our Alumni

Yiming is a second-year at the University of Chicago majoring in Computer Science and specializing in Machine Learning. His passion for machine learning starts since high school when he wrote an Extended Essay for IB DP Computer Science on the impact of the dropout layer in VGG16. He focuses his machine learning career on computer vision, such as CNN, GAN, face recognition, and the integration of models and hardware. 

Jared is a first-year undergraduate student at the University of Chicago intending to study neuroscience and linguistics. He hopes to explore language from a neuroscience perspective, while also examining the many social implications of language usage.

Anjali is a PhD student in Computer Science at Columbia University. She graduated from the University of Chicago in 2020, where she received a B.S. in Statistics and a minor in Computer Science. While there, she worked as a research assistant in the Department of Human Genetics, investigating the genetic basis of Alzheimer’s disease in the Hutterites, a founder population. Outside of school, she taught middle and high school girls elementary lessons in computer science and led a classical Indian dance organization.

Brandon is a rising second-year undergraduate at the University of Chicago studying Economics. He is interested in learning more about the use of data and computer modeling in the research of social-economic phenomena as well as how that research can be used to solve current problems. As a child, Brandon loved reading the Moses series of books by Barbara Kimenye. He found them fun to read and they allowed him to think about how life could be unexpected but still be full of adventure and meaning.

Fred came to the University of Chicago as Director of Special Projects (Office of the VP for Research) building on a career as professor and founding program director for Solid State Chemistry at the National Science Foundation. By thinking like a program director, he has helped faculty attract large scale center grants and early career development awards. Now formally retired, he continues to help early career faculty and graduate students. He loves classical music because, as a child, he heard so much of it skillfully used in programs such as theLone Ranger. 

Hye-Min Jung graduated from Harris School of Public Policy, the University of Chicago in 2020 and joined the MiiE lab in 2021 fall. She is interested in inequality, human capital development, intergenerational mobility, especially for the disadvantaged group. She believes that there is so much you can discover with text analysis, and she is excited to be part of the MiiE lab to explore the factors that could possibly influence childhood developments by analyzing contents that children are exposed to. As a child, she liked the stories that protagonists face the ordeal with courage and overcome obstacles, especially the Harry Potter series. Hye-Min realized how entertaining reading books can be while she was reading through those series and became a big fan of reading.

Juan Miguel is a Predoctoral Fellow at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. He double majored in Economics and Law at Universidad de los Andes in Colombia, from where he also received his Master’s in Economics in 2019. His research field is development economics with a special focus on understanding how misperceptions can become a barrier to economic integration. One of his favorite books as a kid was The Little Prince. It marked his interest in exploration and the outdoors. Nowadays, he suspects it was really about self-discovery.

Jeffrey Tharsen is a Computational Scientist for the Digital Humanities at the University of Chicago., serving as university-wide technical domain expert for digital and computational approaches to humanistic inquiry. He received his doctorate in 2015 from the University of Chicago’s East Asian Languages & Civilizations department., specializing in the fields of premodern Chinese philology, phonology, poetics and paleography. In his work, Jeffrey leads and advises text team researchers, and leads teams creating new resources, platforms and methods. for humanistic research, designs curricula and teaches courses and workshops on digital studies, data science, computational linguistics and natural language processing, serves on thesis committees and mentors students interested in developing new digital and computational research methods, and regularly presents his work at national and international conferences and symposia.

Jerin is a third year majoring in Chemistry at the University of Chicago. She is excited to work as a part of the Miie Lab team and explore the presentation of different races and genders in children’s books. She is also looking forward to learning more web management skills as well as seeing how large pools of data are managed and used. She was born in Bangladesh and moved to America at the age of 5. As a child she loved to read books, especially those with magical elements. At a young age she noticed that the characters in her stories often did not look like her and that affected her perception of herself. As she became older, she was more excited to see her background represented in stories. Outside of work Jerin enjoys drawing and listening to music.

Jingyi Liu is an MACRM graduate and she is now working as a Research Assistant at Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago. She is interested in the studies relating to labor economics, with a special focus on the interaction between labor markets and other social factors including education and health at individual and household level.

Kristof is a rising second year at the University of Chicago planning to major in Biological Sciences. He is curious about data collection and processing and is also trying to learn more about machine learning, coding, and data interpretation. He is of Slovak origin and feels excited to have an opportunity to be a part of MiiE lab and explore the implications of identity in our societies. He has always adored a good read. Genres ranging from sci-fi to travel memoirs enabled him to reside in a world different from that immediately around him; one that shaped his idea of self and helped him become more creative, critical, and reflective.

Noah, a native of Seattle, is a Computer Science graduate student at the University of Chicago, studying topics ranging from operating systems to computational linguistics. Through his work on the text team, he has developed an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) pipeline, several natural language processing machine learning models, and thorough analysis of current word embedding models.

Raj is an Applied Mathematician. Raj did his BS and MS in Mathematics, Physics and Geophysics at Banaras Hindu University (BHU), India. After graduation Raj worked as a Physicist at National/International oil companies before he started his PhD (jointly from Oklahoma State/Rice University) with a focus on high order numerical methods. Raj’s research focuses on the intersection of applied mathematics and deep learning. During and proceeding earning his PhD, Raj has worked as a Researcher at Halliburton, British Petroleum, Hewlett-Packard and Brown University. Raj has been captivated by Physics from childhood, primarily mathematical operators. Two books that have transformed Raj’s life are “The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why it Had to Be Reborn”, which was given to him by his father. The second book which influenced him the most, was given to Raj by his high school Mathematics teacher. This book was titled “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”: Adventures of a Curious Character”. Apart from his research work, Raj is currently immersed in literature on number systems and encryption and is searching for a gap where he could contribute.