The Texas Leadership Research Scholars Program, which debuted in Fall 2024, is a Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board research scholarship and leadership opportunity program for high-achieving graduate students with financial need. 

UNT is among only nine public universities in the state selected to participate in the inaugural cohort of the program, which awards selected doctoral researchers a nearly $18,000 scholarship renewable for up to four years.

“This program is not only bringing financial support for these doctoral researchers to continue their education, but also giving them access to a peer network and mentoring that will help set them up for career success after they graduate,” says Brenda Barrio, UNT assistant vice president for research and innovation.

A total of six UNT students were named in the first cohort of Texas Leadership Research Scholars — Garrett Cayce in the College of Engineering; Araceli Herrera Mondragon, Celeste Ortega-Rodriguez and Jose Robledo in the College of Science; Christian Quintero in the College of Education; and Emma Wimberg in the College of Music.

Read Cayce’s story below and check back on the UNT Research website throughout Spring 2025 to learn more about other students in the inaugural group of Texas Leadership Research Scholars.

Advancing AI for Good

In a world filled with increasing amounts of data, native Dentonite and electrical engineering doctoral student Garrett Cayce (’20, ’22 M.S.) is harnessing massive information sets to make a difference across a range of fields.

Cayce first discovered his passion for data work as an undergraduate electrical engineering student. After joining the UNT student chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and meeting IEEE faculty advisor and electrical engineering professor Colleen Bailey, Cayce learned about her Optimization, Signal Processing and Control Algorithm Research (OSCAR) lab and began working as a research assistant.

“In a world where algorithms are becoming bloated and resource hungry, Garrett and the rest of the OSCAR Lab are diligently focused on purpose-built solutions, rooted in traditional theories, to make AI more robust and efficient,” Bailey says.

Cayce spent most of his master’s degree in the lab researching heartbeat data. He looked at X-ray images of hearts and lungs, and utilized signal processing methods to advance medical technology, which can assist doctors in locating potential anomalies before they lead to bigger health issues.  

“AI can be used to help people, as a tool to be used for good,” says Cayce, who already has seven scholarly article publications to his name thus far as a UNT student. “I want to keep working in however I can help in advancing that.” 

Currently, Cayce is creating an algorithm that advances machine learning by analyzing massive datasets to not only evaluate the quality of the data, but also identify and remove outliers to find the best possible data.  

By using signal processing methods and machine learning, Cayce can distill data and reduce it to its most important aspects to save money, time and power. 

With the financial assistance he earned as a Texas Leadership Research Scholar, Cayce is able to attend conferences where he can present his research and network with industry professionals.

Earlier this year, Cayce traveled to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. In April, Cayce presented his dataset profiling work at the Defense and Commercial Sensing Convention in Orlando. In the future, he hopes to attend even more conferences before he plans to complete his doctorate in Spring 2026. 

“It’s a very exciting field,” Cayce says. “We’re trying to make things as efficient as possible.”