News

Congratulations to Yuxi (Fiona) Zhang and Angelo De Castro on winning Second Place in the Gator Tank presentation competition at the 2026 12th UF/IFAS Animal Sciences Symposium! View photos.

Our paper led by Jin Wang is now online in the Journal of Dairy Science! The study shows how transfer learning can improve dairy cattle body-weight prediction on a small farm using depth images and point-cloud data. Congratulations, Jin! Read the paper.

Welcome Alexis Phillip, a Master's student in Artificial Intelligence Systems at UF, who joined the lab as a research intern!

Congratulations to Jin Wang, our first PhD graduate, who will join CaseGuard as a Machine Learning Engineer in Arlington, Virginia, in October 2026! We wish Jin all the best in this exciting next chapter.

Two exciting student milestones: After completing her Master's degree in the lab, Yuxi (Fiona) Zhang began her PhD studies with us, with research focused on quantitative genetics. Angelo De Castro successfully passed his PhD qualifying examination and is now a PhD candidate. Congratulations, Yuxi and Angelo!

Our cloud-based, pen-level heat-stress monitoring system was featured in Hoard's Dairyman. Results from three summers on a large commercial dairy show how monitoring and rapid response can help reduce heat stress and improve management on Southeast dairy farms. Read the article.

Our proposal to improve heat-stress management and labor efficiency on Southeast dairy farms through a regional decision-support platform has been funded by the Southeast Dairy Producer's Check-Off Program.

Dr. Yu presented "Leveraging AI-derived Digital Phenotypes for Precision Monitoring of Dairy Cattle Production, Health, and Behavior" at the 2026 ASAS-NANP Symposium on Mathematical Modeling in Nutrition. View the LinkedIn post.

The lab attended the 13th WCGALP in Madison, Wisconsin, July 12-17. Dr. Yu co-chaired the Genetic Gain and Inbreeding session. Both Angelo and Dr. Yu presented the lab's research projects.

The AIAOS Lab celebrated four milestones: Jin's PhD graduation, Fiona's Master's defense, Angelo's First Place ADSA award, and Zhou's completion of postdoctoral training. View photos from the celebration.

Yuxi (Fiona) successfully defended her Master's thesis as the first Master's graduate from the AIAOS Lab. She will continue with the lab as a PhD student in Animal Breeding and Genetics.

The lab had a successful week at ADSA 2026 in Milwaukee. Dr. Yu presented an invited symposium talk and one oral presentation.

The lab is contributing to a USDA NIFA-funded collaboration developing AI models that support dairy cow health and help reduce antibiotic use. PhD student Angelo De Castro is actively contributing to the interdisciplinary research. Watch the interview.

Jin completed her PhD and became the first doctoral student to graduate from the AIAOS Lab. View photos from this milestone.

Zhou's new preprint compares 3D point-cloud and depth-image data for automated body condition score prediction.

Jin's new preprint investigates how transfer learning can improve image-based dairy cattle body-weight prediction for small farms.