About me

Hi, I’m Dan! Here is some information about me:

I am a first-year Dual Degree Ph.D. Student at Instituto Superior Técnico’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering and at Carnegie Mellon University’s Language Technologies Institute.
I am very fortunate to be co-advised by Professors Chrysoula Zerva and Maarten Sap.
I speak English and Russian fluently. I am also conversational in Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, and Turkish.
Here is a link to my curriculum vitae.

Interests

I am broadly interested in computational social science, natural language processing, and human-computer interaction.
I am especially interested in how we can use decolonial computing methods such as ethnographically informed algorithmic auditing and community-centered design to expose and combat the systematic and systemic biases prevalent in language models.
As an aspiring researcher, I am constantly looking to expand my knowledge and learn more about recent developments in the fields of computer science and linguistics. Currently as part of my Ph.D. coursework, I am developing practical skills in multimodal machine learning and information retrieval techniques.

I was recently a research assistant for Nikola Banovic and Nel Escher in the Computational HCI Lab at the University of Michigan. I was also formerly a SULI Intern at Argonne National Laboratory and a DSI Summer Lab RA at the University of Chicago Data Science Institute.
Before that, I spent four impactful years at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. Alongside my coursework, I also completed an honors project where I prototyped a Google Maps extension designed to reduce driving anxiety. I am still a very active part of the alumni community at yMac, so if you are a current Macalester student or a recent grad please don’t hesitate to reach out! Go Scots!

Please feel free to contact me! My email address is linked on the sidebar, but here is another link for good measure.