Student Spotlight: Alkis Boukas
Meet Alkis Boukas, an incoming PhD student in ICME.
ALMA MATERS
Cornell University
DEGREES & MAJORS
Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics, Computer Science
Academic and work experience
While at Cornell, I double majored in mathematics and computer science. Thanks to my analysis-flavored courses, I was interested in partial differential equations and numerical analysis. At the same time, I found low level and parallel programming courses quite fun (despite some struggle), so I thought of combining my two interests for my research.
Inspiration for pursuing graduate degree in CME
During my sophomore summer, I participated in an REU at the University of Maryland where I worked on applying Physics Informed Neural Networks (PINNs) to a problem in molecular dynamics. I found my experience translating mathematical equations into code to be very thought provoking, and the general lagging of theory compared to practice in this domain was appealing.
Specific research areas of interest
I'm most interested in using mathematical/physical principles to design better architectures for machine learning models to solve optimization problems or PDEs numerically.
Impact I hope to have in my field and the world
Hopefully, I can help increase trust in machine learning methods via optimality/feasibility guarantees. The increased computational speed of these ML-based methods is a nice plus, especially for high dimensional problems.
Interests and hobbies
I enjoy reading fiction, listening to music, and hiking with friends. I also follow the NBA and I'm a fan of the Timberwolves and the Rockets.
