Javier Gálvez
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” 1
About me
My given name is José Javier Gálvez Gamboa but people call me just Javier. I was born in Culiacán, México where I studied at the Technological Institute of Culiacán to obtain my Bachelor degree in Mechatronic Engineering in 2013. During my career, I was involved in several scholar projects mainly related to the design and control of mobile robots and robots arms. Further, I had the opportunity to make two summer research stays. The first one was at the Research Center of Automotive Mechatronics at the Monterrey Institute of Technology where I designed a virtual city with different road conditions in order to help to validate the mathematical model of a control system for an electric vehicle with embedded motor wheels. The second one was at the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí where I worked in the development of PID controller for a robotic arm.
After that, I took a job where I learned a lot of stuff about automation in industries, mainly in the fishmeal production. But my curiosity about the computer vision field leads me to study a Master degree. So, I went to México City to the National Polytechnic Institute at the Center for Innovation and Computer Technology Development. By suggestion of my advisors Prof. Magdalena Marciano and Prof. Hind Taud, I took a project that, in short, consisted of the development of a computer vision algorithm to detect mitotic cells of breast cancer in histopathologies images. With my thesis, we participated in Tumor Proliferation Assessment Challenge 2016. Although we didn’t win, the methodology we use was never tried before. And that’s relevant because if we want to make a real progress in science we need to try different things.
Without expected, during my Master studies, I find out a new and excited field: “machine learning”. Since then I dedicate most of my time understanding and learning about it.
During my graduate studies, I had the luck to attend a conference of one of the greatest scientist in this field: Yann Lecun. He received Doctor Honoris Causa from the National Polytechnic Institute along with another distinguished and amazing scientist of this field and a pioneer of the self-driving cars: Sebastian Thrun. Be exposed to those people gave me a lot of inspiration.
Only a few days before that event, Udacity, the online university founded by Sebastian Thrun, announced a new program: Self-Driving Car nanodegree. This course involves a merge of some fields: computer vision, robotics, sensor fusion, control and machine learning. Those ingredients are perfect to feed my curiosity. Was the opportunity to use most of the things I had learned and go further to learn more about things that I am interested. Without hesitation, I enrolled in this program. And that is what I’m doing now.
Interest
I feel very fortunate and excited to live at this time of the humanity, where the possibilities to make big and positive changes in society are plausible with all this technology.
Of all the professionals I have known, among the most admirable people for me, are the scientists. I want to be, in some way, like them. I can mention a lot of positive points of being a scientist but it’s worth to mention that I want to be part of the people who shape the future, a shape that benefits the humanity. I believe that one of the best ways to achieve it is doing science.
I hope someday I will become a researcher in Robotics and Machine Learning. I believe I have the tools to go in the right way to achieve it. In the case that I don’t have them, I am sure that I can learn them.
Contact
If you want to know more about me and/or contact me, feel free to use the appropriate link below.
Footnotes:
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Tech-world adage coined by Alan Kay. ↩