Coder • Researcher • Math-Enthusiast • Artist
Hello! I am a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University in the
Machine Learning Department. I conduct research on how machine
learning and generative AI can support personalization in
education. I am currently advised by
Dr. Zachary Lipton.
Previously, I have worked on AI safety and large language models
projects through internships at Microsoft Research (advised by
Dr. Adam Kalai
&
Dr. Rosa Arriaga), Indico Data (advised by
Madison May), and The MITRE Corporation (advised by
Dr. John Henderson).
I finished my undergraduate at
Olin College of Engineering
majoring in
Engineering: Computing. There, I worked as a computing researcher in Olin's
Microbiology and Bioinformatics lab advised by
Dr. Jean Huang, in Olin's Satellite + Spectrum Technology & Policy group
advised by
Dr. Whitney Lohmeyer, and on a senior capstone research project advised by
Fidelity Center for Applied Technology.
Research Interests
Probabilistic NLP Models
Large language models trained at scale show emerging intelligent behavior, such as coherent and grammatical structures, cultural knowledge, and abstract reasoning capabilities.
- @ Microsoft Research, I used GPT-3 and Turning-NLP to simulate distributions of responses to psychology experiments.
Model Robustness
Adversarial attacks may manipulate the behavior of AI systems to serve a malicious end goal.
- @ The MITRE Corporation, I prototyped a docker containerized adversarial attack testing platform and populated a public information resource.
- @ MITRE NLP Lab, I supported research into practical attacks on machine translation using paraphrase.
Cross-Source Information Extraction
Extracting information from documents requires the ability to link events, entities and associated relations across multiple sources.
- @ Indico Data R&D, I worked on deep learning NLP and CV approaches to PDF information extraction.
- @ Olin Satellite Lab, I consolidated multiple possibly contradictory data sources when scraping the FCC's international filings database.
Event Sequence Modeling
With language, voice, and time-series data, data items are dependent on data before or after it.
- @ Olin Microbiology Lab, I characterized time-series data from perturbed and recovering microbial communities using methods from compositional data analysis.
- @ Fidelity R&D, I analyzed distributions of cryptocurrency technical trading indicators over time.
Experience
Undergraduate Researcher @ Olin Bioinformatics & Microbiology Lab
January 2021 - January 2023, part-time
Advised by Professor Jean Huang
- Led research on analyzing composition shifts in time-series of cultured, perturbed microbiomes.
- Conducted literature review to find, apply, and analyze limitations of Random Matrix Theory approach, Compositional Data Analysis, and network analysis.
- Presented poster at Northeastern Microbiologists: Physiology, Ecology, and Taxonomy (NEMPET).
- Led project on cleaning and interpreting 2D Fourier analysis to isolate patterns in bacterial surface images to identify pattern and shape of surface proteins.
-
Peer-Reviewed Publications
Using large language models to simulate multiple humans and replicate
human subject studies
G. Aher, R. I. Arriaga, and A. T. Kalai.
ICML 2023, *Oral.
Evaluating the FCC's $10 Billion Gamble: Successfully Accelerating
Access to Spectrum in Auction 107
G. Aher, P. Post, P. Boyalakuntla, G. Miner, L. Heinrich, Y. Mao,
J. A. Musey, W. Lohmeyer.
Journal of Information Policy (JIP 2023).
Analysis of Geostationary Federal Communication Commission Satellite
Applications from 2000 to 2022
P. Post, K. Fleming, K. Canavan, S. Cho, G. Aher, W. Lohmeyer.
Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets (2023).
Posters
What Factors Affect Microbial Community Composition?
Northeastern Microbiologists: Physiology, Ecology, and Taxonomy (NEMPET
2021)
SOARing with Drones in Education
Massachusetts Computer Using Educators (MassCUE 2018)
Refining Private Set Intersection Under Secure Multi-Party
Computation
Boston University, Greater Boston Research Opportunities for Women
(GROW 2018)
Artificial Intelligence, Chatbots, and Amazon Web Services
International Society of Technology Educators (ISTE 2018)
Projects
React.js + DigitalOcean + SQLite + Auth0 Football Pick-Em' site used by 40+ active weekly users
Fullstack React Development
Read MoreAlgorithms and implementations for small-world (local clustering) and scale-free (hubs) graphs
Generating Realistic Graphs
Read MoreDeep learning object-detection trials on pre-training, multi-label, small & imbalanced targets
Faster R-CNN for Handwriting Detection
Read MoreConstant time querying, compressing huge index numbers, and bypassing the curse of global updates
Data Structures for Large Scale Information Retrieval
Read MoreCharacterizing repeating protein patterns on bacteria image with 2D Fourier Transform
Fourier Transform Detective Story
Read MoreBrowse Projects By Category
Teaching, Leadership, and Academic Service
ENGR3599A-SL Olin College (Instructor Student-Led Course, Spring 2023): Advanced Algorithms
MTH2110 Olin College (Teaching Assistant Head Grader, Fall 2022): Discrete Mathematics
GirlsWhoCode Olin College (Branch Leader, Fall 2022)
Data Science and ML Lunch-and-Learn Olin College (Organizer & Presenter, Fall 2021)
ENGR2510 Olin College (Teaching Assistant, Fall 2022)
Einstein's Workshop Coding & STEM Classes (Teaching Assistant, 2017 - 2019)
Shishu Bharati Indian Language K-8 (Teaching Assistant, 2015 - 2019)
FIRST Lego League Robotics (Mentor, Fall 2018)
Some recent art...
My hobbies include drawing, dance, long-distance running, and playing four instruments :)