrilled to share that our Ph.D. student, Hossein Naderi, has received recognition for his exceptional research. His paper, "A Comparative Analysis of Survival Models to Predict COVID-19 Booster Vaccine Uptake: The Influence of Geography and Demography," has been shortlisted for the Best Student Paper Award at the prestigious CaGIS + UCGIS 2024 Symposium, hosted by Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.
Ziba - Finalist for TAMU-CC Student Employee of the Year
Congratulations to Ziba Abbasian for being recognized as one of the top three finalists for the TAMU-CC Student Employee of the Year Award! Ziba’s exemplary contributions to the Conrad Blucher Institute showcase her dedication and outstanding work ethic.
Madhukar Showcases His Research at ESRI Gulf Coast User Conference 2023 Dallas
Madhukar presented his research on a GIS-based platform for real-time mosquito distribution prediction at the ESRI 2023 Dallas Conference. His work demonstrates the potential of geospatial technology in enhancing public health surveillance and vector control efforts.
Our Students Present Their Work at GIS Day 2023 at TAMUCC
Students at TAMUCC showcased their research and projects during GIS Day 2023, highlighting the diverse applications of geospatial technology. Their presentations reflected innovative approaches to solving real-world challenges using GIS.
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