St Andrews University student named Young Software Engineer of the Year

A University of St Andrews student has been named Young Software Engineer of the Year.  

The Young Software Engineer of the Year awards, held at ScotSoft, the annual technology conference organised by Scotland's technology industry body ScotlandIS, recognise the work of computer science and software engineering students from universities across Scotland.  

Computer science student Lily Martin won first place for a project that uses 2D wildlife images to reconstruct 3D models of animals.  

Her project, ‘Extracting 3D Models of Animals from Wildlife Image’, aims to improve the study of animal behaviour by reconstructing articulated 3D models from 2D wildlife images.  

It focuses 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. 

ScotlandIS said 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, with judges praising its strong presentation and considered approach to a complex, multidisciplinary challenge, as well as its potential for wide-ranging application. 

Danyl Kecha received the Best Engineering Prize for a project exploring a new way to make the outputs of AI reasoning models shorter without sacrificing performance or reasoning density. ScotlandIS said his 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, Martin 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.”