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PhD Students

PhD Students: A - K

Cohort: September 2023
Email Dionysios

Student Track: Artificial Intelligence
Research Area: NLP
Advisor(s): Hammond, Kristian
Cohort: September 2019
Research Statement: Currently, my primary focus is on building agentic conversation loops to help determine a user's information goals during question answering.
Cameron's Website
Email Cameron

Student Track: Artificial Intelligence
Advisor(s): Birnbaum, Lawrence
Cohort: September 2022
Expected Graduation Date: June 2027
Email Simon

Cohort: September 2025
Email Aidan

Student Track: CSLS
Advisor(s): Horn, Michael
Cohort: September 2020
Email Maddie

Student Track: Systems
Advisor(s): Peter Dinda
Cohort: September 2024
Expected Graduation Date: June 2029
Email Alex

Research Area: Perception
Advisor(s): Sam Kriegman
Cohort: January 2024
Research Statement: I am passionate about understanding perception, particularly vision and hearing, at the intersection of computer science and neuroscience. My work focuses on leveraging insights from the brain and human behavior to advance the development of more effective algorithms and robotics, while also exploring how machine learning can unveil new perspectives on human cognition. I am open to collaborations and welcome any opportunities for research overlap。
Yuchen's Website
Email Yuchen

Student Track: Theory
Research Area: Computational Social Choice
Advisor(s): Edith Elkind
Cohort: September 2024
Expected Graduation Date: June 2029
Matthew's Website
Email Matthew

Student Track: Artificial Intelligence
Cohort: September 2022
Email Ruixiang

Student Track: Theory
Research Area: Combinatorial Statistics
Advisor(s): Racz, Miklos
Cohort: September 2022
Research Statement: My research interests lie in the intersection of statistics and theoretical computer science. I am currently working on graph matching and community detection problems on random graph. I am also interested in reliable machine learning.
Shuwen's Website
Email Shuwen

Student Track: Computer Engineering
Research Area: AI for Science (AI4Sc)
Advisor(s): Alok Choudhary; Ankit Agrawal
Cohort: September 2021
Expected Graduation Date: December 2026
Research Statement: I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Computer Science at Northwestern University. I passed my quals in September 2024 and the Prospectus in August 2025. You can find more about me at https://hellokayas.github.io/
Sayak's Website
Email Sayak

Cohort: September 2019
Research Statement: Peter is a Law & Science Fellow and a JD-PhD student working at the intersection of Computer Science and Law. He is interested on his research from two angles: 1) applying advancement in computer science to policy problems, and 2) devising effective regulations for the safe deployment of new technologies.
Peter's Website
Email Peter

Student Track: TSB
Research Area: HCI
Advisor(s): Jacobs, Maia
Cohort: September 2021
Expected Graduation Date: June 2026
Research Statement: I am an interdisciplinary HCI researcher whose work applies critical theory and participatory research methods to develop technologies that support care work and provide equitable health outcomes for marginalized communities. My interests include the design of mental & physical health technologies, sociotechnical opportunities to facilitate healing & resilience for trauma survivors, and community-based research.
Connie's Website
Email Connie

Student Track: Artificial Intelligence
Research Area: Robotics, Embodied AI, Agent System for Robotics
Cohort: September 2026
Expected Graduation Date: June 2031
Email Changhe

Cohort: September 2025
Email Canyu

Cohort: September 2024
Email Hong-yu

Student Track: Systems
Research Area: Computer Network
Advisor(s): Aleksandar Kuzmanovic
Cohort: September 2024
Suting's Website
Email Suting

Student Track: Interfaces
Research Area: HCI and Computing Education
Advisor(s): O'Rourke, Eleanor
Cohort: September 2022
Expected Graduation Date: June 2028
Research Statement: I study the design of sociotechnical systems to support novice computing students’ self-efficacy, motivation, and learning. I explore: (1) how to support students in making more accurate evaluations of their programming abilities through both AI-based tools and teaching practices in university-level computing classes and (2) how students collaboratively learn and how to facilitate social learning through technology.
Melissa's Website
Email Melissa

Cohort: September 2023
Email Haotian

Student Track: TSB
Advisor(s): Shaw, Aaron
Cohort: September 2020
Expected Graduation Date: 2025
Carl's Website
Email Carl

Cohort: September 2023
Email Hasti

Student Track: Artificial Intelligence
Advisor(s): Forbus, Kenneth
Cohort: September 2021
Expected Graduation Date: December 2026
Research Statement: I'm building neuro-symbolic AI systems that model the world and their users over time that reason over episodic memories to customize interactions and become a more useful, sociable partner. To do this, we integrate symbolic NL parsing, statistical simplification, learning through analogy, neural embeddings, and conversational modeling. My broader interests in AI include: user modeling (conversational, intent, & interest), Embeddings & Knowledge Representation, Agency and self-guided motivation and workflows, Metacognitive signals for problem solving, and recommendation systems.
Walker's Website
Email Walker

Student Track: Artificial Intelligence
Advisor(s): Subrahmanian, VS
Cohort: September 2022
Email Natalia

Cohort: September 2024
Email Friedrich

Cohort: September 2024
Email Kabir

Student Track: Artificial Intelligence
Research Area: Applied AI
Advisor(s): Hammond, Kristian
Cohort: September 2019
Expected Graduation Date: 2025
Research Statement: My research interests lie in the area of artificial intelligence for social good, mainly in analytics and education, where I strive to bridge the information gap between data and educational stakeholders by automating data science techniques. I believe that data-driven education will be the next big step in education, and want to be in the forefront of that development as it moves forward. Recently I have been working with CASMI and underwriters laboratories on a project aimed to build a framework for how to make predictive policing systems safe and equitable for society.
Alexander's Website
Email Alexander

Student Track: Systems
Research Area: Programming Languages
Advisor(s): Dimoulas, Christos
Cohort: January 2021
Email Tochukwu

Student Track: Interfaces
Research Area: Computer Vision
Advisor(s): Subrahmanian, VS
Cohort: September 2021
Expected Graduation Date: June 2026
Research Statement: I am a Ph.D. student at Northwestern University and I am interested in computer vision, NLP, and V-L Tasks. I have published several papers related to image captioning and text few-shot learning.
Chongyang's Website
Email Chongyang

Student Track: Security and Privacy
Research Area: Applied Cryptography
Advisor(s): Wang, Xiao
Cohort: September 2022
Research Statement: My research interests lie in applied cryptography, focusing on Secure Multi-Party Computation and homomorphic encryption.
Radhika's Website
Email Radhika

Cohort: September 2025
Email Moyang

Cohort: September 2023
Email Ziyi

Student Track: Theory
Research Area: Theoretical machine learning and high-dimensional statistics.
Advisor(s): Aravindan Vijayaraghavan
Cohort: September 2023
Expected Graduation Date: June 2028
Research Statement: During my undergraduate time, I worked on a practice-inspired graph algorithm, which can be used to optimize version control systems.
Bob's Website
Email Bob

Research Area: HCI
Advisor(s): Hullman, Jessica
Email Ziyang

Cohort: September 2025
Email Katie

Cohort: September 2025
Email Yu

Cohort: September 2023
Email Nathaniel

Student Track: Artificial Intelligence
Research Area: AI/ML
Advisor(s): Hammond, Kristian
Cohort: September 2021
Expected Graduation Date: 2026
Research Statement: I work in the Cognition, Creativity, and Communication (C3) Lab, lead by Professor Kristian Hammond. My research interest is in developing human-centered AI applications.
Donna's Website
Email Donna

Cohort: September 2025
Email Zijun

Student Track: Artificial Intelligence
Research Area: Machine Learning; Foundation Model; AI/ML for Science
Advisor(s): Liu, Han
Cohort: September 2021
Research Statement: My research focuses on theoretical foundations and principled methodologies for large Foundation Models (e.g. Large Language Models and Generative AI). My long-term goal is to leverage machine learning to tackle important scientific and societal challenges.
Jerry Yao-Chieh's Website
Email Jerry Yao-Chieh

Student Track: Graphics
Research Area: Computational Imaging, Computer Vision, Vision Science
Advisor(s): Alexander, Emma
Cohort: September 2023
Expected Graduation Date: August 2028
Research Statement: My research interests lie in bio-inspired computer vision, spanning computational imaging, vision science, and animal vision. I am particularly motivated by the development of mathematical methods tailored to task-specific goals, drawing inspiration from biological systems to design principled and efficient approaches to visual computation.
Yi-Chun's Website
Email Yi-Chun

Student Track: CSLS
Advisor(s): Horn, Michael
Cohort: September 2020
Email Ayse

Cohort: September 2025
Email Hyunseok

Student Track: TSB
Cohort: June 2022
Email Monisola Mercy

Cohort: January 2024
Email Mingyoung

Cohort: September 2025
Email Yuhao

Cohort: April 2023
Email Kelly

Student Track: Interfaces
Research Area: Human-AI collaboration
Advisor(s): Jessica Hullman and Matt Groh
Cohort: September 2022
Negar's Website
Email Negar

Student Track: Artificial Intelligence
Advisor(s): Forbus, Kenneth
Cohort: September 2024
Email Omar

Student Track: Artificial Intelligence
Research Area: AI/ML, Computer Vision
Advisor(s): Choudhary, Alok
Cohort: September 2022
Expected Graduation Date: June 2026
Research Statement: I am M. N. Talha Kilic, a first year AI/ML Ph.D. student in Computer Science at Northwestern University. I have the privilege of being advised by three esteemed faculty members, namely, Prof. Alok Choudhary, Prof. Ankit Agrawal, and Prof. Wei-Keng Liao, who have been instrumental in shaping my research interests and career goals. Prior to joining the Ph.D. program, I worked in the petroleum and satellite industries for a combined period of almost four years. During this time, I honed my skills in microcontroller, circuit, and PCB design, as well as embedded coding and optimization, which have been invaluable in my academic pursuits. I completed my Master's degree in Electronics Engineering from Istanbul Technical University, where I conducted research on "Classification of Chest X-Rays using Divergence-Based Convolutional Neural Network" as part of my thesis. Currently, I am a member of the research group, the Center for Ultra-Scale Computing and Information Security (CUCIS), which aims to bridge the gap between AI and material science by proposing AI-based models to accelerate the creation of new microstructures while minimizing time and cost.
Muhammed Nur Talha's Website
Email Muhammed Nur Talha

Student Track: Systems
Research Area: Computer Networks, Distrubuted Systems
Cohort: September 2024
Expected Graduation Date: June 2029
Email Santiago

Student Track: Computer Engineering
Research Area: Scheduling of distributed heterogeneous systems
Advisor(s): Peter Dinda
Cohort: January 2023
Expected Graduation Date: March 2028
Research Statement: David Krasowska is a Ph.D. candidate at Northwestern University, advised by Dr. Peter Dinda. His research journey began during his undergraduate studies at Clemson University where he collaborated with Argonne National Laboratory to explore lossy compression for optimizations in HPC scientific applications. He received the DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellowship to fund his graduate studies. Currently, he is exploring scheduling applications across distributed heterogeneous systems with Dr. Pat McCormick and Dr. Li Tang at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
David's Website
Email David