Wildlife technology project earns St Andrews student top software engineering award
- St Andrews University computer science student, Lily Martin, has been named Young Software Engineer of the Year.
- The first prize, sponsored by Sopra Steria, was awarded for a project proposing a new approach for reconstructing 3D models of animals from 2D wildlife images to support ecological research.
- Lily’s win marks the second consecutive year a St Andrews student has taken the top award.
- Neelan Patel of the University of Glasgow and Lea Kotzmuth-Clarke of the University of Stirling took second and third place respectively, while the University of Dundee’s Danyl Kecha received the Best Engineering Prize.
St Andrews University computer science student, Lily Martin, has been named this year’s Young Software Engineer of the Year for a project using 2D wildlife images to reconstruct 3D models of animals.
Organised by ScotlandIS, the membership and cluster management organisation for Scotland’s digital technologies industry, the Young Software Engineer of the Year awards recognise outstanding final-year computer science and software engineering students from universities across Scotland. The 37th annual awards took place in Edinburgh last night (24 September) as part of ScotlandIS’ annual flagship conference, ScotSoft.
Lily’s winning project, ‘Extracting 3D Models of Animas from Wildlife Image’, aims to improve the study of animal behaviour by reconstructing articulated 3D models from 2D wildlife images. Focusing on cliff-nesting birds as its test subject, the project combines computer vision, geometric reasoning, biological knowledge and optimisation techniques to estimate an animal’s posture and body structure, even when field photography is limited or parts of the animal are obscured.
The project offers an alternative to data-intensive machine learning approaches and lays the foundation for interactive 3D models that could support future ecological research into animal behaviour and movement. Judges praised its strong presentation and considered approach to a complex, multidisciplinary challenge, as well as its potential for wide-ranging application.
Entries were assessed by a panel of industry experts against criteria including degree of innovation, technical difficulty, depth of knowledge and research, and commercial and social relevance. Across this year’s submissions, the judges were particularly impressed by both the technical skill on display and the breadth of disciplines represented. All four winners received a trophy and cash prize in recognition of their achievements.
Second prize, sponsored by BCS, went to University of Glasgow student Neelan Patel for a project bringing symptom assessment and appointment booking together into a single AI-assisted system for General Practice.
Third prize, sponsored by Resillion, was awarded to Lea Kotzmuth-Clarke from the University of Stirling. Her project combines technology risk compliance auditing and cybersecurity vulnerability detection into a single piece of software, designed to accelerate decision-making and action.
Finally, Danyl Kecha received the Best Engineering Prize, sponsored by Leidos, for a project exploring a new way to make the outputs of AI reasoning models shorter without sacrificing performance or
reasoning density. This approach could help reduce the computational resources required by AI systems.
Andrew Weir, CEO at ScotlandIS said: “This was my first Young Software Engineer of the Year awards as CEO of ScotlandIS, and I was genuinely impressed by both the technical ambition of the projects and the confidence with which the students tackled some very real challenges.
“What stood out to me was how relevant so many of the projects are to the issues businesses and wider society are grappling with right now. From AI and cybersecurity to healthcare and environmental research, these students are truly thinking about how technology can be applied to make a difference.
“Congratulations to Lily and all of this year’s winners and finalists. The standard was exceptional, and I’m looking forward to seeing where their careers take them.”
Speaking after receiving her award, Lily explained why she had chosen this area as a focus for her research.
She said: “Sustainability is one of the biggest challenges facing our generation, so being able to use powerful technology – beyond just machine learning – to understand and protect natural ecosystems has been really exciting.
“Machine learning can be incredibly useful, but it eats through huge amounts of labelled data, which isn’t always available. That’s why it’s important to explore other approaches, like geometric reasoning, biological knowledge and classic optimisation techniques, which can be just as effective. I hope my research shows how computing science can be used in a practical way to support future ecology studies of animal behaviour and movement.”
The full list of shortlisted students was:
- Rebekah Leslie, University of Aberdeen
- Jack Briggs, Abertay University
- Danyl Kecha, University of Dundee
- Morgan Daniel, University of Edinburgh
- Jacob Lewis, Edinburgh Napier University
- Neelan Patel, University of Glasgow
- Callum Gourlay, Glasgow Caledonian University
- Ivan Meister, Heriot Watt University
- Kobina Ampofi-Forson, Robert Gordon University
- Lily Martin, University of St Andrews
- Lea Kotzmuth-Clarke, University of Stirling
- Eva Blues, University of Strathclyde
- Dominika Stachowska, University of the West of Scotland