Leon Lu

Background

About Leon Lu

Learn. Code. Build things. Do science. For the joy of exploring, making connections, and solving problems.(last updated: a long time ago)Hello, I'm Leon, an undergraduate student studying Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. My life's journey has thus far made me realize that beauty can be found in unexpected connections as one ventures onto new territories. Many things interest me. Perhaps I'll be out of time going down every single path, but learning new things along the way and working at the intersection of diverse ideas is what captivates me.As a technology enthusiast and an engineer, I love building things. I believe a solid foundation in computer science will allow me to learn new skills quickly to adapt to the ever-changing tech landscape. I embrace learning by creating, through which I have developed a versatile software development toolbox that spans full-stack development, systems programming, and deep learning. Since teaching myself web development in high school, I have worked with technologies like React, Svelte, Flask, Express, REST APIs, MongoDB, and Electron. My experience building community-based web applications has given me insights into systems that propel the modern internet, and I am eager to take on projects at larger scales.Software performance is another exciting puzzle to me. I enjoy knowing what each pointer does when coding in C, while also learning new languages like Rust that modernizes how preformant software is built. With Rust, I have worked on molecular data processing tools that power research in Computational Biology, optimizing its algorithm and squeezing out as much performance as possible.My research interests are in AI and NLP. My current research focuses on computational historical linguistics, more specifically I study methods by which language models learn to reason about phonetic changes that take as languages evolve. I'm experienced with Python, PyTorch, Pandas, and WandB to develop models and analyze data.Finally, I am a current TA for 15-150 Functional Programming. I enjoy writing safe, readable, and logically meaningful code with types and higher-order functions, and teaching others how to do so. In whichever academic pursuit, whichever endeavour, and whichever project, I dedicate myself to lifelong learning, productivity, and creativity. Feel free to reach out! I'm always on the lookout to discuss ideas, learn from people, and engage in projects. You can find me at lianglu@cs.cmu.edu.