Academic Advisor

Dr. Laxmi Gewali is the Chair of Department of Computer Science, College of Engineering, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His research interests include data structure, data analytics algorithm analysis, and computational geometry. He has extensive teaching, research and administrative experiences. He has been a referee for Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications, International Journal of Computational Geometry and Applications, Journal of Graph Algorithms and Applications, ORSA Journal on Computing, IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, and Lecture Notes on Pure and applied Mathematics, etc. He was an editorial board member for IEEE Transaction on Computers.

Mentors

Carter Chiu is a graduate student currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). He graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in computer science at UNLV in 2016. He works under the guidance of Dr. Justin Zhan in the Big Data Lab at UNLV where his main research interests are Big Data analytics and deep learning. This is his second year serving as an instructor and mentor for the AEOP UNITE program, and he is excited to help make this year’s program an even greater success than its inaugural run last year.

Sing (Vince) Choi is currently finishing his Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and is expected to graduate December 2017. He is looking to pursue a M.S. degree in Computer Science at UNLV afterwards and intends on developing his research on Big Data, machine learning, and security further. Prior to joining the Big Data Hub, Vince was a collegiate eSports organizer for three years at UNLV, since 2013. During his time as a collegiate organizer, he has helped UNLV become recognized as one of the top collegiate programs and in addition, helped facilitate a research on the psychological patterns in gamers. Starting in 2014, Vince tutored mathematics for the UNLV Math Sciences Department for three years. In August 2016, he joined UNLV’s Gaming Innovation Lab and became a finalist at the Innovation’s Competition. Now, Vince has recently been an addition to the Big Data Hub family at UNLV where he is adamantly conducting his research fingerprint analysis.

Michael Schwob is an undergraduate student majoring in Mathematics and Economics with a concentration in computer science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). He is a sophomore in the UNLV Honors College planning to graduate in 2021. He conducts research under the guidance of Dr. Justin Zhan in the Big Data Hub at UNLV. His research interests are biostatistics, biomathematics, time-dependent hypergraph thoery, and game theory. This will be Michael’s first year as a mentor for the AEOP UNITE program, and he is eager to contribute to the success of the program.

Binay Dahal is a Ph.D. Student at the Department of Computer Science, University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). He completed his Masters in Computer Science from UNLV and currently works in the Big Data Lab as a Research Assistant under the supervision of Dr. Justin Zhan. His main research interests include Deep learning and it’s applications on Computer Vision and Natural Language Processing. He is also interested in neuroevolution. Currently, he is involved in a research project of finding an appropriate convolutional neural model for image classification using evolutionary operators like mutation and recombination.

Hadi Salman was born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1990. In 2014, Hadi received his Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Cairo University, Egypt. He received the Masters of Science degree from The University of Arkansas in 2018. His work at UA Little Rock involved topics such as the Internet of Things (IoT), application of green IoT, Low-power sensor networks, Machine Learning, Clustering, and Optimization. In 2017, Mr. Salman was awarded Outstanding Teaching Assistant award by the Systems Engineering department at UA Little Rock. In 2018, He was awarded Best Masters Degree Graduate by the Engineering and Information Technology EIT. Currently, Mr. Salman is pursuing Ph. D.  In Computer Science at The University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His research interests include topics such as Pattern Recognition, Signal Processing, Machine Learning, Neural Networks, Clustering, and Optimization.

Ben Lowe is a Master’s student in Computer Science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He graduated with a B.S. in mathematics and a minor in computer science in 2018 with concentrations in statistics, differential equations, abstract algebra, and topology. His research interests include
concurrent data structures in multi-threaded environments and cryptogaphy. His work as a graduate and teaching assistant has included classes on Operating Systems, Multi-Processor Programming, and Computer Organization. Ben enjoys exploring the many connections between math and computer science and is always excited to discuss the mathematics of theoretical computer science and algorithm analysis. When not studying, Ben enjoys playing chess and studying its theory.