From her home more than 800 miles away, Georgia Tech online master's student Jasmine Tata is monitoring fish in aquariums at Georgia Tech.

Tata is a New York-based QA analyst and project manager. She started the Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMSCS) program in Fall 2022 and joined FishStalkers last year.

The student-led research program is part of the School of Biological Sciences' McGrath Lab. Its researchers use machine learning, computer vision, and other technologies to better understand the evolution of animal behaviors.

One of the lab's research projects studies Lake Malawi cichlids to explore connections between observed behavior and brain function.

The FishStalkers are vital to the project. They collect video, depth, and other data from individual fish using Raspberry Pi single-board computers. This information, coupled with open-source code they developed, allows the group to track, monitor, and classify the behaviors of a fish as it builds and maintains its bower, which is a sand structure these cichlids use to attract mates.

Read the full story in the College of Computing newsroom.