Mehmet Arif Demirtaş

Curriculum Vitae (Click to Download PDF)

Education

  • PhD in Computer Science, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2023-2028 (expected)
  • BSc in Computer Engineering, Istanbul Technical University, 2018-2023

Experience

  • Research Engineer @ Vitamu | (April 2022 - June 2023)

    • Worked on developing learning-based algorithms for breast cancer detection and localization from digital mammography imaging.
    • Installed training environments on cloud for computationally demanding models using Amazon Web Services (AWS).
    • Implemented configuration management servers using Puppet to automatically deploy development environments on Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
    • Deployed a production prototype on cloud using Docker.

  • R&D Engineer @ Yapi Kredi Teknoloji | (August 2021 - April 2022)

    • Working in the NLP team under the R&D department.
    • Contributed to SAFIR, which is a tool developed for information extraction from banking documents using a multimodal approach.
    • Proposed an approach for parsing relations between pages in multi-page trade documents based on multimodal embeddings, presented at ICPR 2022 and available here.

  • Research Intern @ University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | (June 2021 - March 2022)

    • Working on the testing of autonomous driving systems (ADS) with Dr. Reyhaneh Jabbarvand.
    • Developed a test generation framework in Python using an open source autonomous driving simulator (SVL by LG).
    • Evaluating the test generation framework on Apollo ADS by Baidu to test the coverage and efficiency of generated tests and see the effects of the introduced methods.

  • Research Intern @ BASIRA Lab, ITU | (December 2020 - May 2021)

    • Worked on a geometric deep learning project with Dr. Islem Rekik.
    • Proposed a novel method for behavioral score prediction from brain graphs using graph neural networks with collaborators from Germany and Tunisia.
    • Conducted experiments of the proposed method in Python and Pytorch Geometric.
    • Co-authored the paper explaining the method, published in Brain Imaging and Behavior (IF: 3.39).

  • Research Intern @ Cryptography, Security, and Privacy Research Group, Koc University | (July 2020 - October 2020)

    • Worked on a game theory project supervised by Assoc. Prof. Alptekin Küpçü.
    • Reviewed the game theory literature on commitment with a team of 4 interns.
    • Developed a web application for playing Prisoner’s Dilemma variants with custom constraints against other people using JavaScript and Node.js.

Skills

  • Code & Technologies: Python, PyTorch, JavaScript, C++/C, HTML/CSS, Docker, Bashscript, AWS/Cloud Technologies
  • Research Methods: Mixed Methods Research, Semi-structured Interviews, Think-aloud Studies, Educational Data Mining, Student Modeling

Professional Development

  • Panel, SIGCSE Virtual 2024

    • Moderated the panel Challenges and Solutions for Teaching Decomposition and Planning Skills in CS1, with Dr Eliane S Wiese, James Finnie-Ansley, Dr Rodrigo Duran, Dr Kathryn Cunningham

  • Doctoral Consortium, EDM 2024, led by Dr Neil Heffernan

    • Presented ‘Identifying and Evaluating Novel Knowledge Component Models for Programming Skills’ as a poster

  • Doctoral Consortium, SIGCSE Virtual 2024, led by Dr Colleen Lewis and Dr Lauri Malmi

Teaching & Service