Emily Fan

Intro

I am a recent MIT Computer Science graduate with experience in data science, cybersecurity, software engineering, and AI Safety across four countries. I am a proactive and direct communicator who asks thoughtful questions to understand the bigger picture and consistently provides detailed documentation of my work.

In the past, I built dashboards to measure organizational impact (SkillLab), contributed to data pipelines to measure site reliability (Tableau), researched AI deception (MATS) and news bias (MIT), and improved agent-based models for hotel bookings (FLYR).

I hope to apply my skills and education to contribute to a better future.

Experience

Research Scholar @ ML Alignment & Theory Scholars

June 2024 - August 2024 | Berkeley, CA

Trained steering vectors to reduce deceptive behavior in LLMs using PyTorch.

Software Engineering Intern @ Muninn

January 2024 - April 2024 | Copenhagen, Denmark

Researched and spearheaded efforts to integrate our AI Prevent with Cisco ISE to block suspicious network activity. Completed Agile story to increase visibility of device Ubuntu version and many sprint tasks to upgrade Spring Boot.

Data Science Intern @ SkillLab

September 2023 - December 2023 | Amsterdam, Netherlands

Developed dashboards and auto-generated reports for company impact tracking using SQL, Python, and Postgres. Customer Success team reported swift data delivery. Provided detailed documentation of my work to smoothly handoff my work to other employees. Organized a meditation event, interns lunch, and 1-1s to get to know coworkers.

Data Science Intern @ FLYR for Hospitality

June 2023 - September 2023 | London, United Kingdom

Demonstrated viability of agent-based models to create digital twins of hotel guests. Developed metrics to evaluate model accuracy and improved some metrics by 50% or more. Streamlined simulation generation and hyperparameter scanning processes using Python and Pandas. Provided detailed documentation and successfully onboarded an employee to continue my work.

Software Engineer Intern @ Tableau

May 2022 - August 2022 | Seattle, WA

Built an Apache Flink job in Java to calculate site availability by parsing logs and sending data to Snowflake and AWS. Identified availability discrepancies of >50% between data sources using Python, SQL, and Tableau visualizations.

Undergraduate Researcher @ Tegmark Research Group, MIT

May 2020 - August 2020 | Remote

Automated detection of news bias with natural language processing. Released Python packages for news processing tools. Created visualizations of topic distributions using statistical procedures like PCA and performed data cleaning to improve classification accuracy.

Public artifact: News Tools

A Python package with tools for extracting dates, determining if a URL is a news article, and more!

Android Developer Intern @ Peel

June 2017 - August 2017 | Remote

Redesigned user interface of helicopter remote control app prototype. Incorporated user feedback to improve user experience. Released app to Google Play Store. App received over 10,000 installs and 4.5/5 star rating on Google Play Store.

Public artifact: Helicopter Remote App

Professional Development

Google
Cybersecurity Certificate

November 2024 | Issued by Coursera

Completed eight-course program covering Python, Linux, SQL, SIEM tools, and Intrusion Detection Systems. Gained competency in identifying cybersecurity risks, threats, vulnerabilities, and mitigation techniques.

C2C

C2C CTF
Cybersecurity Competition

August 2023 | Yokohama, Japan

Qualified for Country to Country cybersecurity main round tournament, competing with students worldwide.

ML4Good UK
AI Safety Bootcamp

April 2024 | Blackpool, UK

Completed 10-day intensive bootcamp on AI Safety covering transformers, RLHF, interpretability, governance. Implemented transformer architecture, DQN and A2C RL frameworks in PyTorch.

Athena
AI Alignment Retreat

February 2024 | Oxford, UK

Attended AI Safety talks and networked with gender minority aspiring AI Safety researchers. Participated in technical discussions on alignment research directions.

GEL

MIT Gordon Engineering
Leadership Program

Sep 2021 - May 2022 | Cambridge, MA

Selected for competitive leadership development program focused on effective engineering team leadership, teamwork, and communication skills in industry contexts.

Personal Projects

Tab Snooze Fork

Current maintainer of the Tab Snooze Chrome Extension. Forked broken version of Tab Snooze, released a fix, and updated Chrome Manifest version. Currently updating extension from React version 16 to 18. Used by 2,000 users with a 4.8 stars overall rating on the Google Chrome webstore. See Github repo here.

Todoable

Only todo list I know of that estimates whether you can meet your deadlines on time given your schedule and life needs. Grabs empty time slots on your calendar and subtracts estimated time it takes to finish tasks so you know if you actually have too many things to do. Built with React JS and Google Firebase. See Github repo here.

Locating Object

Used OpenCV to detect an object (gear, box, reflective tape) and calculate the distance and angle to the object. See Github repo here.

FBlocker and Timer

A selective blocker to hide notifications, chat, and news feed for a focused Facebook experience. (Unfortunately, it got taken down by Facebook for using "FB" in "FBlocker.") See Github repo here.

Leadership

BARU Organizer

April 2025 | Blackpool, UK

Co-organized a 20-person unconference focused on tackling life challenges. Managed full event lifecycle from marketing to feedback collection. Both venue managers and participants found that the event ran smoothly.

Discord Server Owner

Jan 2021 - Present | Remote

Built and maintain virtual community for productivity accountability. Organized text and voice channels, customized Pomodoro bots on Heroku, and continuously incorporate member feedback.

EA MIT President

Sep 2019 - Oct 2021 | Cambridge, MA

Created programs for career impact and ethical reflection. Coordinated 8-week fellowship with 20+ fellows and 10 facilitators. Collaborated with Yale, Stanford, Brown, CMU to improve operations and host intercollegiate events.

MIT Student Tutor/TA

Oct 2020 - Dec 2021 | Cambridge, MA

Supported students in Econometrics, Multidimensional Statistics, and Intro to Inference by teaching statistics and probability. Helped Econometrics student pass after professor estimated 1/5 chance of success.

Economics Book Club Chair

Mar 2020 - Jan 2021 | Cambridge, MA

Led book clubs on Radical Markets, Nudge, and Jump-Starting America to foster awareness of real-world economics applications. Organized professor and author guest speaker Q&A sessions.

🌱

Climate Action Founder

Apr 2019 - Aug 2019 | Cupertino, CA

Founded campaign that successfully lobbied Cupertino City Council to pass building codes phasing out fossil fuels. Wrote and delivered speeches at city council meetings, achieving tangible policy change.

Emily Fan

Computer Science Graduate | Data Science | Cybersecurity | Software Engineering | AI Safety

Intro

In the past, I built dashboards to measure organizational impact (SkillLab), contributed to data pipelines to measure site reliability (Tableau), researched AI deception (MATS) and news bias (MIT), and improved agent-based models for hotel bookings (FLYR).

I hope to apply my skills and education to contribute to a better future.