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Tomer A

- Research Program Mentor

MS at Stanford University

Expertise

Any project involving scientific computing (e.g. simulation, data analysis; can be in a domain I'm familiar with like physics, or otherwise), AI (decision-making, neural networks, etc.), aerospace engineering (related to: orbital dynamics/satellites/space stuff, aeronautics/aircraft), Art (traditional or computer-driven)

Bio

Hi, I'm Tomer. I have a wide variety of interests, both academically and personally. In undergrad, I double majored in Fine Arts (sculpture) and Physics, and I have a master's in Aerospace Engineering. While my job these days isn't really in physics or in art or even in aerospace, all of those backgrounds serve me all of the time! I work on AI for self-driving cars now, and before that was a researcher in the field of "formal verification of neural networks", which is a new branch of safety validation for neural networks. I also have a bit of experience in data analysis, bioinformatics, robotics, modeling/simulation, and lots of experience programming in various languages (my favorite is Julia!). My hobbies include playing instruments (piano and guitar mainly, but I like to dabble in others), video games, reading (sci-fi/fantasy is my favorite), travel, programming (especially for graphics related stuff like shaders or generative art, but I also enjoy coding challenges!). I also quite like teaching, which is why I joined Polygence!

Project ideas

Project ideas are meant to help inspire student thinking about their own project. Students are in the driver seat of their research and are free to use any or none of the ideas shared by their mentors.

Intro to Decision Making Under Uncertainty

Decision making is the process of selecting the most appropriate action to take in a given state. Humans do this naturally, but for computers or robots, humans must write the programs that lead to their decisions. In this project, we will first learn to model a toy decision problem (such as a robot in a 2D grid-world, or which move to play in a game of chance), how to represent it in code, and then how to solve it. If time allows, you can then come up with your own decision making problem to solve!

Coding skills

Julia, C++, Python, R, GLSL/WebGL, Processing/P5, MATLAB

Languages I know

Hebrew, native

Teaching experience

I have tutored and TA-ed a number of courses, at levels from first-year undergraduates to second year graduate students. These courses include: introductory physics (mechanics and electrostatics), engineering optimization, decision-making under uncertainty, and advanced glassblowing. As a TA in these courses, part of my responsibilities was to help students develop and execute individual or group projects, often including original research. I have also worked with a few interns in the past, most of whom were undergraduates, but one of which was a high school junior/senior (I don't recall which it was exactly, but he was a very talented kid!)

Credentials

Work experience

Nissan (2022 - Current)
AI Researcher
Stanford Intelligent Systems Lab (2018 - 2022)
Research Assistant
NASA (2017 - 2018)
Researcher

Education

Alfred University
BA Bachelor of Arts (2016)
Physics
Stanford University
MS Master of Science
Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering

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