Hello!
I'm Francisco X. Morales Puente
I'm a 22-year-old first-generation, low-income Latino in STEM, and a software engineer and academic researcher born and raised in Austin, Texas, now based in Claremont, California.
Growing up, I watched my family work tirelessly to give me every opportunity. As the strongest people I knew began to age, face injuries, and lose mobility, I realized how fragile independence can be. That awareness drives my passion for assistive technologies. I'm especially interested in robotics as a way to support and empower individuals by reducing the physical burdens that limit their daily lives.
Education
Pomona College — Claremont, CA
B.A. in Computer Science & Mathematics (General Track)
Expected Graduation: May 2026
GPA: 3.986
Relevant Coursework
Algorithms
Neural Networks
Data Analytics & Visualization
Computer Systems (C)
Data Structures (Java)
Intro to CS (Python)
Discrete & Functional Programming
Mobile Robotics (C++)
Linear Algebra
Combinatorics
Operations Research
Differential Equations
Calculus II & III
Probability
Computational Statistics
Biostatistics (R)
Publications
Eyes in Motion - Utilizing Eye Tracking for Assistive Technology
Authors: Francisco X. Morales Puente
Conference: 2025 CMD-IT/ACM Richard Tapia Conference of Diversity in Computing Conference, Dallas, Texas, USA
Date: September 2025
Note: Third place in the ACM Student Research Competition in the Undergraduate Division
Creating Dynamic Simulation Environments With Unreal Engine 5
Authors: Daisy Abbott, Anjali Nuggehalli, Francisco Morales Puente, Chau Vu, Ella Zhu, Anthony J. Clark
Conference: Southern California Robotics Symposium (SRC 2023), Irvine, California, USA
Date: September 2023
Training and Deploying Deep Learning Models for Real-Time Pathfinding in Indoor Environments
Authors: Aser Atawya, Kellie Au, Francisco Morales Puente, Tommy Ryan, Ella Zhu, and Anthony J. Clark
Conference: Southern California Robotics Symposium (SRC 2024), Riverside, California, USA.
Date: September 2024
Implementing Network Flows into Reinforcement Learning Rewards
Authors: Francisco X. Morales Puente
Date: 2025
Note: Work in Progress Math Thesis
Projects
Experience
Accenture — Tech Architecture Summer Analyst
Austin, Texas · June 2025 – August 2025
- Engineered real-time monitoring dashboards in Grafana to visualize application health, JVM performance, and API usage by integrating Prometheus, Loki, and InfluxDB with their respective query languages.
- Designed end-to-end architectural decisions, evaluating trade-offs across scalability, observability, and long-term maintainability.
Accenture — Technology Consulting Analyst Intern
Austin, Texas · June 2024 – August 2024
- Developed Anaplan models alongside a 12-person team of consultants and developers, aligning business workflows with client needs while managing Agile sprints, user stories, and JIRA tasks.
- Optimized reporting pipelines using advanced Excel automation and produced clear, data-driven presentation decks for executive audiences.
Pomona College — Teaching Assistant
Claremont, CA · January 2024 – Present
- Facilitated code reviews and reinforced core concepts in object-oriented programming and data structures for 85+ students across multiple course offerings.
- Supported students in Discrete & Functional Programming (CSCI054) by teaching Haskell fundamentals, leading study sessions, and providing targeted guidance on complex theoretical material.
Pomona College — ARCS Laboratory Research Assistant
Claremont, CA · June 2023 – Present
- Built precise robotic simulation environments in Unreal Engine 5 and Blender, leading Blueprint scripting and integrating Python through a custom OSC plugin for real-time data streaming, navigation control, and model training.
- Engaged with scholarly research and leveraged PyTorch and FastAI to improve model performance from 22% accuracy to 61.2% through iterative experimentation, augmentation pipelines, and architecture refinement.
Awards & Honors
- ACM Student Research Competition (Undergraduate Division), 3rd Place — 2025 Tapia Conference
- Pomona College Scholar Designation (3 semesters)
- QuestBridge Match Scholar
- Dell Scholar (2020–present)
- Summer Undergraduate Research Project Fellow
- Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) Member
Gallery
More About Me
My interest in robotics began in high school, where I served as the lead programmer for my FTC team. At Pomona, I joined the Autonomous Robots and Complex Systems (ARCS) Lab under Anthony J. Clark, contributing to synthetic data generation, autonomous navigation, and sim-to-real systems. This work led to two posters at the Southern California Robotics Symposium (SCR 2023 & SCR 2024), where I presented simulation environments built in Blender and Unreal Engine 5 for low-cost robot training.
I now work on Eyes in Motion, a SURP-funded project I am continuing as my senior project. Motivated by personal experiences with disability in my family, I am building a real-time webcam-based gaze-tracking interface for assistive mobility control. My work earned 3rd place at the 2025 ACM TAPIA Celebration of Diversity in Computing and focuses on eye segmentation, calibration pipelines, teleoperation feedback, and rule-based navigation for accessible human–robot interaction.
I am also the founder and president of the 5C Robotics Club (PORO), where I mentor students across the Claremont Colleges and lead VEX U competition efforts. For the past three years, I’ve served as a TA for Discrete & Functional Programming (Haskell) and Data Structures & Advanced Programming (Java), while supporting first-generation and Latinx students in STEM.
I also co-develop P-ickup, a rideshare-matching platform used by Pomona College and ASPC during major travel periods. Built with TypeScript, Python, Pandas, Docker, TailwindCSS, and Supabase, P-ickup uses a custom rule-based, multi-pass matching system to handle a complex NP-hard grouping problem for over 1,200 students seeking airport rides. It has become a reliable campus-scale solution for large travel coordination.
Outside of research, I’m an extrovert who loves soccer, reading light novels, video games,and board game nights. I enjoy making people laugh and bringing people together. Above all, I want to build technologies that make life easier for those who need it most.