cv

A brief CV of my academic and professional experience.

Basics

Name Dan DeGenaro
Label Graduate Student
Email drd92@georgetown.edu
Url https://ddegenaro.github.io/
Summary Incoming PhD student at Georgetown studying computer science with a focus on multimodal systems.

Work

  • 2024.06 - 2024.08
    Visiting Scholar
    Johns Hopkins University
    Participated in the Human Language Technology Center of Excellence SCALE 2024 workshop.
    • Developed a novel technique using downstream retrieval systems to produce preference rankings. Fine-tuned LLM using reinforcement learning to produce more retrievable document summaries.
  • 2024.05 - 2024.08
    MITES Semester Instructor
    MIT
    Developed and taught a course in machine learning, data science, natural language processing, and computer vision.
    • Received rave reviews from students and supervisors alike. Re-hired for summer 2025.
  • 2023.08 - Present
    Graduate Teaching Fellow
    Georgetown University
    Teaching assistant for the following courses: Introduction to Data Analytics (graduate), Computer Vision (graduate), Deep Learning (graduate), and Deep Learning (undergraduate).
    • Awarded the Graduate Student Teaching Award for 2024.
  • 2022.05 - 2022.08
    Undergraduate Researcher
    University of Colorado, Colorado Springs
    Developed a novel technique for the distillation of a multilingual BERT model into a smaller model.

Volunteer

  • 2024.08 - 2025.05

    Washington, DC

    Treasurer
    Graduate Linguistics Student Association
    Treasurer for the GLSA, responsible for managing the budget and organizing events.
    • Organized some workshops and social events.

Education

  • 2025.08 - 2030.05

    Washington, DC

    PhD
    Georgetown University
    Computer Science
    • TBD
  • 2023.08 - 2025.05

    Washington, DC

    MS
    Georgetown University
    Computational Linguistics
    • Deep Learning
    • Corpus Linguistics
    • Multilingual NLP
    • Machine Learning
    • NLP
    • Databases
    • Hypothesis Testing and R
    • Historical Linguistics
  • 2019.09 - 2023.05

    Amherst, MA

    BS
    University of Massachusetts Amherst
    Applied Mathematics
    • Calculus I-III
    • Linear Algebra
    • Differential Equations
    • Probability and Statistics
    • Linear Optimization
    • Numerical Analysis
    • Chaos Theory
  • 2019.09 - 2023.05

    Amherst, MA

    BS
    University of Massachusetts Amherst
    Physics
    • Quantum Mechanics I-II
    • Electrodynamics
    • Statistical Mechanics
    • Thermodynamics
    • Classical Mechanics
    • Computational Physics
  • 2019.09 - 2023.05

    Amherst, MA

    BA
    University of Massachusetts Amherst
    Linguistics
    • NLP I-III
    • Sociolinguistics
    • African-American English
    • Phonetics
    • Phonology
    • Syntax
    • Semantics

Awards

  • 2024
    Graduate Student Teaching Assistant Award
    Georgetown University
    This award recognizes excellence among graduate students serving as TAs. Awards are given to one student from each area: humanities, social science and science and an at-large award.
  • 2023
    Summa Cum Laude
    University of Massachusetts Amherst
  • 2022
    LeRoy F. Cook, Jr. Memorial Scholarship
    Department of Physics, University of Massachusetts Amherst
    Awarded for academic excellence in physics and for engaging in teaching/tutoring as an undergraduate.
  • 2019 through 2023
    Chancellor's Award
    University of Massachusetts Amherst
    Awarded for academic excellence.
  • 2019 through 2023
    Thomas J. Watson Memorial Scholarship
    IBM Thomas J. Watson Foundation
    Awarded for academic excellence.
  • 2019 through 2023
    Dean's List
    University of Massachusetts Amherst
    Awarded for academic excellence.

Publications

Skills

Python
R
Java
SQL
MATLAB
HTML/CSS
C
JavaScript
PyTorch
TensorFlow
Data Science
Git/GitHub
AWS
Linux
Docker
Windows
Slurm/SGE
LaTeX
Machine Learning
Deep Learning
NLP
Computer Vision

Languages

English
Native speaker
Spanish
Conversational
French
Conversational
Russian
Conversational
German
Beginner

Interests

Computational Linguistics and NLP
Information Theory
Language Modeling
LLMs
Tokenization
Machine Translation
Low-Resource Languages
Multilingual NLP
NLP
Computational Linguistics
Corpus Linguistics
Historical Linguistics
Sociolinguistics
Automatic Speech Recognition
Computer Vision and Multimodal Systems
Computer Vision
Multimodal Systems
Machine Learning
Deep Learning
Image Processing
Video Processing
Machine Unlearning
Diffusion Models
Immunization
AI Safety
AI Ethics
Reinforcement Learning