By Allen Tung

Paul Vicol had his heart set on SFU and computing science even before he began his undergraduate studies. He had heard great things about SFU and the opportunities the University provided to its undergraduate students.

Throughout high school, he recalls building dynamic websites, games and animations using various programming languages.  It taught him how powerful programming and computers can be, inspiring a passion to learn more.

That passion has fueled Vicol’s academic excellence, earning him a 2015 Governor General’s Silver Medal—awarded to the two undergraduate students who have achieved the highest academic standing in a bachelor’s degree program.

 “It’s an amazing honour,” he says, “and a nice end-point to my undergraduate career after my hard work through the years.” 

During his studies, Vicol won two Undergraduate Student Research Awards (USRA) from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), each valued at $4,500.

The awards funded two semesters of research studying belief change, a subfield of artificial intelligence, under the supervision of professor James Delgrande.

“In belief change, you have a network of agents such as robots that have certain beliefs about the world,” he explains. “They communicate and learn from each other, thus sharing their beliefs.”

Vicol finds his research exciting because its potential applications are endless.

“Belief change can be used to aid robots navigating and mapping a burning building,” he says. “You can send in a swarm of drones and they can work together to map the entire building quickly and accurately by sharing and incorporating the best information from each other.”

Now a master’s student, Vicol is looking at how the notion of expertise can be introduced in belief change so agents with greater expertise can override agents with less expertise.

He explains, “If expertise is not programmed into belief change operations, the agents treat all beliefs equally, even if one agent has greater expertise—gained from multiple observations—compared to another agent.”

Beyond his master's, Vicol has his sights set on completing a PhD.

“The undergraduate research has made me realize that I want to get into academia and continue to do research.” 

This story originally appeared in SFU News