I’m a PhD candidate of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Maryland, College Park, advised by Prof. David Mount. My research interests lie generally in Theoretical Computer Science, including Computational Geometry, Approximation Algorithms, and Data Structures. I’m always looking for research opportunities, just contact me!

My current research revolves around the goal of achieving more efficient nearest-neighbor classification, showing results that are practical for large-scale applications, while also having provable theoretical guarantees. This work focuses on two main subjects. First, on the development and analysis of algorithms to reduce the training set used for classification. These reduced subsets can be either heuristicaly obtained [CCCG’19, CCCG’20] or $$\varepsilon$$-coresets [ESA’20]. Additionally, I’ve been working on proposing new data structures specially tailored for answering $$\varepsilon$$-approximate nearest-neighbor classification queries [Under Submission], achieving the lowest complexity of any approach so far.

I completed my undegraduate studies at Universidad Simón Bolívar, Venezuela, earning a BEng. in Computer Science, Cum Laude. During those years, I had the pleasure of working with great people. First, with Prof. María-Esther Vidal, on topics related to Semantic Web and Graph Databases (see publications). Additionally, I was advised by Prof. Emely Arráiz towards my undegraduate thesis, titled Bio-Inspired Metaheuristics for Instance Selection, which was awarded an outstanding honorable mention by the committee.

Born and raised in Venezuela . My country lives under a dictatorship that has forced over 5M people to flee. Venezuela deserves to be free, and we will never stop fighting. During my free time, I enjoy photography (specially macro photography), biking, hiking, dancing, and cooking.

#### Condensation Heuristics

See CCCG'19, CCCG'20

See ESA'20

Under Submission

## Education

#### Ph.D. in Computer Science

University of Maryland, College Park 2015-now

#### M.Sc. in Computer Science

University of Maryland, College Park 2015-2018

#### B.Eng. in Computer Science

Universidad Simón Bolívar 2009-2014 · Cum Laude

## Work Experience

Software Engineer PhD Intern Summer 2019

#### University of Maryland

TA & Summer Lecturer 2015-now

#### Venezuela Inteligente

Co-founder & Developer 2012-2017

#### Univ. Simón Bolívar

Research & Teaching Assist. 2012-2015

## News

Jun 7, 2021 Accepted talk for the 5th Workshop on Geometry and Machine Learning. This will take place during SoCG’21 (Symposium on Comp. Geometry), Buffalo, USA (virtual). Paper accepted to ESA’20 (European Symposium on Algorithms), Pisa, Italy (virtual). Paper accepted to CCCG’20 (Canadian Conference in Comp. Geometry) at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada (virtual), and was awarded the Best Student Paper! Paper accepted to CCCG’19 (Canadian Conference in Comp. Geometry) at the University of Alberta, Canada. The paper was later invited to a special issue of the CGTA Journal. Presented at the 4th Workshop on Geometry and Machine Learning. This took place during SoCG’19 (Symposium on Comp. Geometry), Portland, USA. Started as a Software Engineer PhD Intern at Facebook Inc (Seattle offices).

## Selected Publications

1. ESA’20
Coresets for the Nearest-Neighbor Rule
28th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms, 2020
2. CCCG’20
Social Distancing is Good for Points too!
32nd Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry, 2020
3. CCCG’19
Guarantees on Nearest-Neighbor Condensation Heuristics
31nd Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry, 2019