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This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation.

My blonde hair, blue eyes, and size 15 running shoes weren’t the only reasons for which I was a unique attraction at the Industrial Technology Research Institute in Hsinchu Xian, Taiwan. My background in physics and mathematics meant that I was the only member of Dr. Wannhsin Chen’s Stem Cell Engineering Group who had no experience culturing human embryonic stem cells.

Merging statistical pattern recognition and computer vision to cell imaging, I am addressing the problem of cell sorting with novel quantitative methods. By processing hundreds of cell images, and extracting salient parameters of cell size, morphology, and structure, I seek to rigorously and objectively determine a stem cell’s status. Experimental purity dictates that I devise my algorithm “blinded”