About me:
Hello! My name is Randall Fowler and I’m a third year Ph.D. student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering program at University of California, Davis. Before attending graduate school, I pursued an interest in signal processing techniques and embedded systems, and I’ve found the medical field to be a great application. With the experiences I’ve had with LEPS, I’d like to continue my path with health device research and establish my career in an adjacent field.
Feel free to add me on LinkedIn: Randall Fowler | LinkedIn
Github: github.com/Th3RandyMan
Research:
Within the LEPS group, several of us work on the Transabdominal Fetal Pulse Oximetry (TFO) project, and I have spent time moving from hardware to software design. Fetal heart rate is faint in comparison to the maternal signals as well as being comparable in magnitude to noise. This introduces the challenges within hardware being the large applification over a dynamic range of signals while minimizing noise, and with the best hardware design, challenges carry into the software domain to introduce noise artifacts and summation of signals within the same frequency spectrum. Our team works together to mitigate these issues to provide better prenatal health assessments.
Projects:
- Deep Learning approach to Mixed Signal Separation
- Fetal Blood pH Estimation
- Publications below.
- Fetal Oxygen Saturation Change Detection
- Photon Simulations with Pregancy Model
- Photodector Noise Analysis for Sensitive Fetal Pulse Oximeter
- Variational Autoencoder Latent Space Analysis for Anomaly Detection
- Class Label Specific Mutual Information Feature Selection
- Discrete Optimization for Room Layout Designs with Firefly Algorithm
- Speaker Identification via Clustering of Mel-Frequency Cepstrum Coefficients
- Hyperparameter Optimization for Machine Learning Models
- Multichannel EMG Wristbands for Classifying Hand Gestures
- Full Stack Development with Flutter UI for Plant Conservation Model App
- Audio 10-Band Constant Q Graphic Equalizer
- ARMv8 5 Stage Pipelined Processor Implemented on FPGA with SystemVerilog
Work Experience:
- Graduate Student Researcher [September 2022 – Present]
- Employer: UC Davis
- Responsible for adancement projects on fetal pulse oximetry study.
- Teaching Assistant [September 2022 – Present]
- Employer: UC Davis
- Instruct laboratory sessions, grade, and host office hours for embedded and digital system classes.
- Embedded Software Engineer [Summer 2023]
- Employer: Certus Critical Care
- Proof of concept work focused on interfacing new medical devices with hospital infrastructure.
- Controls Engineering Intern [Summer 2021]
- Employer: BW Design Group
- Performed consulting work for building a battery manufacturing line.
- Electrical Contractor [Summer 2020]
- Employer: Conterstone Environmental Contractors
- Setup wiring for conveyor systems and water treatment facility.
- Undergraduate Researcher [Spring 2020]
- Designed high frequency analog filters for light communication system known as LiFi.
Academic Experience:
- University of California, Davis [September 2022 – Present]
- Doctor of Philosophy: Electrical and Computer Engineering
- California State University, Chico [August 2019 – May 2022]
- Bachelor of Science: Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering
- Minors: Computer Science, Math, Physics
Awards:
- Northrup Grumman Fellowship [Fall 2024 – Spring 2025]
- Outstanding Student Leader Award [Fall 2021 – Spring 2022]
- EECE Faculty Award [Fall 2021 – Spring 2022]
Publications:
- Randall Fowler, Begum Kasap, Weitai Qian, Rishad Joarder, Soheil Ghiasi. “Non-invasive Fetal Blood pH Estimation for Enhanced Intrapartum Monitoring using Near-Infrared Spectroscopy.” 47th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2025
- Begum Kasap, Kourosh Vali, Weitai Qian, Mahya Saffarpour, Randall Fowler, Soheil Ghiasi. “Robust Fetal Heart Rate Tracking through Fetal Electrocardiography (ECG) and Photoplethysmography (PPG) Fusion.” 45th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2023