Nitya Thakkar
CS PhD Student
Stanford University
Hello!
I am a second year Computer Science PhD student at Stanford advised by James Zou. I am interested in machine learning for health and medical AI. I am supported by the Stanford Graduate Fellowship and the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.
Interests
- Machine Learning for Health
- Medical AI
Education
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PhD in Computer Science, 2028 (expected)
Stanford University
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BS in Computer Science, 2023
Brown University
Experience
Undergraduate Researcher
- Honors senior thesis: developed a graph convolutional neural network trained on gene expression data from patients with Glioblastoma to predict cell state energy and learn the underlying graph structure of the gene-gene interactions
- Co-first author on ENCODE Consortium project, CoRNN, to predict three-dimensional organization of the genome (A/B compartments) from one-dimensional data (histone modification signals) using deep learning methods
Research Intern
Worked with Dr. Kevin Yang’s team. Contributions during internship led to the publication of EvoDiff, a diffusion framework for generating proteins from sequence information. Assisted in project conceptualization, creation of generation models for 2D alignments, and analysis of the generations.
Research Intern (Broad Summer Research Program)
Worked with Dr. Neriman Tokcan to apply machine learning methods to spatial transcriptomic data. The project goal was to understand how Classical Hodgkin’s Lymphoma tumor cells survive based on interactions with nonmalignant immune cells in the cancerous environment. Presented work at Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students in November 2021.
Teaching Assistant
Brown University
Head TA for Deep Learning Spring ‘23. TA for Deep Learning (Fall ‘22, Spring ‘22), Introduction to Computer Systems (Fall ‘21), and Linear Algebra (Spring ‘21). Responsibilities included course development, grading problem sets/projects, and holding weekly office hours and labs.
Honors & Awards
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship
NSF GRFP recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students who have demonstrated the potential to be high achieving scientists and engineers, early in their careers. It provides three years of support.
Stanford Graduate Fellowship in Science and Engineering
Three year fellowship providing support to outstanding students pursuing doctoral degrees in science and engineering
Senior Prize in Computer Science
Recipient of the Senior Prize in Computer Science for excellence in academics and service to the department
CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award Honorable Mention
This award program recognizes undergraduate students in North American colleges and universities who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research