Curriculum Vitae

Education

PhD (2021–present)

École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) · Computational and Quantitative Biology

MSc (2018–2019)

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) · Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences

BSc (2017–2018)

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign · Computer Science and Astronomy
With Highest Distinction

First 3 semesters completed at the University of Toronto (Engineering Science)

Work Experience

EPFL — Doctoral Assistant (2021–present)

Lausanne, Switzerland

PhD candidate at the Neuroengineering Laboratory, Brain Mind Institute & Institute of Bioengineering, supervised by Prof. Pavan Ramdya. I identify neural circuits in the motor system of Drosophila melanogaster using connectomes — the wiring diagrams of its neural connections — then build artificial neural networks that mirror real neural connectivity and train them using Reinforcement Learning and Imitation Learning. I also develop closed-loop experimental hardware and software to collect training data.

HabiTerre Inc. — Chief Research Officer (2019–2021)

Champaign, Illinois, USA

Led research at HabiTerre, a startup using satellite images and machine learning to model and monitor ecosystems. Focus on data-driven carbon lifecycle assessment for farmland at global scale. Led several federally funded projects (see Funding).

National Center for Supercomputing Applications — Research Assistant (2017–2019)

Urbana, Illinois, USA

Observational astronomy: Scaled numerical simulations of black hole mergers on supercomputers; trained deep learning models to estimate parameters of gravitational wave events (LIGO); developed models to classify galaxies (Dark Energy Survey).

Satellite remote sensing: Generated unified satellite datasets by fusing multiple data sources; developed crop yield forecast models.

Project Grants

U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) (2021)

~$256,000, as PI, NSF SBIR program

Developing a generative framework to assess farmland resilience based on artificial intelligence, satellite data, and stochastic weather modeling.

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) (2021)

~$106,000, as PI, USDA SBIR program

Developing a scalable and economic solution for real-time irrigation decision making for center pivots.

U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)** (2020)

~$50,000, as Entrepreneur Lead, NSF Innovation Corps

Intelligent risk management for the US crop insurance industry.

Fellowships

Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds PhD Fellowship (2022–2024)

€117,000

Reverse-engineering Drosophila locomotor control through data-driven modeling.

O’Dell Fellowship (2018–2019)

~$78,000 (stipend + tuition waiver)

Fully funded MSc at UIUC.

Awards

  • Fiddler Innovation Fellowship (2019) — National Center for Supercomputing Applications
  • BSc with Highest Distinction (2018) — University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • First Place in Original Undergraduate Research (2018) — Grainger College of Engineering, Engineering Open House

Service

Teaching

BIOENG-456: Controlling Behavior in Animals and Robots (EPFL, 2022–2023) Teaching Assistant / Lead Teaching Assistant. Master course in Life Sciences and Robotics. Led the design of course projects in two offerings; one led to the NeuroMechFly v2 project.

BIO-311: Neuroscience (EPFL, 2022) Teaching Assistant. Bachelor/master course introducing the fundamentals of neuroscience.

CS-241/341: System Programming (UIUC, 2018) Course Assistant. Bachelor course on system programming: POSIX processes, IPC, parallelism, memory management, networking, security.