Alina Shabaeva (President)

Alina is a PhD student in Linguistics, working with Thomas Graf on computational syntax. Her main interests include mathematical and computational linguistics, particularly syntax and NLP. Outside of academia Alina tries to survive, sometimes with the help of movies and wine.

Thomas Knoll (Vice President)

Thomas is a fourth year PhD candidate in computational chemistry, working at IACS with Prof. Ben Levine in the field of theoretical photochemistry. Thomas' research focuses on the implementation in C++ of a quantum chemical method to simulate how light interacts with materials. The method is based on Density Functional Theory and is incorporated into a GPU accelerated software package (TeraChem). He is from Austria and received his B.S. in Chemistry and Biochemistry and his M.S. in Chemistry from the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany. He likes going to the beach, hiking and cooking.

Zhengxiang Wang (Secretary)

Zhengxiang Wang is a PhD student who entered the Linguistics program at SBU in 2022. His research interests are in Computational Linguistics, Natural Language Processing, Computational Social Science, and LLM Evaluation. One fun fact about him is that he has studied in three of the four largest countries by land area, excluding Russia: China for BA, Canada for MA, and USA for PhD.

Caitlin Hetherington (Event Coordinator)

Caitlin is a 5th year PhD candidate in computational and theoretical chemistry. She works with Dr. Ben Levine to simulate light-driven processes in nanomaterials. She earned her master's degree in Chemistry with German at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. In her free time, Caitlin enjoys spending time with her friends, boxing and watching a good TV show.

Khanak Bhargava (Social Media Coordinator)

Khanak is a Physics & Astronomy Ph.D. student and also an IACS Graduate Fellow. Her research involves blowing up stars on supercomputers to understand what kind of astrophysical systems give rise to Type Ia supernovae.

Smeet Chheda (President)

Smeet is a Ph.D. student in Computer Science working in the Exasca||ab of Professor Barbara Chapman at Stony Brook University.  His current interests lie in high performance computing and machine learning. He works on ML driven techniques for generating optimized code and scaling DL workloads on supercomputers.

Magdalena Markowska (Vice President)

Magda is a PhD student in the Linguistics Department, working with Jeffrey Heinz on mathematical phonology, learnability, and tones. Also, she recently developed an interest in discourse analysis, and is developing a corpus on common ground with Owen Rambow. Magda received an M.A. in Computational Linguistics from CUNY Graduate Center and an M.A. in English Philology from Warsaw University. She has two cats, Tortellini and Simone.

Marija Iloska (Event Coordinator)

Marija Iloska is a PhD candidate in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering working with Prof. Monica Bugallo. Her research interest lies in statistical signal processing, specifically tackling scalability and online inference challenges in complex dynamical systems. Marija is also actively engaged in educational outreach activities as a creator and instructor of engineering programs for middle school and high school students.

Sarah Payne (Social Media Coordinator)

Sarah is a Ph.D. student in Linguistics working with Jordan Kodner and Jeff Heinz. Her research focuses on developing computational models of language acquisition, particularly morphophonological acquisition. Sarah received her BA in Linguistics and Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania in 2022. She has a cat named Pluto.

Hao Lin (Treasurer)

Hao is a Ph.D. student in the department of Sociology, working with Professor Yongjun Zhang on computational social science. She received a B.A. in Sociology from the Central University of Finance and Economics (China) and an M.S. in Sociology from Utrecht University (the Netherlands). Currently, she is interested in social media, social networks, and race.

Danial Vahabli (Recruiter)

Danial Vahabli is a Sociology PhD student at Stony Brook University and the graduate fellow of Institute for Advanced Computational Science. His research explores the media and artistic representations of social movements in the global south using computational and qualitative methods. Recently, he has been focusing on the Women, Life, Freedom movement in Iran.

Catherine Feldman (President)

Catherine is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Astronomy and Physics working with Prof. Alan Calder. Catherine’s research focuses on analyzing simulations of Type Ia supernovae. Catherine is learning how to use the new experimental supercomputer “Ookami”.

Gaurav Verma (President)

Gaurav is a Ph.D. student in Computer Science working in the Exascallab under the advisory of Dr. Barbara Chapman. His current research interests include High-Performance Computing, Machine Learning, and DNN-Compilers. He received an M.S. in Computer Science from Stony Brook University, NY, and a B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from NIT, Karnataka, India.

Lauren Raguette (Vice President)

Lauren is a Ph.D. student in the Chemistry Department. She works in the Laufer Center in Carlos Simmerling’s lab, where she works on force field development for phosphorylated amino acids. She received a BS and MS in Chemistry from Villanova University, where she used computational techniques to study lithium-ion batteries.

Yulun Wang (Treasurer)

Yulun graduated with a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, studying Quantum Computing with Prof. Predrag Krstic in 2022. He graduated from the Southern University of Science and Technology with a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering.

Yousef El-Laham (President)

Yousef graduated with a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2021. He is originally from Providence, Rhode Island and is working as an AI Research Scientist at JP Morgan Chase. He has worked in the COSINE lab under Dr. Mónica Bugallo on problems pertaining to Bayesian inference. Yousef’s research interests include Monte Carlo methods, adaptive importance sampling, particle filtering, and machine learning.

Jonathan Rawski (President)

Jon graduated with a Ph.D. student in Linguistics in 2021, working with Jeffrey Heinz on computational phonology, grammatical inference, and neurolinguistics. He received a B.A. in Linguistics from the University of Minnesota and an M.S. in Cognitive Science from the Higher School of Economics. Currently, he is working as an Assistant Professor in the Linguistics and Language Development department at San Jose State University.

Alëna Aksenova (Vice President)

Alëna graduated with a Ph.D. in Linguistics in 2020, where she worked with Thomas Graf on computational phonology, morphology, and formal language theory. She received a specialist (~MA) degree in linguistics from Lomonosov Moscow State University, where she worked on syntax. Currently, she is working as a Linguist at Google, LLC.

Aditi Ghai (Treasurer)

Aditi graduated with a Ph.D. Applied Mathematics and Statistics in 2019, where she worked with Xiangmin Jiao. Currently she is working as a Lead Software Research Engineer at Cadence Design Systems.

Joel Anderson (Secretary)

Joel graduated with a Ph.D. in the Applied Mathematics and Statistics, from Professor Robert Harrison’s group in 2021. He graduated from the University of North Carolina in 2013 with a B.S. in Chemistry and Mathematics. He has worked in implementing relativistic quantum chemistry in the framework of MADNESS, a library for adaptive numerical simulations. Currently, he is working as a C++ Software Engineer at Align Technology.

Aniello De Santo (Communications)

Aniello graduated with a Ph.D. student Linguistics in 2020, studying with Professor Thomas Graf. He received a B.A. in Computer Science and an M.S. in Computer Science and Automation Engineering from the University of Pavia (Italy). His research focuses on mathematical syntax and phonology, formal language theory, and psycho/neurolinguistics. Currently, he is working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics at The University of Utah.