![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Bupe.jpg\")
Paul Bupe, a researcher at the Center for Advanced Power Systems, speaks at the FSU-AWS Researcher Showcase and Awards. (Bill Wellock\/University Communications)\t\t<\/p>\n\t\tPaul Bupe, a researcher at the Center for Advanced Power Systems, speaks at the FSU-AWS Researcher Showcase and Awards. (Bill Wellock\/University Communications)\t\t<\/p>\n
Florida State University researcher Paul Bupe is developing an interactive intersection safety system, a project for which he must analyze thousands of satellite images, fisheye camera photos and maps \u2014 more than 1.7 million unique objects each with its own metadata.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To handle all that data, he\u00a0uses\u00a0Amazon Web Services, or AWS.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bupe earned seed funding for AWS through an internal FSU program last year\u00a0and accessed the tools\u00a0through\u00a0a partnership with\u00a0FSU Information Technology Services.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0On Tuesday, he shared his experiences at the\u00a0FSU-AWS Researcher Showcase and Awards<\/a>, a celebration of\u00a0research excellence\u00a0and an opportunity for the FSU community to learn more about the high-powered research tools available through the partnership.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cWithout AWS, we wouldn\u2019t have been able to make this research happen,\u201d said Bupe, who works with FAMU-FSU College of Engineering Associate Professor Moses Olugbenga on PREDISS, a Predictive Intersection Safety System\u00a0project.\u00a0<\/p>\n Bupe and Olugbenga\u00a0used\u00a0Amazon\u2019s cloud computing tools for\u00a0data storage,\u00a0object detection,\u00a0autolabeling\u00a0and other tasks.\u00a0Their goal is to improve\u00a0safety at intersections by\u00a0predicting\u00a0collisions between vehicles and pedestrians\u00a0with enough time to\u00a0allow for\u00a0interventions to stop a crash.\u00a0<\/p>\n Through\u00a0the partnership, they\u00a0were\u00a0able to access\u00a0more\u00a0computing power\u00a0on\u00a0their\u00a0schedule\u00a0to train their own models\u00a0to handle millions of objects.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn AI and machine learning,\u00a0data\u00a0is the most valuable thing,\u201d Bupe said. \u201cThis\u00a0gave us the\u00a0capabilities\u00a0that truly\u00a0allowed\u00a0for innovation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Other researchers from\u00a0the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering and the Department of Computer Science\u00a0who have used AWS in their work shared their experiences with fellow researchers\u00a0at the event.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOur goal as a\u00a0technology provider and an industry partner\u00a0is to help\u00a0accelerate\u00a0researchers\u2019\u00a0work\u00a0at a low cost,\u201d said\u00a0AWS Senior Leader\u00a0Michael Curry.\u00a0\u201cAs one of our presenters said, \u2018I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0need this to be a six-month project. I want it to be a six-day or six-week project.\u2019\u00a0They\u2019re\u00a0trying to\u00a0accelerate that time to science, and\u00a0that is\u00a0what\u00a0this\u00a0technology\u00a0is helping to\u00a0accomplish.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Setting the\u00a0stage for\u00a0innovation<\/p>\n The\u00a0showcase\u00a0opened with remarks from FSU leadership, emphasizing the growing role of cloud computing in accelerating research and\u00a0the university\u2019s commitment to\u00a0expanding access to advanced computational resources.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis partnership is a powerful example of how Florida State is delivering on the strategic vision of President McCullough by investing in the technology infrastructure that drives cutting-edge research,\u201d said\u00a0Associate Vice President & Chief Information Officer Jonathan A. Fozard. \u201cRemoving traditional\u00a0compute\u00a0barriers and broadening access to secure cloud and AI tools allows our researchers and scholars to move faster, design transformative research and secure the large-scale grants that empower long-term impact.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The FSU Office of\u00a0Research and FSU Information Technology Services\u00a0recognized\u00a011 researchers from across campus\u00a0as\u00a02026 FSU\/AWS Research Acceleration Fund Awardees<\/a>\u00a0for their\u00a0exceptional creativity,\u00a0impact\u00a0and technical excellence in\u00a0leveraging\u00a0AWS cloud computing to advance scientific discovery.\u00a0Winners\u00a0came from\u00a0departments\u00a0across campus: social work;\u00a0computer\u00a0science;\u00a0educational\u00a0psychology and\u00a0learning\u00a0systems;\u00a0geography;\u00a0urban and regional planning;\u00a0scientific\u00a0computing;\u00a0health,\u00a0nutrition\u00a0and\u00a0food\u00a0science; civil and environmental engineering; and communication science and disorders.\u00a0Each received\u00a0up to $20,000\u00a0in AWS credits.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cModern research is increasingly\u00a0data-intensive. Whether we are talking about quantum materials, generative AI or predictive safety systems, the lab is no longer just a physical space \u2014 it is a digital one,\u201d said Vice President for Research Stacey Patterson.\u00a0<\/p>\n Cloud computing tools help\u00a0researchers\u00a0turn those piles of information into impactful\u00a0discoveries.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis partnership demonstrates the art of the possible,\u201d\u00a0Patterson said.\u00a0\u201cOur goal is simple but ambitious: we want to provide FSU researchers with a world-class environment that accelerates discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n Finding solutions\u00a0with AWS <\/p>\n The event featured a look at the latest cloud computing tools AWS offers\u00a0and\u00a0a panel with\u00a0an\u00a0FSU\u00a0staff\u00a0member, doctoral student, and faculty researcher who\u00a0are already\u00a0using the technology to solve problems in their work.\u00a0<\/p>\n ITS staff shared information about free\u00a0cloud services training<\/a>\u00a0available for faculty and staff who want to start using AWS tools.\u00a0<\/p>\n Gabriel Brackman,\u00a0a\u00a0solutions\u00a0architect with AWS,\u00a0highlighted new services and features to support high-performance computing, artificial\u00a0intelligence\u00a0and data-intensive research.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Curry\u00a0led a panel\u00a0discussion featuring participants from the\u00a0FSU-AWS Researcher Accelerator pilot program.\u00a0Alex Townsend, a scientific applications specialist with ITS, Teja\u00a0Potu, a\u00a0doctoral student and research assistant at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, and\u00a0Balu\u00a0Bhasuran,\u00a0a faculty researcher in the\u00a0College of Communication and Information,\u00a0shared\u00a0how they collaborate and manage\u00a0workflows using AWS tools.\u00a0<\/p>\n Bhasuran\u00a0builds\u00a0prediction models to improve patient outcomes, which requires\u00a0handling sensitive data such as\u00a0electronic health records and clinical notes.\u00a0Any information that needs regulatory compliance, such as health records, can be difficult and expensive to handle in-house.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSharing\u00a0our\u00a0models\u00a0and\u00a0patient-based information extraction\u00a0were problems for us, but working with AWS cloud, it seems that the problem is solved,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The event concluded with presentations from winners of\u00a0FSU\u2019s AI Maker Challenge, a 48-hour development sprint that saw FSU students learning about artificial intelligence tools and using them to create\u00a0new programs.\u00a0<\/p>\n The winning team, Agentic Avengers, built a program to match researchers with funding opportunities based on their interests.\u00a0<\/p>\n Alexis Gollman, a senior studying retail entrepreneurship at the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship, won the Communities Choice Award as voted on by event attendees for her personal health information app, Numa.\u00a0<\/p>\n Her own experiences inspired her to create a platform that would better account for a user\u2019s unique health history. She came to the challenge with no coding experience and built the program with AI tools.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cDespite never having written a single line of code, the \u2018agentic\u2019 capabilities of AI and the guidance of my mentors made it possible for me to build this platform,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m\u00a0incredibly honored that the community saw the passion behind my pitch. It is surreal to be able to use these AI tools as a student to bring a\u00a0deeply\u00a0personal vision to life.\u00a0Being\u00a0perhaps the\u00a0only non-computer science or engineering student in the\u00a0challenge,\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0grateful to FSU for opening doors to information and technology that I otherwise\u00a0wouldn\u2019t\u00a0have accessed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Students in the challenge used some of the same cloud computing tools that FSU faculty are using in their research.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s exciting to see what students can do when they get their hands on just a little bit of training and these tools,\u201d said AWS Account Manager Marisa\u00a0Halluska. \u201cThese are very accessible, and that\u2019s what these students are proving.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Visit the\u00a0FSU Information Technology Services website<\/a>\u00a0for more information about cloud computing training and see the\u00a0Research Development website<\/a> to learn more about the FSU-AWS Acceleration Fund.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul Bupe, a researcher at the Center for Advanced Power Systems, speaks at the FSU-AWS Researcher Showcase and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[56742,56746,65729,28,30,29,26032,76615],"class_list":["post-181262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-college-of-arts-and-sciences","tag-college-of-social-work","tag-famu-fsu-college-of-engineering","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-fsu-research","tag-information-technology-services"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Brackman-512x341.jpg\")
Gabriel Brackman,\u00a0a\u00a0solutions\u00a0architect with AWS, presents at the event. (Bill Wellock\/University Communications) FSU AI Maker Challenge <\/p>\n