About Us

Professor Xin Liu

Mentor

Xin Liu is a Computer Science professor at UC Davis. She is a co-PI and AI cluster lead of the USDA/NSF AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems (AIFS), a sponsor of AIBridge. Her research focuses on machine learning in food systems and healthcare for humans and animals. Liu, along with Samuel Ren and Houjun Liu, co-created and taught AIBridge at UC Davis in Summer 2022 and continues to broaden its reach.

Houjun (Jack)

Co-Founder

Houjun (Jack) is a 12th grade student at The Nueva School, an independent school in San Mateo, CA. He has worked on research for the past 4 years in machine learning, and has a specific research interest in natural language processing (NLP) and language sample analysis (LSA). His publications surrounding NLP, LSA, and educational pedagogy have been featured in venues including Experimental Biology and AJSLP. He has received early admission and will be attending Stanford in 2023.

Samuel Ren

Co-Founder • President • AI Bridger

Samuel Ren is a senior at Gunn High School. With experience programming since 4th grade, he co-developed and taught the first AIBridge bootcamp at UC Davis and has taught at a total of seven different sessions. A USAMO Bronze medalist and USA Computing Olympiad finalist, he has won multiple awards in math and computing competitions. He has a strong interest in machine learning applications.

Jiaming Situ

Founding Member • Vice President

Jiaming Situ is a Senior at Homestead High School who has been coding competitively since 7th grade. He has studied deep learning through programs at New York University and Yale and has written an academic paper focused on generative adversarial neural networks. Jiaming is also vice president of his school's AI club and teaches other students at his school about machine learning.

Jack Fan

Founding Member • Vice President (Northeast) • AI Bridger

Jack Fan is an incoming freshman at Harvard who has taught for AIBridge for the past year and a half at Cornell, UIUC, and UC Davis. He has also led multiple events at Bentley University. In terms of personal research interests, Jack spent last summer working with GWAS datasets and LocusZoom in order to create disease-to-gene links. For AI, he is primarily interested in the link between brainlike computing and neuroscience modeling, as well as the implications of large language models and LLM agents on personal productivity. He has also recently self-published a quantum computing handbook.

Lily Shi

Instructor • AI Bridger

Lily Shi is a junior at The Harker School who has been coding since fifth grade and conducting AI research for the past three years. Her current research focuses on interpretability in deep learning for the diagnosis of eye diseases and she has presented her work at several conferences. Her research has earned multiple awards in science fairs and she was a finalist at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). Additionally, she has co-authored a paper with UCSC researchers on ECG heartbeat forecasting using machine learning. Lily has also won multiple awards in math competitions and is an AIME and MPFG qualifier. Lily joined the AIBridge team in the summer of 2023 and has taught and TAed at three sessions.

Samuel Lopez

Instructor • AI Bridger

Samuel Lopez is a high school student at Foothill High School who started coding in 6th grade. He has taught and TA’d at multiple AIBridge events since 2023. Regarding personal interest, Samuel works with AI systems in education and transactions. Samuel was the co-founder of his school’s Blockchain club and is currently volunteering in an NSF-funded education program, as well as researching human-AI interfaces on productivity with CMU.

Connor Lee

Instructor

Connor Lee is a sophomore at Palo Alto High School. He has been programming since he was in 7th grade, and has taken many classes to deepen his understanding of computer science/AI. He has also participated in founding several CS clubs and served as a team lead and TA. During his freshman year, he was invited to an Bioengineering internship at UC San Diego where he supported the Biophotonics lab and created a program for faster analysis of a major part of the central nervous system through machine learning. He has learned many algorithms to apply to the real world, and has also won awards and prizes from many hackathons. He has a strong passion towards machine learning and its uses in everyday life.

Nate Harris

Instructor

Nate Haris is a senior at Lexington High School. He has been studying computer science for 6 years and teaching it for 4. Nate has taught dozens of students in many fields of CS, running his own tutoring business. He also organizes an annual community hackathon and is publishing research in cyber security. Nate always loves to learn and teach others about intricate topics of computer science, such as AI development.

Michelle Dong

TA • AI Bridger

Michelle is a senior at Monta Vista High School. She is currently the VP of Monta Vista Girls Who Code club and has taught at Steel City Codes for intermediate python and machine learning classes. Michelle is currently doing research on building a platform to test autonomous driving using reinforcement learning. Michelle joined AI Bridge summer of 2023 and has taught and TAd for 3 sessions.