Alumni Industry Roundtable Panel
Date: Wednesday, October 16, 2024
Time: 12:00pm – 1:30pm
Location: 665 Commonwealth Ave., CDS 1750
This is an alumni industry roundtable event where we have invited alumni to come speak at a panel with our current students. We are hosting this event to foster meaningful connections between our students and successful alumni. They will be sharing insight into their current role, key milestones and challenges in their career, and valuable lessons learned and advice for students aspiring to enter their field.
Yasaman Khazaeni; PhD (SE) in 2016 advised by Christos Cassandras (ECE, SE)
Yasaman Khazaeni, PhD, is an accomplished leader in data science and machine learning, with extensive experience in both industry and research. Currently serving as Director of Data Science at Capital One, she heads a team focused on small business data products in marketing, acquisition, and underwriting. With prior roles at Wayfair and IBM Research AI, Yasaman has led the development of cutting-edge personalization systems and AI-driven business process automation, delivering significant business impact. Her research contributions span areas such as federated learning, reinforcement learning, and multi-agent systems, with numerous publications in top-tier conferences and journals. Holding a PhD in Control Systems and Optimization Theory from Boston University, she is recognized for her technical expertise and leadership.
Fulya Kaplan; PhD (ECE) in 2017, advised by Ayse Coskun (ECE, SE)
Fulya Kaplan received her PhD. degree in Computer Engineering from ECE Department at Boston University in 2017. During her PhD, she did internships at companies and research institutes including Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Sandia National Laboratories, and Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. She is the recipient of Richard Newton Young Student Fellow Award at DAC, Grace Hopper Conference Scholarship, and is a Rising Star Attendee. Since graduation, she has been working as a Hardware Engineer at Apple Inc. Her team focuses on power/performance/thermals of all platforms. She holds a Foundation Level Mentorship Certificate from EMCC Global and has participated in BU ENG Mentors program as a mentor. As a side career, she teaches group fitness classes at local gyms.
Joshua Rapp; PhD (ECE) in 2019, advised by Vivek Goyal (ECE)
Joshua Rapp received the PhD in electrical engineering from Boston University in 2020. His doctoral research was the winner of several honors, including the 2021 IEEE Signal Processing Society Best PhD Dissertation award. He is currently a Research Scientist at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL) in Cambridge, MA, where he works in computational imaging, optical sensing, lidar, and statistical signal processing.
Wei Lai; PhD (SE) in 2006, advised by Yannis Paschalidis (ECE, SE, BME, CDS)
Wei Lai received his PhD in systems engineering from Boston University. Currently, Dr. Wei Lai is a Senior Vice President and Quantitative Analyst of the Quantitative Research and Investments division at Fidelity Investments. Dr. Lai develops and manages index solutions that enable stakeholders to gain unique market exposures via factor indexes leveraging Fidelity’s proprietary investment insights.