Professor Peggy Doerschuk is the founder and director of the INSPIRED Program. Dr. Doerschuk has led students in research in artificial intelligence and robotics for over fifteen years. She has published 35 papers on artificial intelligence, robotics, education, and research and mentoring programs for undergraduates.

Dr. Doerschuk enjoys reading, gardening, cooking, bird watching, and biking.

Dr. Jiangjiang (Jane) Liu is currently an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Lamar University. She received the B.Eng. degree in Computer Engineering from the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, P.R. China, in 1997 and the M.S. and then the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science and Engineering, from the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, in 2004.
Dr. Liu co-organized WIRED summer camps for girls in middle and high schools, visited local high schools during career days, and participated in Spring/Fall Open House, Mathfest, and Week of Welcome.
Her research interests are in computer architecture with an emphasis on: high-performance, low-power, and cost-effective memory system design for Chip Multiprocessing (CMP), Embedded Systems, and SoC. She has authored and coauthored over 10 refereed papers.

Iris Beltran is one of the founding members of the INSPIRE team. She was a member of the WiReD team, which was the previous research team founded by Dr. Doerschuk, from Fall of 2004 to 2007. During which she and the team presented their research, "Navigational Research in Autonomous Robots" at the 109th Annual Texas Academy of Science Meeting. The team place third overall the undergraduate competition, and was awarded the Dr. Amir-Moez Endowed Prize.

Iris, who is originally from Manila, Philippines, is currently a senior in Computer Science and also minoring in Spanish. Her interests include Robotics, Cooking, Learning about other Cultures and trying new things. She is fluent in both English and Tagalog, and is proficient in reading and writing in Spanish. And she is the current treasurer of the Association for Computer Machinery [ACM]

Valerie is the youngest of the founding members of the INSPIRE Team. She is a freshman majoring in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. Valerie graduated from Hardin Jefferson Highschool and is currently part of the Honors Program in Lamar. She is also the current SGA Representative for ACM.

Another of the founding members of INSPIRE, Rafael is a Senior in Computer Science. He has been an great asset to the team, and has honorable served as comical relief to the team. He is planning on pursuing his Masters in Computer Science after graduation in May 2008. Rafael has also been an active member of the ACM in its advertising and fundraising.

Rafael's interests include a wide array of topics inncluding real time systems, robotics, artificial intelligence, networks, operating systems, web technologies, technology, literature, music, and popular entertainment.

Jigar Solanki is our first graduate student in the INSPIRE Team. He is pursuing a Masters in Computer Science here at Lamar University. Jigar completed his undergraduate in Mechanical Engineer in Visvesvaraya National Institue of Technology in India. He also worked in Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited [BHEL] as a Systems Engineer for two years.

Crystal Wettingfeld is a founding member of the INSPIRE Team. She started as member of the WiReD team in March 2007. Since then, she has completed an independent project over educational materials middle school kids using the Lego NXT Robot in Summer of 2007. Crystal is also the President of the Association for Computing Machinery.

Crystal's interests include Reading, Movies, Computer Games, Anime, CSI, and Robotics.

Coming Soon

Girish Thombare is a graduate student in the INSPIRE team pursuing Master's degree in Computer Science at Lamar University. Girish received his bachelor's degree in Computer Science from College of Engineering, Pune. Girish has worked with National Stock Exchange of India for one year and then with Gemstone Systems Pvt. Ltd. for two years in the area of distributed systems.

Girish's research interest lies in distributed computing, artificial intelligence and database management. Apart from this, he likes reading books, playing and watching cricket, tennis and soccer.