Alex Alvarez
Undergrad @ Texas A&M University
Researcher @ Brain Networks Lab + Rockwell Automation Lab
calvarez1 [at] tamu [dot] edu
About Me
I'm a senior computer science + neuroscience student at Texas A&M University. In the past I built and sold some companies but at the moment I'm focusing on AI research. I'm a stoic, a voracious reader, and a lover of all combat sports.
Research
Neural Vector Calculations
The bee's central cortex contains intersecting columnar and tangential neurons, forming a matrix-like structure that performs vector calculations. These calculations are responsible for the bee’s allocentric orientation of the world (understanding north and south as opposed to just forwards and backwards) and for navigating to resources (pollen is 2 km away, 20 degrees to the right of the sun). We are using neuroevolutionary algorithms to understand how these neural vector calculations might emerge from simple inputs and environments.
Fine Tuning LLMs to Emulate Instructor
TIC-TOC: Enhancing Industrial Control Education through an Intelligent Tutoring System for Real-Time Interaction and Engagement. Researching the best intelligent tutoring systems and combining them with fine-tuned multi-modal LLMs to create a novel learning experience that emulates individual professor's feedback for engineering students at TAMU.
Projects
Swati AI
A chrome extension that allows you to get an AI-based simplified explanation of whatever you highlight in-browser and in-context… for free.
Robots Can Do Your Taxes
There does not exist commercially-available software that can extricate personal expenses from business expenses within the same statement. If you used your business credit card for personal use (and vice versa) you have to manually sift through each transaction to separate them. I created a RL model that fixed this and plan to make it commercially available upon graduation.
Zyntora
I was part of a startup called Zyntora, an attempt at a virtual real-estate and social media app that was ahead of its time.
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