People / Students / Class of 2026
Hartley graduated from the University of California, Irvine (UCI) with a major in Computer Science and a minor in Statistics. At UCI, he was part of both the Campuswide Honors Program and the ICS Honors Program, which gave him the opportunity to collaborate with faculty and conduct research. Under the mentorship of Professor Alberto Krone-Martins, he worked on a project involving symbolic regression, focusing on scaling the algorithm to operate efficiently on a supercomputer using MPI. This research culminated in an honors thesis and was presented at UCI's undergraduate research symposium.
In addition to his thesis work, Hartley contributed to Professor Chen Li's research group, SQLRewriter, where he strengthened his full-stack development skills using technologies such as React, Flask, and PostgreSQL. His work involved tackling challenges related to UI/UX design and data management, helping improve the group's platform for sharing and optimizing SQL queries. One of his key contributions was refactoring the site's search engine by leveraging PostgreSQL's built-in search vectors and incorporating fuzzy search support using trigrams, significantly enhancing both the performance and accuracy of search results. These experiences deepened his interest in building usable, data-centric tools that solve real-world problems.
Now, as he joins Northwestern's Master of Science in Machine Learning and Data Science (MLDS) program, Hartley is eager to deepen his understanding of data science and apply his skills to meaningful projects. He is especially interested in the relationship between data and industries such as finance and healthcare, where he believes data-driven solutions can drive impactful change. Through the MLDS program, he hopes to grow as a data scientist by working on hands-on problems, collaborating with peers, and preparing for a fulfilling career in an evolving field.
