About Me

I am a final year PhD student in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Ohio State University working in the Computer Vision Laboratory under Prof. Jim Davis.

My dissertation specifically focuses on the student learning process in knowledge distillation. Additionally, my research interests include data-scarcity, generalization & robustness, and confidence calibration in deep learning for vision-related tasks.

Currently I work as a Graduate Teaching Associate for the CSE2221 Software Components 1 course. Previously I have been funded by the Air Force Research Laboratory Sensors Directorate (RYAT). At the beginning of my PhD I collaborated with the Department of Food, Agriculture, and Biological Engineering at Ohio State.

Current Positions

  • OSU Logo

    PhD Student

    Advisor: Prof. Jim Davis
    Dissertation: Knowledge Distillation

  • GE Logo

    CV Research Intern

    Returning summer intern in the AI & CV group at GE Aerospace

News


Research

Publications

  1. "What Makes a Good Dataset for Knowledge Distillation?"
    L. Frank, J. Davis
    Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), June 2025

  2. "Revisiting Batch Norm Initialization"
    J. Davis, L. Frank
    European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), October 2022

  3. "Confidence-Driven Hierarchical Classification of Cultivated Plant Stresses"
    L. Frank, C. Wiegman, J. Davis, S. Shearer
    IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV), January 2021

  4. "A Framework for Explainable Deep Neural Models Using External Knowledge Graphs"
    Z. Daniels, L. Frank, C. Menart, M. Raymer, P. Hitzler
    SPIE Defense and Commercial Sensing, April 2020

Preprints / In Submission

  1. "Deep Learning Improvements for Sparse Spatial Field Reconstruction"
    R. Sunderhaft, L. Frank, J. Davis
    arXiv:2408.1253 [cs.CV], August 2024

  2. "Data-Free Knowledge Distillation Using Adversarially Perturbed OpenGL Shader Images"
    L. Frank, J. Davis
    arXiv:2310.13782 [cs.CV], October 2023

Resume

[Download Long Format]
[Download One-Page Format]

Education

  1. Ohio State University - PhD in Computer Science & Engineering

    Present

    Advisor: Prof. Jim Davis
    Dissertation: "Improving the Student Learning Process in Knowledge Distillation"

  2. Ohio State University - MS in Computer Science & Engineering

    Spring 2025

    Advisor: Prof. Jim Davis

  3. Wright State University - BS in Computer Engineering

    Fall 2019

    Overall GPA: 3.88/4.00

Experience

  1. Graduate Research/Teaching Associate - Ohio State University

    Fall 2019 - Present

    GRA: Computer Vision Laboratory
    GTA: CSE2221 Software Components 1

  2. CV Research Intern - GE Aerospace Research

    May 2025 - August 2025

    Manager: Dr. Paul Ardis
    Project: TBD

  3. CV Research Intern - GE Aerospace Research

    May 2024 - August 2024

    Manager: Dr. Paul Ardis
    Project: Multi-Modal Object Re-Identification

  4. Graduate Research Intern - Air Force Research Laboratory

    May 2023 - August 2023

    Mentor: Dr. Christopher Liberatore (RYAT)
    Project: Exploring Methods for Long-Tailed Image Classification

  5. Graduate Research Intern - Air Force Research Laboratory

    May 2019 - August 2019

    Mentor: Mr. Christopher Menart (RYAT)
    Project: Utilizing Knowledge Graphs for Explainable Neural Networks

  6. Undergraduate Research Assistant - Wright State University

    May 2019 - August 2019

    PI: Dr. Yong Pei
    Project: Small Object Detetion System for Autonomous Aircraft

  7. Undergraduate Research Intern - Air Force Research Laboratory

    May 2018 - August 2018

    Mentor: Ms. Ashley DeMange (RYDR)
    Project: Assessing Spiking Neural Network Performance on FPGAs

  8. Quality Assurance Intern - Marketo Inc. (now Adobe)

    June 2017 - August 2017

Selected Publications

  1. "What Makes a Good Dataset for Knowledge Distillation?"
    L. Frank, J. Davis
    Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), June 2025

  2. "Revisiting Batch Norm Initialization"
    J. Davis, L. Frank
    European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), October 2022

  3. "Confidence-Driven Hierarchical Classification of Cultivated Plant Stresses"
    L. Frank, C. Wiegman, J. Davis, S. Shearer
    IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV), January 2021

Invited Talks

  1. Clarifai

    October 2024

    Data-Free Knowledge Distillation Using Adversarially Perturbed OpenGL Shader Images

Awards

  1. Graduate Student Teaching (Eleanor Quinlan Memorial) Award

    Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Ohio State University April 2025

  2. SMART Scholarship Recipient

    U.S. Department of Defense April 2019

Professional Service

  1. Reviewer

    CVPR:

    2025, 2024, 2023, 2022

    ECCV:

    2024, 2022

    ICCV:

    2023

    WACV:

    2025

  2. Mentored Students

    Robert Sunderhaft (BS Data Analytics): Spring 2023 - Spring 2024
    Christopher Cosma (BS CSE): Spring 2022 - Spring 2023

Teaching

  1. Ohio State University - Software 1: Components (CSE2221)

    Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Spring 2025

    Introductory software engineering course for undergraduate Computer Science & Engineering, Computer & Information Science, Data Analytics, and Electrical Engineering-Computer Engineering students

Other

  1. NCAA Division 1 Athlete, Swimming - Wright State University

    August 2015 - June 2017

  2. United States Citizen

    June 1997 - Present

Teaching

These are some things I wrote during my first semester teaching CSE2221. Before reading my project instructions, read the original ones from the CSE2221 schedule. Only use mine as supplemental. I am not responsible for you losing points.

My friend Skylar also still has some of his CSE2221 material up on his website here.

Last thing: you can get old exams from an official OSU service by filling out the OSU ODI Study and Review Materials Request Form under "Study and Review Materials" (which as far as I know is not academic misconduct).



Additionally, here is so exam prep for Midterm 1 and 2 (no I do not have anything for the final). You can find a complementary Midterm 1 study guide and Midterm 2 practice exam on Skylar's website.


Other

A little look into my personal life!


Big music enjoyer, especially live music. I like almost anything with guitar/bass/drums that isn't country. Here are some of my favorite bands/artists:

Microwave, Dead Poet Society, Heart Attack Man, Knocked Loose, Origami Angel, Kublai Khan TX, Arm's Length, Rage Against the Machine, White Reaper, Citizen, Royal Blood, Drug Church, Hot Mulligan, Tigercub, IDLES, Movements, Primus, The Story So Far, Denzel Curry


I also (very mediocrely) play bass and enjoy making guitar/bass pedals from scratch.


I really enjoy making cocktails, especially whiskey-based ones (even though neither of the below have whiskey). Here are some that I've made recently:


Margarita Rum Old Fashioned


One of my goals for 2025 is to get back into exercising like I did when I was younger. Although I used to be an NCAA D1 swimmer, you couldn't pay me enough to get in a cold pool again. Instead I'm focusing on weight-lifting and running again, trying to get back to my bench & squat PRs from my senior year of undergrad and (within a minute) my mile time from high school.