Kempner Institute Welcomes Fall Undergraduate Student Researchers

By Deborah Apsel LangOctober 25, 2024

Twenty undergraduate students receive KURE awards to undertake intelligence-focused research projects

KURE participants tour the Kempner Institute on Oct. 2, 2024, as part of Fall 2024 KURE student orientation.

Cambridge, MA – The Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence at Harvard is pleased to announce the fall 2024 recipients of the Kempner Undergraduate Research Experience (KURE). KURE awards Harvard undergraduate students funding for term-time research supervised by Kempner-affiliated faculty during the fall and spring semesters of the academic year. 

Students in the Fall 2024 KURE program (not all program participants are pictured here) pose for a photo at the Kempner Institute during the Fall 2024 KURE program orientation on Oct. 2, 2024.

Student research projects investigate the foundations of intelligence, including mathematical and computational models of intelligence, cognitive theories of intelligence, and the neurobiological basis of intelligence, as well as applications of artificial intelligence from a scientific or engineering perspective. 

Twenty Harvard undergraduate students received Fall 2024 KURE awards, representing the second cohort of undergraduates to participate in the Kempner’s term-time undergraduate research program. The inaugural cohort of KURE participants celebrated the successful completion of the Spring 2024 KURE program in May.

In addition to its term-time undergraduate research program, in summer 2024 the Kempner launched a 10-week residential summer program providing a small cohort of undergraduates with a formative research experience under the supervision of a Kempner-affiliated faculty member. The program, Kempner Research in Artificial & Natural Intelligence for Undergraduates with Mentorship (KRANIUM), is a part of the Harvard Summer Undergraduate Research Village (HSURV) and provides students with a summer living stipend, housing, and a partial boarding/dining plan, as well as access to rich social and academic programming. 

To be eligible for either KURE or KRANIUM, students must find a research position with a Kempner-affiliated faculty member prior to application. More information about KURE and KRANIUM can be found on the Kempner Institute website.

The full list of Fall 2024 KURE program participants, mentors and projects are listed below:

Student Supervisor/MentorProject title
Jonah Brenner ’25Supervisor: Gabriel Kreiman; Mentor: Chenguang LiPolicy Optimization Emerges from Noisy Representation Learning
Camilo Brown-Pinilla ’26Supervisor: Sham Kakade; Mentor: David BrandfonbrenerOptimizing Data: Model Based Methods for the Selection of Optimal Data Subsets for Large Language Model Training
Ege Cakar ’27Supervisor: Cengiz Pehlevan; Mentor: William TongExploring the Logical Performance and Compositionality of Various Architectures
Corwin Cheung ’26Supervisor: Bernardo Sabatini; Mentor: Celia BeronApplying Language Sequencing Models to Mice Decisions in Two Armed Bandit Tasks
Karina Chung ’26Supervisor: Sham Kakade; Mentor: David BrandfonbrenerImproved CoLoR-Filter for Targeted Language Model Pre-training
Emma Finn ’26Supervisors: Demba Ba and Andy Keller; Mentor: Manos TheodosisForging Artistics Signatures: Diffusion Models and Detail in Style Transfer
Isabella Gidi ’27Supervisor: Cengiz Pehlevan; Mentor: Hamza ChaudhryA Low-Dimensional Training Method for Neural Networks
Ely Hahami ’27Supervisor: Haim Sompolinsky; Mentor: Kazuki IrieContinual Memorization in Large Language Models
Linda He ’27Supervisor: Sham Kakade; Mentor: Yilun DuRobotics Online Learning: Combining Dynamics Model with Reward Model
Alexis Hu ’27Supervisor: Samuel GershmanEnhancing Deep Neural Network Robustness to 3D Viewpoint Variations
Sabrina Hu ’26Supervisor: Nada AminUsing Symbolic Execution to Improve LLM Identification of Counterfeit Programs
Justin Ji ’26Supervisor: Martin Wattenberg; Mentor: Kenneth LiTargeted Control of Attributes in Language Models in Multi-Persona Settings
Sarah Li ’27Supervisor: Patrick Slade; Mentor: Jordan FeldmanUtilizing Machine Learning to Determine Movement Objectives to Reduce Mobility Challenges
Victoria Li ’26Supervisor: Naomi SaphraEvolution as a Framework for ML Training Dynamics
Annabel Ma ’26Supervisors: David Alvarez-Melis and Melanie WeberDataset Comparison with Underlying Symmetries
Yeabsira Mohammed ’25Supervisor: George AlvarezComparative Analysis of Neural and Artificial Representations in Visual Recognition
Aneesh Muppidi ’25Supervisor: Samuel Gershman; Mentor: Wilka CarvalhoWho’s Out There? Emergent Agent Discovery
Josh Mysore ’26Supervisor: Tomer Ullman; Mentor: Jennifer HuComputational and Behavioral Investigation of Causal Inferences in Everyday Conversation
Aseel Rawashdeh ’26Supervisor: Susan Murphy; Mentor: Daiqi GaoIncorporating Uncertainty-Aware Reinforcement Learning for Adaptive Action and Information Gathering in Digital Health
Susannah Su ’25Supervisor: Wilka CarvalhoJoint Goal-Directed Behavior in Minds and Machines
Each student is supervised by one or more Kempner-affiliated faculty members, and many are also guided by Kempner-affiliated mentors.

About the Kempner Institute

The Kempner Institute seeks to understand the basis of intelligence in natural and artificial systems by recruiting and training future generations of researchers to study intelligence from biological, cognitive, engineering, and computational perspectives. Its bold premise is that the fields of natural and artificial intelligence are intimately interconnected; the next generation of artificial intelligence (AI) will require the same principles that our brains use for fast, flexible natural reasoning, and understanding how our brains compute and reason can be elucidated by theories developed for AI. Join the Kempner mailing list to learn more, and to receive updates and news.


PRESS CONTACT:

Deborah Apsel Lang | (617) 495-7993 | kempnercommunications@harvard.edu