1. Date: March 30, 2016
Dear Sir or Madam:
I am delighted to write a very strong letter of recommendation for Connor Pope. Connor is a
terrific student - he is sharp, driven, tenacious, well-spoken, and will be an asset to whatever
organization he is part of. I have had dozens of undergraduate students do research in my
lab, and Connor is easily among the top few students that I have mentored
I run the Advanced Sensors Lab in UMass Computer Science, and work on areas relating to
ultra-low power sensors and wearable health sensing. One of the exciting projects that we are
working on is the design of an ultra-low power wearable eye tracker that we refer to as
iShadow. The iShadow platform is a low-power gaze-tracking wearable that tracks where you
are looking in real time in additional to deriving physiological measures in real-time through a
combination of novel algorithms and embedded sensors.
I had the opportunity to recruit Connor Pope on the iShadow project during the summer, 2015,
through to his final spring semester, 2016. He came in highly recommended from a faculty
colleague of mine, who thought that Connor was perhaps the best student to take his honors
course on circuits. After he joined my lab, Connor was tasked with redesigning the iShadow
platform and all the peripheral elements of the iShadow, with reproducibility and aesthetics
being top priorities. He was also tasked with assembling and testing the newest prototypes of
the iShadow.
Connor was very enjoyable to work with, and it became clear that he is a hardworking, very
self-driven engineer. He quickly took to the 3D modeling program we used and began 3D
printing prototype designs immediately. He greatly improved the aesthetics, reproducibility,
and assembly time of the iShadow, and he also successfully tested and implemented new
fisheye lenses on the eye-facing camera, allowing the iShadow to be far more tolerant of
peoples differing facial features. His assembled iShadow prototypes worked very well,
allowing other members of the lab to continue work on their own aspects of the project, the
testing of new camera/LED peripherals, and for prototypes to be sent out to other university
research groups. Connor has shown us that he is not only hard working, but also passionate
about his work.
Overall, Connor demonstrated outstanding research skills and dedication to the project. He
has an independent work ethic and was incredibly eager to work on the project from the very
beginning. He is able to understand complex and dynamic problems, and can explore
solutions on his own with no supervision.
Connor works efficiently in both team and independent work settings. He proactively engaged
and communicated with other lab members. He was also confident and active in lab
conversations, contributing his own ideas and methods.
COLLEGE OF INFORMATION
AND COMPUTER SCIENCES
voice: 413.545.2450
fax: 413.545.1249
dganesan@cs.umass.edu
UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS
AMHERST
Computer Science Building
140 Governors Drive
Amherst, MA 01003-­‐9264

2. Overall, I recommend Connor very strongly for future engineering projects. We are delighted
to have had him in our lab. He is terrific and has a bright future. Please feel free to contact me
if you would like to discuss further.
Sincerely,
Deepak Ganesan
Associate Professor, Computer Science
University of Massachusetts Amherst
http://www.cs.umass.edu/~dganesan