John Abascal

I am a second-year Computer Science PhD Student at Northeastern University, where I am advised by Jonathan Ullman and Alina Oprea. I completed my B.S. in Pure Mathematics at Florida State Univerity and completed my undergaduate honors thesis under the guidance of Alec Kercheval and Nathan Crock.

My main research interest is the interplay between memorization and privacy in deep learning. More broadly, I am interested in both theoretical computer science and applied machine learning, including topics such as differential privacy, adversarial machine learning, and the social implications of machine learning algorithms.

I have also held several industry positions in both software engineering and data science. During the summers of 2020 and 2021, I worked as an iOS Software Engineer intern at Intuit, where I helped create new applications and features for multiple products within the QuickBooks ecosystem. Throughout my last 2 years at Florida State, I interned at NewSci Labs, where I worked on several machine learning and computer vision projects. This summer, I will be an Applied Research Intern on LinkedIn’s Data Privacy team! 🔒