Machine learning researcher. Chess grandmaster. Powerlifter.
I work on graph learning and foundation models at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Outside the lab I compete in professional chess tournaments and in powerlifting, and I write and speak about both.
Learning on graphs, and now foundation models for biology
Researcher in the Center for Applied Scientific Computing at LLNL. PhD in computer science, University of Michigan, 2020.
Publications and talksGrandmaster, earned as an adult with a full-time research job
Active tournament player, Chess Life contributor, and available for lectures, exhibitions and lessons.
Chess and bookingNational-level raw powerlifter and national referee
Multiple-time USA Powerlifting open nationals qualifier. Third at the 2025 California state championship by bodyweight-adjusted score.
PowerliftingSelected research
My PhD work used node and graph embeddings for problems like network alignment and role discovery. At LLNL I have worked on graph neural networks for molecular modeling, scientific image segmentation and software analysis, and more recently on foundation models for bioinformatics.
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BioKDD @ KDD 2024
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ICLR 2024
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NeurIPS 2022
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NeurIPS 2020
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ICDM 2019Distribution of Node Embeddings as Multiresolution Features for Graphs Best Student Paper
Music and cooking
I also play a fair amount of music. I own and play a variety of instruments, of which one of my favorites is the hammered dulcimer. I've played it in a couple of weddings and other assorted events, and you can hear a bit of it in an EP some of my talented college friends put together. At last count I've performed or recorded on five musical instruments.
I enjoy cooking and baking, mainly because I prefer hobbies to chores and when I reached adulthood I realized that feeding myself would have to become one of those two things.