Alejandro Rodriguez Pascual

Master’s Student, Computer Science - Specialization in Data Science

University of Massachusetts - Amherst

Biography

I am a first-year Master’s student at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (UMass). I was born and raised in Madrid, Spain, and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2016, where I finished high school. I then got my bachelor’s degree from UC San Diego, graduating a year early in the midst of a global pandemic. I have been passionate about computer science and mathematics for as long as I can remember. Not only do I understand how influential a good education and access to technology can be, which I strive to make more accessible, but I also wonder what the future holds, and hope to take part in shaping it. Thus, I have strived to make technology and education more accessible, as well as contributing to research efforts to build towards a brighter future.

Interests

Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning and Deep Learning
Sports Analytics

Education

M.S. in Computer Science - Data Science Specialization, 2023
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
B.S. in Mathematics - Computer Science, 2022
University of California, San Diego

Welcome!

Welcome to my personal website, a virtual space where I will be posting tidbits of my research projects, random thoughts and ideas, thought-provoking articles and stories... This is an opportunity for me to speak my mind, and an opportunity for you to get to know me on a more personal level than a social media profile or a resume might allow you to. Feel free to wander around and contact me if you would like to know a bit more about me or just chat about anything!

Skills

C++

Proficient

Java

Proficient

JavaScript

Proficient

Python

Proficient

R Language

Proficient

React & React Native

Proficient

PyTorch

Proficient

MATLAB

Proficient

CSS

Proficient

Other Interests

Basketball

Fanatic

Videogames

Gamer

Movies

"Nolanite"

Cooking

Amateur

Photography

Novice

TV Shows

Casual Watcher

Robotics

(our future overlords)

Physics

(armchair) Astronaut

Economics

Rookie

Experience

Data Science Intern

Cleat Street Capital

Jun 2021 – Jan 2022 San Diego, California - Remote

Developing machine learning models to better predict basketball game outcomes and player performance in order to better inform bet-placing. Building a full pipeline, from data collection and engineetring, to model creation and training, and forecasting and delivery of results to a team of traders.

Undergraduate Research Assistant - Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) Department

University of California, San Diego

Jan 2021 – Jun 2022 San Diego, California

Developed machine learning models (multiresolution tensor latent factor models & tensor learning) to generate shooting profiles of NBA players from spatiotemporal tracking data, factoring out temporal and playstyle factors. Advised by Prof. Rose Yu.

Software Developer

Triton Software Engineering

Oct 2019 – Jun 2022 San Diego, California

We are an organization of engineers, designers, and problem solvers offering pro-bono technical and web development services for nonprofits. We believe that technology should be utilized to better the community. Worked on remodeling and improving the website for Sakyadhita, an international organization for Buddhist women, and built a website for UWEAST (United Women of East Africa) to offer online ordering for their community kitchen.

Associate, Tenderloin Technology Lab

St. Anthony’s Foundation

Oct 2018 – Jun 2019 San Francisco, California

The Tenderloin Tech Lab’s mission is to provide residents of the Tenderloin district in San Francisco -homeless and low-income individuals experiencing trauma, substance use/abuse/recovery, mental and physical health challenges, learning disabilities and other challenges- with important technological skills that increase their opportunities for employment, access to essential community resources, and connections with family and friends. I helped to identify and address educational needs and goals of TechLab guests, with a focus on acquiring technology skills for work and daily tasks.

Founder & Director, Balder Labdoo Hub

Labdoo

Dec 2014 – Jun 2016 Las Rozas de Madrid, Spain

Labdoo’s mission is to deliver technology and education access to underserved communities around the world. Their process consists of hubs taking donations of unused laptops and tablets, sanitizing them and loading them with educational software, and giving them to people who are traveling to one of these communities to deliver them. I founded a hub at my school and directed it for nearly two years. We received, sanitized, and shipped a dozen laptops and registered new locations in Mexico and Togo, among others.

Accomplishments

Eta Kappa Nu Member

IEEE Eta Kappa Nu Jan 2021

Inducted to Eta Kappa Nu (HKN), the National Honor Society for Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

ERSP Scholar

University of California, San Diego. Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) department Oct 2020

Selected for the Early Research Scholars Program (ERSP) -cohort of 48-, to conduct undergraduate research in computer science.

Deep Learning Specialization

Coursera Dec 2018

This 5-course specialization by deeplearning.ai was created and is taught by Dr. Andrew Ng, a global leader in AI and co-founder of Coursera. It’s designed to prepare learners to participate in the development of cutting-edge AI technology, and to understand the capability, the challenges, and the consequences of the raise of deep learning. It helped me learn the foundations of Deep Learning, understand how to build neural networks, and learn how to lead successful machine learning projects. I learned about Convolutional networks, RNNs, LSTM, Adam, Dropout, BatchNorm, Xavier/He initialization, and more. I worked on case studies from healthcare, autonomous driving, sign language reading, music generation, and natural language processing. I practiced all these ideas in Python and in TensorFlow. It consists of the following courses >

Neural Networks and Deep Learning
Improving Deep Neural Networks - Hyperparameter Tuning, Regularization and Optimization
Structuring Machine Learning Projects
Convolutional Neural Networks
Sequence Models

See certificate

Labdoo International Award

Labdoo Sep 2016

LABDOO is a humanitarian social network joined by people around the world who want to make our planet a better place by providing those in underdeveloped regions a chance at a better education. Awarded the 2016 Labdoo International Award in recognition to my “contribution helping spread education around the world.” I am the youngest person ever to receive this award. I was also an invited speaker at the 2016 Labdoo Global Conference in Barcelona, Spain.