I am a first-year Ph.D. student at New York University studying cryptography, supervised by Marshall Ball. I received my B.S. and M.S. degrees from Columbia University. I was also an AI developer for BigCare and CJ OliveNetworks, biology teacher at Bugil Academy, and translator for the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division. Outside of academics, I tutor math, science, and essay writing. I bartend as a hobby.
Note: For the Spring 2023 semester, I’m at UC Berkeley participating in the meta-complexity research program at Simons Institute. Here, I’m organizing the TFNP interest group.
Academic Record
New York University PhD in Computer Science, Fall 2022 – present
GPA: 4.00 / 4.00. Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.
Duke University PhD in Computer Science, Fall 2021 – Spring 2022
GPA: 4.00 / 4.00. Dropped out to return to New York.
Columbia University M.S. in Computer Science, Fall 2019 – Spring 2020
GPA: 4.03 / 4.33. Full-ride TA Fellow for both semesters.
Columbia University B.S. in Computer Science, Fall 2014 – Spring 2019
GPA: 4.18 / 4.33. Graduated summa cum laude in six semesters of study.
Bugil Academy Global Leader Program 2011 – 2014. GPA: 4.12/4.30
CheongShim International Academy 2008 – 2011.
Work Experience
BigCare, AI developer Jan – Jun 2021. Seoul.
Built systems for food recommendation and sentiment analysis, personalized using electronic health records.
Bugil Academy, biology instructor Sep – Dec 2020. Cheonan.
Courses taught: AP Biology, Anatomy & Physiology. Created challenging courses for gifted science students.
CJ Olive Networks, research intern Jun – Aug 2018. Seoul.
Developed probability models and motion detection frameworks to autocorrect errors in celebrity detection.
Bain & Company, research assistant Mar – May 2017. Seoul.
Worked in two projects: one with a nationwide retail company, and another with a due diligence project.
2nd Infantry Division, translator Jun 2015 – Mar 2017. Dongducheon.
Mandatory military service as KATUSA.
Teaching & Counseling.
College courses. I was a TA for the following computer science courses at Columbia, Duke, NYU.
1170 Fundamental Algorithms (F23)
230 Discrete Math (S22)
330 Algorithms (F21)
3261 CS Theory (S18)
4231 Algorithms (S19)
4232 Advanced Algorithms (S20)
4236 Complexity (F19)
4261 Cryptography (Su19)
4771 Machine Learning (F18, S19, Su19, Su20)
4774 Unsupervised Learning (Su20)
4995 Learning Theory (S20)
High school courses. I’ve tutored math and science since 2011 when I was selected a peer tutor in high school. I mainly tutor high school physics, chemistry, and math.
Undergraduate admissions. I help a small number of students with their college admissions essays. For the 2022-23 admissions cycle, I placed a student into Harvard, and another student (with GPA below 3.0) into a Top 50 school.
Graduate admissions. I also helped people write their research statement (SOP) for PhD admissions. I generally don’t advise Master’s degree admissions essays.
Lee, Sihyun 