Bio
I am a first-year CS PhD student at Cornell University funded by a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Previously, I was a junior at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) where I graduated early with a major in Computer Science + Philosophy. My undergraduate research was advised by Professor Talia Ringer.
You can contact me at the following email address: mxf {at} cs.cornell.edu.
Interests
My interests (past and present) include the following (in order of most recent/level of interest):
- type theory, theorem proving, and formal methods (with Professor Talia Ringer)
- formal epistemology and problem of induction (with Professor Jonathan Livengood)
- computational redistricting for good (quantifying gerrymandering via cool sampling algorithms)
- reverse engineering
- cryptography
Recent News
Aug. 2024
I was invited to the Hausdorff Research Institute of Mathematics's program on the "Prospects of Formal Mathematics" (in Bonn, Germany from August 4th-16th).
June 2024
I am an intern at Pi Squared (led by Professor Grigore Rosu), working on logic, proofs, and programming language semantics to make verifiable computing a reality.
June 2024
I was at OPLSS 2024 (at BU) in Boston from June 3rd-13th.
May 2024
I was awarded the Lois S. Green scholarship by the University of Illinois Philosophy department for promise in philosophy. School news article.
April 2024
I was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRFP).
March 2024
Our preprint, "Proof Repair across Quotient Type Equivalences" is now updated on the arXiv (old version).
July 2023
I was awarded the James Scholar Preble Research Scholarship, given by the University of Illinois to outstanding honors students involved in research.
June 2023
I was a research intern at NASA Ames for the summer, in the Robust Software Engineering group under the mentorship of Dr. Ivan Perez.
April 2023
I was awarded the Goldwater scholarship, a merit-based national scholarship established by Congress for research contributions and potential in STEM. School news article.
June 2022
I was a software engineering intern at Fidelity Investment’s Center for Applied Technology for the summer.
July 2020
I worked at the MGGG redistricting lab on quantifying gerrymandering for civil rights litigation with the NAACP LDF (and others). Successful U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Alabama's unconstitutional electoral maps.
Hobbies
Cycling. I enjoy long-distance biking. I recently biked from New Haven to Boston to see my amazing little sister (~250 miles; multi-day). I also recently went around Lake Cayuga (~106 miles; single-day). Ithaca is gorges!
Food. A personal project of mine is to craft food from first principles. I've been making butter from scratch, with the aspirational goal of beating the artisanal butter found in quality stores. I started a primitive bartering system where my friends and I trade homemade goods that we specialize in (artisanal butter, chocolate chip cookies, pork carnitas, sourdough bread, etc.). Moooo 🐄.
Ham radio. I have a general class amateur radio license from the FCC (callsign: KC1LTV). I use my license infrequently.
Books. I'm currently reading Crime and Punishment and re-reading Dune (although I feel that the quality for Dune drops off in the later books). Book suggestions are welcome (I like most genres). Lately I've been interested in speculative fiction, mostly alternative history.
Last updated on 2024-10-01.
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