About myself
I'm a Harvard student pursuing an M.S. in Computer Science and a B.A. in Computer Science, Near Eastern Languages, and Linguistics. My academic interests within Computer Science lie in Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence for Social Impact, and Natural Language Processing. Outside of academics, I also enjoy advising, teaching, and mentoring students from Undergraduate and Graduate. Having done research at Apple, Harvard, and the University of Cambridge, I'm hoping to one day do a PhD in NLP. In the meantime, I am working diligently to document, preserve, and revitalize the dying Neo-Aramaic dialects: the language of my family and of the Assyrians.
| Computer Science | and | Linguisics |
|---|---|---|
| DL, AI for Social Impact, NLP | The revitalization of Neo-Aramaic | Endangered language documentation |
The Computer Science
This year I have been focusing on teaching, lab research, and peer-advising:
- Teaching and managing a course of 200+ Undergraduate and Graduate students as Head Teaching Fellow for CS 181, Harvard's staple Machine Learning course
- Mentored a team of Graduate Harvard IACS students on their final data science capstone projects as a Teaching Fellow for AC 297
- Improving methods for Bayesian model selection in real-world settings with Harvard's DtAK group
- Captaining the Peer Concentration Advising team
The Linguistics
On the linguistics side of things, I am working hard to lay the foundation for digital technologies to support the viability of Assyrian throughout the diaspora. This implies everything from constructing a standard grammar for the language to training automatic translators. There's too much to list, but here's just a few of my favorite happenings:
- Writing an introductory Assyrian grammar and textbook for my Junior year thesis
- Founding the Assyrian Voices Project to crowdsource then build speech and translation datasets
- Describing the grammatical features of the nearly extinct Neo-Aramaic Dialect of the Chaldeans of Sanandaj
- Developing a pan-dialectal morphological and syntactic glosser
Courses
Historically I have found Harvard's graduate machine learning courses most interesting. Since completing the requirements for my Master's degree in my Sophomore year, I've moved towards coursework that will enrich my linguistics research.
* graduate level
| Spring 2023 | ||
|---|---|---|
| *CS282br | Topics in Machine Learning: Interpretability and Explainability | |
| *CS276 | Design, Tech & Social Impact | |
| *CL277 | Literature, Diaspora, Migration, and Trauma | |
| NEC101 | Historical Background to the Middle East | |
| NEC91r | Advanced Neo-Aramaic Syntax | |
| NEC98a | Junior Year Thesis | |
| SYRIAC AB | Elementary Syriac II | |
| Fall 2022 | ||
| *CS288 | AI for Social Impact | |
| *CS299r | Special Topics: Morphological and Syntactic Parsing | |
| EMR152 | Memory and Diaspora | |
| LING91r | Supervised Reading and Research | |
| MODMDEST103 | History of Modern Iran | |
| NEC91r | Advanced Neo-Aramaic Morphology | |
| NEC98a | Junior Year Thesis | |
| SYRIAC AA | Elementary Syriac I | |
| Spring 2022 | ||
| *CS205 | High Performance Computing for Science and Engineering | |
| *CS231 | Quantum Computation and Quantum Complexity | |
| *CS282r | Advancements in Probabalistic ML, Programming Models for ML, Causality | |
| *CS299r | Special Topics: Extremely Low-Resource Speech Recognition | |
| GENED1110 | Classical Mythology | |
| LING83 | Language, Structure, and Cognition | |
| Fall 2021 | ||
| *AM207 | Advanced Scientific Computing: Stochastic Methods for Data Analysis, Inference and Optimization | |
| CS153 | Compilers | |
| *CS242 | Computing at Scale | |
| *CS282br | Adaptive Methods in Machine Learning | |
| *CS282r | Task-focused Generative Models and Inference | |
| GENED1038 | Sleep | |
| Spring 2021 | ||
| CS51 | Abstraction and Design in Computation | |
| CS124 | Data Structures and Algorithms | |
| CS181 | Machine Learning | audited |
| EXPOS20 | Society and the Witch | |
| MATH22b | Vector Calculus and Linear Algebra II | |
| PERSIAN AB | Elementary Persian II | |
| Fall 2020 | ||
| CS50 | Introduction to Computer Science | |
| FRSEMR34X | Language and Prehistory | |
| MATH22a | Vector Calculus and Linear Algebra I | |
| PERSIAN AA | Elementary Persian I | |