Amy Liu

Experience

1. Researcher

   Mit Mission Innovation X

   Mar 2025 — Present · Cambridge, MA, US

   Selected to join MIT’s Mission Innovation X (MIx), a Department of Defense-funded initiative connecting researchers with cutting-edge startups to solve national security challenges using AI and autonomous systems- Developed and optimized an end-to-end wildfire smoke detection pipeline by combining a ConvNext classifier (trained on a self-constructed dataset of images) with a YOLOv11 model featuring a substituted SPP Elan layer- Enhanced ConvNeXt classifier with an added Tanh layer to improve smoke detection sensitivity. Preprocessed, augmented, andcurated large image datasets to support model training and robustness. Fine-tuned architectures and hyperparameters usingTensorFlow and Pytorch to maximize detection accuracy- Collaborated with Picogrid engineers and MIT faculty to validate models and ensure scalability for real-world deployment.