People
Meet Barot
About: Meet is a PhD student at the Center for Data Science working with Richard Bonneau and Kyunghyun Cho. He graduated with his B.A. in Chemistry and Computer Science from NYU in 2016, and worked in the Center for Computational Biology at the Flatiron Institute on protein function prediction methods until starting his PhD in September 2018. His research interests include deep learning, network science, protein function prediction, and complex systems. In his spare time, he enjoys gymnastics, martial arts and meditation.
Zhouhan Chen
Contact: zc1245@nyu.edu
About: Zhouhan is a Ph.D. student at the Center for Data Science, working with Professor Rajesh Ranganath. His current research focuses on advancing causal inference using generative models. Before coming to NYU, Zhouhan earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Computer Science at Rice University. His Master’s thesis on An Unsupervised Approach to Detect Spam Campaigns that Use Botnets on Twitter was advised by Professor Devika Subramanian. Zhouhan has a broad interest in designing and applying machine learning algorithms in the fields of social network, cybersecurity and health care. Out of school, Zhouhan is also a longtime marathon runner and certified personal trainer.
Guy Davidson
Contact: gd1279@nyu.edu
About: Guy is a Ph.D. student at the Center for Data Science, currently working with Professor Brenden Lake. Guy’s interests center around the intersection between human cognition and machine learning, and particularly, what can we learn from studying humans to allow us to design wiser machine learning systems. Before coming to NYU, Guy served six years in the Israel Defense Forces, including roles as an instructor and a team leader. He then graduated (summa cum laude) with a B.Sc. in Computational Sciences from the Minerva Schools, a global undergraduate program based in San Francisco. He previously had the honor to collaborate with Professor Yael Niv (Princeton) and Professor Michael C. Mozer (Google Research / CU Boulder). Outside of his studies, Guy loves to play ultimate frisbee and is developing an appreciation for pour-over coffee.
Irina Espejo
About: Irina is a Ph.D. student in Data Science and also a DeepMind fellow. She is interested in applications of data science to the logistics of cities as well as in physics and theoretical machine learning. At the moment, she is initiating her research with Kyle Cranmer. Irina graduated from Mathematics and Physics at Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. During her studies, she collaborated in two research projects. The first one in Complex Systems trying to model the pairwise interactions of letters in texts. The second one was in experimental particle physics, which led to a summer internship at CERN with an analysis focused on the DMttbar signal. From her undergraduate merits, she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship by the Spanish Fulbright Commission to pursue doctoral studies in the USA. She also obtained an MSc in Mathematical & Theoretical Physics at the University of Oxford.
Katrina Evtimova
Contact: kve216@nyu.edu
About: Katrina is a Ph.D. student at CDS advised by Yann LeCun. Her research interests lie in self-supervised learning and deep learning theory. Katrina earned her Master’s degree in Data Science from CDS during which she collaborated with Kyunghyun Cho. Prior to starting her Ph.D., she worked as a research engineer at eBay NYC. Katrina holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Harvard University.
William Falcon
Contact: waf251@nyu.edu
About: William is a Ph.D. student, Deepmind Fellow and NSF Fellow co-advised by Kyunghyun Cho and Yann LeCun at the CILVR lab.
During his first year he created PyTorch Lightning while at NYU and Facebook AI Research (FAIR). His research focuses on developing unsupervised learning techniques inspired by neuroscience with applications to neuroscience, NLP and computer vision.
Before NYU he worked on neural decoding from the brain and retina at Columbia University’s Center For Theoretical Neuroscience supervised by Liam Paninski. He also co-founded AI startup NextGenVest (acquired) and spent time at Bonobos, Goldman Sachs and developed over 8 iOS apps. He started his career as a naval officer undergoing US Navy SEAL training (BUD/S class 277) where he was injured and finished his military service at NSW Special Reconnaissance Team One (SRT-1). He obtained a B.A (magna cum laude) from Columbia University in Computer Science and Statistics with a minor in Math.
Xintian Han
About: Xintian is currently a Ph.D. student at the NYU Center for Data Science, advised by Prof. Rajesh Ranganath. Xintian’s main research focus is machine learning for healthcare. He also has broad research interests in neural sequence modeling, adversarial examples, graphs, generative models and semi-supervised learning. Xintian has a BS in statistics from Peking University.
Leslie Huang
Contact: lesliehuang@nyu.edu
About: Leslie is a Ph.D. student in Data Science at the NYU Center for Data Science, where she is advised by Arthur Spirling. Her research is focused on NLP applications and text-as-data in political science. Leslie has a BA, summa cum laude, from Columbia University, and an MA from NYU, where she was a Ph.D. student in political science prior to joining Data Science.
Phu Mon Htut
About: Phu is a Ph.D. student at the NYU Center for Data Science. She is also a member of the Machine Learning for Language (ML²) group where she is working with two amazing professors, Sam Bowman and Kyunghyun Cho. Phu is broadly interested in Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, and Information Retrieval. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Phu also worked as a research engineer for a couple of years in Singapore before joining CDS.
Tymor Hamamsy
Contact: tch362@nyu.edu
About: Tymor is a Ph.D. student in Data Science at the NYU Center for Data Science. Before coming to NYU, he received a master’s degree in Biomedical Data Science from Stanford and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from MIT. His research interests lie at the intersection of machine learning, biology, and healthcare. As a passion project, he co-founded and helps run Fermat’s Library, a platform, and community for sharing and annotating academic papers as well as interesting science.
Christopher Ick
Contact: chris.ick@nyu.edu
About: Chris is a Ph.D. student at the Center for Data Science at NYU currently jointly advised by Professors Brian McFee and David Hogg. Currently, his research interests lie in audio signal processing in urban environments, multi-source methods in recommender systems, and Bayesian modeling methods. Prior to joining CDS, Chris worked as a research scientist under David Hogg and Kyle Cranmer, utilizing Gaussian Processes for modeling solar flares, and low-count dark matter detection experiments, and as an adjunct instructor for several undergraduate courses. Chris holds a B.S. in physics with minors in computer science and mathematics.
Aakash Kaku
Contact: ark576@nyu.edu
About: Aakash is a First-year Ph.D. student at NYU Center for Data Science. He is interested in solving problems in the healthcare domain using machine learning. Currently, he is working with Prof. Carlos Fernandez-Granda and Prof. Heidi Schambra on activity recognition task in stroke patients and with Prof. Narges Razavian and Prof. Yvonne Lui in the field of medical imaging and deep learning. Prior to joining the Ph.D. program, he obtained a Master’s degree from NYU CDS where he worked on domain adaptation and medical image segmentation under the guidance of Prof. Carlos and Prof. Narges. He also has an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore where he was on the Dean’s Merit List, which is awarded to the top 5% students. Post-MBA, he worked as a management consultant for more than a year. He also holds a bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering from the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai. In his leisure time, he loves to play cricket and read books.
Aishwarya Kamath
Contact: ask762@nyu.edu
About: Aishwarya is a first year PhD student at CDS advised by Yann LeCun and Kyunghyun Cho. Her current research interests lie in the area of commonsense reasoning and self-supervised learning. She was previously advised by Andrew McCallum at UMass Amherst, where she earned her Master’s degree in Computer Science. Prior to joining CDS, Aishwarya worked at Oracle’s Machine Learning Research Group in Burlington, MA. Aishwarya holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Manipal University in India.
Polina Kirichenko
Contact: pk1822@nyu.edu
About: I am a first-year student Ph.D. student in Data Science and a DeepMind fellow supervised by Professor Andrew Wilson. My current research focuses on probabilistic machine learning, Bayesian deep learning and uncertainty estimation. I am interested in building robust machine learning models and understanding when they can be trusted in making decisions, which is important for many sensitive applications. I obtained my Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. During my undergrad, I worked at Bayesian Methods Research group with professor Dmitry Vetrov, our research focused on variational inference and regularization for deep neural networks. Just before starting my Ph.D., I did a summer internship at EPFL in Machine Learning and Optimization Lab, where I worked on zero-order optimization for low precision neural networks supervised by professors Martin Jaggi and Dan Alistarh. I also had a chance to experience industry at Google as a software engineering intern in Munich and Seattle offices, where I worked on the backend, distributed systems and algorithm parallelization for internal tools. Before coming to NYU, I completed one year of a Ph.D. program in Operations Research and Information Engineering at Cornell University where I started working with Professor Andrew Wilson on low-precision training of neural networks, Bayesian deep learning and normalizing flows; after my first year of a Ph.D., our research lab transferred to New York University.
Vladimir Kobzar
About: I am a PhD Candidate at the NYU Center for Data Science where I am part of the Math and Data Group. My graduate work is advised by Robert Kohn and Carlos Fernandez-Granda, and is supported in part by the Moore-Sloan Data Science Environment at New York University.
I completed an MS in Mathematics at the Courant Institute under the advisement of Afonso Bandeira, as well as a JD and LLM at the NYU School of Law.
My research area is mathematical and statistical foundations of data science and machine learning. I focus on their intersection with differential equations, control theory and optimization, and on applications to online learning, medical and molecular imaging, computer vision, robotics, finance and regulatory policy.
Angela Lai
About: Angela is a data science Ph.D. student and a DeepMind Fellow. She is currently working with Profs. Richard Bonneau and Joshua Tucker as part of the Social Media and Political Participation lab. Before joining NYU, Angela was at the University of Rochester, where she earned a B.S. in data science, a B.A. in political science, and a math minor. She also spent two summers as an intern in MIT Lincoln Lab’s human language technology group. Her research interests include online radicalization and political dynamics on social networks as well as natural language processing and network analysis.
Kangning Liu
Contact: kangning.liu@nyu.edu
About: Kangning is a first-year Ph.D. student at the Center for Data Science, co-advised by Prof. Carlos Fernandez-Granda, Prof. Kyunghyun Cho and Prof. Krzysztof J. Geras. He is interested in machine learning, computer vision and their application for healthcare. Prior to joining NYU, Kangning pursued a Master’s degree in data science from the department of computer science at ETH Zurich, where his master thesis was on unsupervised video-to-video translation, under the supervision of Dr. Radu. Timofte, Dr. Shuhang Gu and Prof. Luc Van Gool at Computer Vision Laboratory. Before that, he also had project experience in medical imaging super-resolution and semantic segmentation. He earned a Bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University in electrical engineering with a minor in Finance.
Sheng Liu
Contact: shengliu@nyu.edu
About: Sheng Liu is a second-year Ph.D. student at the Center for Data Science, NYU, co-advised by Professor Carlos Fernandez-Granda, Professor Jonathan Niles-Weed, and Professor Narges Razavian. He is interested in robust representation learning in computer vision, and its applications for healthcare. He is also a member of the Math and Data (MAD) group at NYU where he works on inverse problems and optimization. Out of school, he likes scuba diving, surfing, and singing.
Wesley Maddox
Contact: wjm363@nyu.edu
About: Wesley is a Ph.D. student advised by Andrew Gordon Wilson. He is interested in statistical machine learning, bayesian deep learning, Gaussian processes, and generative models, with a specific focus on developing new methods to incorporate and utilize uncertainty in machine learning models. Prior to NYU, he spent two years as a Ph.D. student in Statistics at Cornell University and did a master’s in statistics and a bachelor’s degree in systems biology at Case Western Reserve University. In Summer 2019, he interned at Amazon in Cambridge, UK. He is an NSF Graduate Research Fellow, received in 2017.
Omar Mahmood
Contact: onm217@nyu.edu
About: Omar is a Ph.D. student at the NYU Center for Data Science (CDS), working with Kyunghyun Cho and Richard Bonneau. His current research projects focus on graphical neural networks and biological network inference. Prior to starting at CDS, Omar pursued a master’s degree in machine learning at the University of Cambridge, where his dissertation project was on deep generative models for molecule design and optimization, under the supervision of José Miguel Hernández-Lobato. Before this, Omar worked as a software engineer at a natural language processing startup, where he was responsible for successfully pitching the company’s product to a major US financial institution, and executing and coordinating the ensuing project. He also holds a Bachelor of Science, magna cum laude, in applied physics from Columbia University.
Swapneel Mehta
Contact: sm8523@nyu.edu
About: Swapneel is a Ph.D. student at the Center for Data Science jointly advised by Kyle Cranmer and Rajesh Ranganath. His interests lie in statistical learning and exploring the bridge between quantum physics and machine learning. In the past, he has worked on deep learning for high-energy physics with the CMS Experiment at CERN and for Fortune 50 clients at leading startups in the domains of cybersecurity and operational analytics. He holds a Bachelors degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Mumbai where he continues to mentor students undertaking open-source projects. In his spare time, he enjoys blogging, sketching, running, and cooking.
Sreyas Mohan
About: Sreyas is a Ph.D. student at the Center for Data Science, NYU working under the joint guidance of Prof. Eero P Simoncelli and Prof. Carlos Fernandez-Granda. He is also a part of Math and Data Group. He graduated in July 2017 with a Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras where his undergraduate thesis was supervised by Prof. Kaushik Mitra. Sreyas spent the summer of 2017 at the Institute of Science and Technology (IST), Austria working with Prof. Gasper Tkacik on deep learning models for a particular neuroscience application and the summer before that at the Simons Center for Data Analysis, NYC working with Dr. Dmitri Chklovskii in the intersection of unsupervised learning and computational neuroscience.
Nikita Nangia
Contact: nikitanangia@nyu.edu
About: Nikita is a Ph.D. student at CDS, where she is advised by Sam Bowman. Broadly, her research is in machine learning and natural language processing. Her publications can be found on her personal website. Prior to joining NYU, Nikita worked in R&D for a few years. She has a BA in Physics from the University of Chicago.
Jason Phang
Contact: jasonphang@nyu.edu
About: Jason is a first-year Ph.D. Candidate at the NYU Center for Data Science, advised by Sam Bowman, Kyunghyun Cho, and Krzysztof Geras. His research interests include natural language processing and understanding, deep learning for medical imaging, and interpretability for deep learning models. Prior to NYU, Jason earned his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago, majoring in Mathematics, Economics, and Statistics, and worked as a Quantitative Researcher at AQR Capital Management.
Yiqiu Shen
About: Yiqiu Shen is a Ph.D. student at the Center for Data Science, co-advised by Prof. Kyunghyun Cho and Prof. Krzysztof J. Geras. His research interests primarily lie in Artificial Intelligence for healthcare and deep learning for medical image analysis. Prior to joining NYU, he was a software engineer at Two Sigma Investments where he maintained a platform that extracts trading signals from market sentiment. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in computer science from Rice University.
Harvineet Singh
Contact: hs3673@nyu.edu
About: Harvineet is a Ph.D. student in Data Science at New York University. His research interests include statistical modeling of structured data such as sequences and graphs, with applications in digital health and social sciences. Prior to joining NYU, he was a research engineer at Adobe Research in India, where he worked on methods for survival analysis, interactive recommendations, and sequence prediction. He has an Integrated Master’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi in Mathematics and Computing. His Master’s thesis work, advised by Prof. Amitabha Bagchi and Prof. Parag Singla, explored graph representation learning techniques for social network data. He did two summer internships at Adobe Research, focusing on customer behavior prediction. Also, he was a visiting researcher at BME, Hungary. His other interests include traveling, playing basketball, and listening to music.
Vlad Sobal
Contact: us441@nyu.edu
About: Vlad is a 1-st year Ph.D. student who is very excited about working with Kyunghyun Cho, and Yann LeCun, and CDS in general. He is interested in NLP, computer vision and self-driving cars. Vlad’s research interests were inspired by his internships at Nvidia, where he worked on self-driving cars. Apart from working at Nvidia in the Bay Area, Vlad has traveled to London and Zurich to do internships at Google and Jane Street. Between the internships, he received his undergraduate degree in computer science from the University of Warsaw in Poland.
Sam Stanton
Contact: ss13641@nyu.edu
About: Sam is a Ph.D. student in the NYU Center for Data Science and a NDSEG Fellow (class of 2018), working with Professor Andrew Wilson. His current research focuses on the incorporation of probabilistic state transition models in reinforcement learning algorithms. Model-based RL agents generalize from past experience very effectively, allowing the agent to evaluate policies with fewer environment interactions than their model-free counterparts. Improving the data-efficiency of RL agents is crucial for real-world applications in fields like robotics, logistics, and finance. Sam holds a Master’s degree in Operations Research from Cornell University, where he started working with Professor Wilson as a first-year Ph.D. student. Sam transferred from the Cornell doctoral program to continue his research agenda at NYU with his advisor. Prior to his studies at Cornell, Sam earned a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from the University of Colorado Denver, graduating summa cum laude. In addition to his dissertation research, Sam is interested in modern art and philosophy, especially epistemology and ethics. When he is not occupied with research, Sam enjoys volleyball, rock climbing, surfing, and snowboarding.
Artem Vysogorets
Contact: amv458@nyu.edu
About: I am a first-year Ph.D. student working with Julia Kempe. In 2019, I graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a B.S. in Mathematics and completed an undergraduate thesis in matroid theory with Professor Tom Braden. Before joining NYU, I completed research on predicting Riemann Zeta-function zeroes with neural networks in San Diego State University and worked on a computer vision project at the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics. My current interests lie in the optimization and mathematics of machine learning.
Nan Wu
Contact: nan.wu@nyu.edu
About: Nan is a Ph.D. student at the Center for Data Science, co-advised by Prof. Kyunghyun Cho and Prof. Krzysztof J. Geras. She is interested in data science with application in healthcare and now working on developing deep learning algorithms for medical imaging.
Before joining NYU, she graduated from the School of Gifted Young, University of Science and Technology of China, and received her B.S in Statistics and B.A. in Business Administration. In her undergraduate thesis, she built neurofeedback protocols with predictive models to help reducing cue-reacted nicotine craving.
Yanli Zhou
About: Yanli is a Ph.D. student at the NYU Center for Data Science, working with Dr. Brenden Lake. Previously at NYU, she received her BA in Mathematics and Psychology in 2016 and an MS in Data Science in 2018. Before joining the Lake lab, she worked as a research assistant under the supervision of Dr. Wei Ji Ma at the Center for Neural Science and Department of Psychology where she built probabilistic models of visual decision-making tasks. She is broadly interested in incorporating insights from cognitive science into building AI systems that can efficiently and flexibly learn.