Gautam Kamath

Assistant Professor of Computer Science

University of Waterloo

Le Salonneur

Gautam Kamath is an assistant professor at University of Waterloo’s Cheriton School of Computer Science. He is also a Faculty Member at the Vector Institute, and a Canada CIFAR AI Chair. His research interests include statistics and machine learning, with a focus on settings which are common in modern data analysis, including privacy, robustness, and high-dimensional data. He leads The Salon, which studies Statistics, Algorithms, Learning, and Optimization.

Interests

Statistics
Machine Learning
Data Privacy
Robustness

Education

PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2018

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
SM in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2014

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
BSc in Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering, 2012

Cornell University

Argyris Mouzakis

PhD Computer Science Student

University of Waterloo

Graduate Researcher

Argyris Mouzakis is a student in the Computer Science PhD program at the University of Waterloo. His research interests broadly lie at the intersection of Theoretical Computer Science and Probability & Statistics.

Interests

Machine Learning Theory
Algorithmic Statistics
Privacy
Applied Probability

Education

Diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering, 2019

National Technical University of Athens

Matthew Regehr

Phd Computer Science Student

University of Waterloo

Graduate Researcher

Matthew Regehr is a PhD student in computer science at the University of Waterloo. His research interests are broadly machine learning theory and differential privacy. His current research projects focus on theory and algorithms for differentially private accounting.

Interests

Machine Learning
Differential Privacy
Reinforcement Learning

Education

MMath in Computer Science, 2023

University of Waterloo
BSc with Honors in Computing Science, 2021

University of Alberta

Valentio Iverson

BMath in Computer Science

University of Waterloo

Undergraduate Researcher

Valentio Iverson is an undergraduate student at the University of Waterloo. His research interests include machine learning theory, and its connection to probability, statistics and optimization.

Interests

Machine Learning Theory
Probability & Statistics
Optimization

Education

BMath in Computer Science, 2026 (Expected)

University of Waterloo

Jack Sanderson

BA Computer Science & BA Statistics

University of Chicago

Undergraduate Researcher

Jack Sanderson is an undergraduate student at the University of Chicago. His research interests include open-weight model tampering, data poisoning, backdooring, and the failure modes of AI systems more broadly.

Interests

Model Tampering
Data Poisoning
AI Security

Education

BA in Computer Science & BA in Statistics, 2027 (Expected)

University of Chicago

Shubhankar Mohapatra

PhD Computer Science Student

University of Waterloo

Affiliated Researcher

Shubhankar Mohapatra is a PhD student at University of Waterloo’s Cheriton School of Computer Science supervised by Xi He. His research interests include differentially private learning, federated learning with a focus on data cleaning and health informatics.

Interests

Data Privacy
Machine Learning
Federated Learning
Data Cleaning

Education

MMath in Computer Science, 2020

University of Waterloo
BTech in Computer Science Engineering, 2016

IIIT Bhubaneswar

Graduate Student Alumni

Jimmy Z. Di, MMath Student (Fall 2023 - Summer 2025)
- Thesis: Demystifying Foreground-Background Memorization in Diffusion Models
- Next Position: PhD Student in Computer Science at University of Wisconsin, Madison
Sabrina Mokhtari, MMath Student (Fall 2022 - Summer 2024)
- Thesis: Revisiting Benchmarks for Privacy-Preserving Image Classification
- Current Position: Member of Technical Staff at Oracle
Sara Kodeiri, MMath Student (Fall 2022 - Summer 2024)
- Thesis: Towards Standardized Evaluation in Differentially Private Image Classification: A Critical Approach
- Current Position: Associate Applied ML Specialist at Vector Institute
Alex Bie, MMath Student (Fall 2021 - Summer 2023, co-advised with Shai Ben-David)
- Thesis: Private Distribution Learning with Public Data
- Current Position: Research Scientist at Google
Matthew Regehr, MMath Student (Fall 2021 - Summer 2023, co-advised with Shai Ben-David)
- Thesis: A Bias-Variance-Privacy Trilemma for Statistical Estimation
- Next Position: PhD Student in Computer Science at University of Waterloo
Mahbod Majid, MMath Student (Fall 2020 - Fall 2022)
- Thesis: Efficient and Differentially Private Statistical Estimation via a Sum-of-Squares Exponential Mechanism
- Next position: PhD Student in Machine Learning at Carnegie Mellon University
- Current position: PhD Student in Applied Mathematics at MIT
Christian Covington, MMath Student (Fall 2020 - Summer 2022, co-advised with Xi He)
- Thesis: Unbiased Statistical Estimation and Valid Confidence Intervals Under Differential Privacy
- Next position: PhD Student in Biostatistics at Harvard University

Postdoc Alumni

Vikrant Singhal, Postdoc (Fall 2021 - Fall 2023)
- Next position: Research Associate at OpenDP

Other Alumni

Shubhankar Mohapatra, Affiliated Researcher (Fall 2019 - Summer 2025)
Yiwei Lu, Affiliated Researcher (Fall 2020 - Summer 2025)
- Next Position: Assistant Professor in School of Engineering Design and Teaching Innovation at University of Ottawa
Matthew Y.R. Yang, Undergraduate Researcher (Fall 2022 - Summer 2024)
- Next position: Master’s Student in Machine Learning at Carnegie Mellon University
Christopher Trevisan, Undergraduate Researcher (Spring 2022 - Spring 2024)
Jimmy Z. Di, Undergraduate Researcher (Fall 2021 - Summer 2023)
- Next position: Master’s student in Computer Science at University of Waterloo
- Current position: PhD student in Computer Science at University of Wisconsin, Madison
Ruiyun Chao, Undergraduate Researcher (Fall 2022)
- Next position: Master’s of Management Analytics student at University of Toronto
Olivia Ma, Undergraduate Researcher (Fall 2022)
- Next position: Master of Science in Computing (AI & ML) student at Imperial College London
Valerie Liu, Undergraduate Researcher (Fall 2022)
- Next position: Master’s student in Computing Science at University of Alberta
Jack Douglas, Undergraduate Researcher (Summer 2022)
- Next position: Software Engineer at Databricks
Andrew Guo, Undergraduate Researcher (Summer 2022)
- Next position: Master’s student in Computer Science at University of Toronto
Chirag Jindal, Undergraduate Researcher (Summer 2022)
- Next position: Software Engineer at Meta
Linfeng Ye, Affiliated Researcher (Fall 2021 - Summer 2022)
- Next position: MASc student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Waterloo
- Current position: PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Toronto
Sushant Agarwal, Research Assistant (Spring 2022 - Summer 2022)
- Next position: PhD Student in Computer Science at Northeastern University
Landy Xu, Undergraduate Researcher (Spring 2021 - Fall 2021)
- Next position: Master of Science in Applied Computing student at University of Toronto
Sourav Biswas, Undergraduate Researcher (Fall 2019 - Summer 2021)
- Next position: PhD Student in Computer Science at University of Toronto
Xingtu Liu, Undergraduate Researcher (Fall 2020 - Summer 2021)
- Next position: Master’s student in Computer Science at Simon Fraser University
Nicholas Vadivelu, Undergraduate Researcher (Fall 2020 - Summer 2021)
- Next position: Quantitative Research and Data Scientist at Citadel
Pranav Subramani, Undergraduate Researcher (Fall 2019 - Summer 2020), Affiliated Researcher (Summer 2020 - Summer 2021)
- Next position: Master’s student in Data Science at University of Waterloo
- Current position: Quantitative Researcher at Cubist Systematic Strategies
Ishaq Aden-Ali, Affiliated Researcher (Summer 2020)
- Next position: PhD student in EECS at UC Berkeley
Vikrant Singhal, Visiting Researcher (Fall 2019)
- Next position: PhD student in Computer Science at Northeastern University
- Current position: Research Associate at Harvard University