Carnegie Mellon University

M.S. in Logic, Computation, and Methodology Alumni

Graduates from the department have a long history of making a difference in many different disciplines.

2023

Carly Medina
Date of Degree: May 2023

Dustin Updyke
Thesis: Undermining Trust in Learning and Inference Systems
Date of Degree: May 2023

2022

Dimitri Georgakopoulos
Date of Degree: May 2022

Parker Felterman
Date of Degree: May 2022

Brian Duricy
Date of Degree: August 2022

2021

Andrew Yankes
Thesis: Object drop in English: A statistical and Optimality Theoretical analysis
Advisor: Tom Werner
Date of Degree: August 2021

Yuqing Zhao
Advisor: Kevin Zollman
Date of Degree: December 2021

Mason Broxham
Advisor: Mandy Simons
Date of Degree: December 2021

2020

Justin Dury-Agri
Date of Degree: May 2020

Cornelia Knieling
Advisor: Wilfried Sieg
Date of Degree: August 2020

Jacob Neumann
Thesis: Semantics of Nondeterministic Construction
Advisor: Adam Bjorndahl
Date of Degree: August 2020

David Vitale
Title: Formal Verification of the First Isomorphism Theorem in AProS
Advisor: Wilfried Sieg
Date of Degree: August 2020

Bele Wollesen
Thesis: Voting Through Multiple Lenses.  An exploration of the voting method Democracy 21
Advisor: Kevin Zollman
Date of Degree: August 2020

Zhouhang Zhou
Advisor: Jeremy Avigad
Date of Degree:  August 2020

2019

Zesen Qian
Thesis: Towards Eilenberg-MacLane Spaces in Cubical Type Theory
Co-Advisors: Steve Awodey and Anders Mortberg, CS Department
Committee: Jonas Frey

Adam Millar
Advisor: Steve Awodey

Elizabeth Viera
Date of Degree: May 2019
First position: Software Engineer in Risk and Fraud, Eventbrite

2018

Jeff Adams
Date of Degree: August 2018
First Position: Quantitative Research, Libertech Finance Group, Warsaw, Poland

Kendra Chilson
Date of Degree: May 2018

2017

Varnitha Kurli
Date of Degree: May 2017

Alex Markham
Thesis: A computational model of reward in visual perceptual learning
Advisor: David Danks
Date of Degree: August 2017

Sam Speight
Thesis: Impredicative Encodings of Inductive Types in Homotopy Type Theory
Advisors: Steve Awodey and Jonas Frey
Date of Degree: August 2017
First position: DPhil Candidate in Computer Science at Oriel College, University of Oxford

Masayuki Tashiro
Thesis: Decision Paradox and Rationality
Advisor: Kevin Zollman
Date of Degree: August 2017

Minchao Wu
Thesis: A Formally Verified Proof of Kruskal’s Tree Theorem in Lean
Advisor: Jeremy Avigad
Date of Degree: August 2017
First position: PhD student in Computer Science, Australian National University

2016

Michael Bonin
Thesis: The Game Theory of Forecasting Tournaments
Advisor: Kevin Zollman
Date of Degree: August 2016

Juan Miguel Ogarrio
Thesis: Hybrid causal search in latent variable models
Advisor: Peter Sprites
Date of Degree: August 2016

Joseph McCool
Thesis Title: The Psychological Structure of “Outcomes” – Experienced Utility as a Multi-Attribute Function
Advisor: Teddy Seidenfeld
Date of Degree: August 2016

Brock Sennish
Date of Degree: May 2016
First position: Software Engineer at Digital Reasoning

Renjie Yang
Thesis: Search for Causal Models with Laten Variables
Advisor: Peter Sprites
Date of Degree: August 2016

Andrew Zipperer
Thesis: A formalization of elementary group theory in the proof assistant Lean
Advisor: Jeremy Avigad
Date of Degree: July 2016
First position: Inference Programmer and Ontological Engineer, Cycorp

2015

Nicholas Havrilla
Title:  Exploring Very Conservative Search Algorithms
Advisor:  Peter Spirtes
Date of Degree: May 2015

Aydin Mohseni
Title: The Limitations of Equilibrium Concepts in Evolutionary Game Theory
Advisor: Kevin Zollman
Date of Degree: August 2015
First position: Ph.D. Student in Logic and Philosophy of Science, University of California, Irvine 

Jason Parker
Title:  Duality between Cubes and Bipointed Sets
Advisor: Steve Awodey
Date of Degree: May 2015

2014

Alexander Murray-Watters
Title: The DM Algorithm:  A causal Search Algorithm for the Discovery of MIMIC  Models, with an Attempt to Recover a Protein Signaling Network from a High-Dimensional Ovarian Cancer Dataset
Advisor: Clark Glymour
Date of Degree: August 2014

2013

Vincenza Berardo
Thesis: The Generalizing and Adjudicating Principles
Advisor: Mara Harrell
Date of degree: August 2013

Alexandra Drozd
Research Associate, Open Learning Initiative
Thesis: Online Instruction in Argument Diagramming
Advisor: Mara Harrell
Date of degree: August 2013
First position: Research Associate at the Open Learning Initiative, CMU

James Keller
Ph.D. Student in Philosophy, University of Illinois (Urbana)
Thesis: An Evaluation of the Dutch Book Arguments
Advisors: Kevin Zollman and Teddy Seidenfeld
Date of degree: August 2013
First position: PhD Student in Philosophy, University of Illinois (Urbana)

David Zornek
Actuarial Analyst, Allstate
Thesis: Concepts, Definitions, and Inheritance: Interpreting the atoms of lexical decomposition
Advisors: Mandy Simons and David Danks
Date of degree: December 2012
First position: Actuarial Analyst, Allstate

Osama Khan
Youth Development Fellow/Research Associate, Ministry of Planning, Govt. of Pakistan
Thesis: Rank - Dependent Utility as a theory of Rationality
Advisors: Teddy Seidenfeld and Kevin Zollman
Date of degree: May 2013
First position: Adjunct Faculty, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Lahore, Pakistan

2012

Charles Barclay
Ph.D. Student, University of Maryland
Thesis: Attributing Causality
Advisors: Peter Spirtes and Clark Glymour
Date of degree: August 2012
First position: Ph.D. student in Philosophy, University of Maryland

Ruben Sanchez-Romero
PhD student in Logic, Computation & Methodology, CMU
Thesis: Formation of Variables for Brain Connectivity
Advisors: Clark Glymour and Joseph Ramsey
Date of degree: August 2012
First position: Research Associate, Department of Philosophy, CMU

Benjamin Witte
Witte Flooring, Beckum, Germany
Thesis: Three Essays on Social Norms
Advisor: Kevin Zollman & Richard Scheines
Date of degree: May 2012
First position: Witte Flooring, Beckum, Germany

Ivan Verano
Ph.D. Student in Philosophy, Indiana University (Bloomington)
Thesis: Three Essays on Knowledge, Logic and Decision
Advisors: Clark Glymour and Richard Scheines
Date of degree: May 2012
First position: Teaching Assistant, Department of Philosophy, CMU

2011

Patrick Beukema
Ph.D. Student, University of Pittsburgh
Thesis: Causal inference with a recurrent neural network
Advisor: David Danks
Date of degree: August 2011
First position: Ph.D. Student in Neuroscience, University of Pittsburgh

David Carper
Ph.D. Student, Yale University
Thesis: Categorical Approaches to Model Theory of Non-Elementary Classes
Advisor: Steve Awodey
Date of degree: May 2011
First position: Ph.D. Student in Classics, Yale University

Hans-Christoph Kotzsch
Ph.D. Student, Ludwig-Maximilians-University
Thesis: Modal Extensions of First-Order bi-Intuitionistic Logic in A Categorical Setting
Advisors: Steve Awodey
Date of degree: May 2011
First position: Ph.D. Student, Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, Ludwig-Maximilians-University

Erich Kummerfeld
Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of Pittsburgh
Thesis: Causal dynamism and causal epistemology: A tale of cars and fish
Advisor: David Danks
Date of degree: August 2011
First position: Ph.D. Student in Logic, Computation, & Methodology, CMU

David Rose
Ph.D. Student, Rutgers University
Thesis: Against the standard view of actual causation
Advisor: David Danks
Date of degree: August 2011
First position: Ph.D. Student in Philosophy, Rutgers University

Benjamin Northrop
Thesis: Automated Diagrammatic Reasoning
A proof checker for the language of E

Advisor: Jeremy Avigad and Wilfried Sieg
Date of degree: May 2011
First position: Distinguished Technical Consultant, Summa

2010

Karin Howe
Ph.D. Student, SUNY-Binghamton
Thesis: Scalar Implicature in the Antecedent of Conditionals
Advisor: Mandy Simons
Date of degree: December 2010
First position: Ph.D. Student in Philosophy, SUNY-Binghamton

Nathan Lubchenco
Data Scientist, Simple Energy
Thesis: Using Empirical Data of Kiva Microfinance Loans to Inform Principles of Distribution
Advisor: Nicole Hassoun
Date of degree: December 2010
First position: Research Assistant, University of Colorado

Reza Mahmoodshahi
Law Student
Thesis: Small Worlds and State Dependent Utility
Advisor: Teddy Seidenfeld
Date of degree: December 2010
First position: Law School

James Tremblay
English Teacher, South Korea
Thesis: On the Intricate Relationship Between Working Memory and Attention
Advisor: Clark Glymour
Date of degree: August 2010
First position: English Teacher, South Korea

2009

Mike Freenor
Senior Data Scientist, Distil Networks
Thesis: Scalar Implicature in Discourse Representation Theory
Advisor: Mandy Simons
Date of degree: August 2009
First position: Research Programmer, Department of Philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University

Alex Smith
Senior Content Strategist, HUGE Design Company
Thesis: Kernel, Cumulative and Safe Contractions
Advisor: Horacio Arló-Costa
Date of degree: August 2009
First position: Research Programmer, Department of Philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University
Second position: Developer, HUGE Design Company

Arthur Tu
Member, Board of Directors, LearnBop
Thesis: When What-If's Change the Way We Think: The Non-Uniform Effect of Statistical Frequency on Folk Judgment of Actual Causation
Advisor: Peter Spirtes
Date of degree: August 2009
First position: Research Assistant, Human-Computer Interaction Institute, CMU

Mark Whitehouse
Software Engineer, PlanAlchemy
Thesis: Brains and Edge Probabilities
Advisor: Clark Glymour
Date of degree: August 2009
First position: Research Assistant, President/Owner, NA Science

Daniel Malkiel
Data Analyst, Pittsburgh Public Schools
Thesis: Bandit Problems in Professional Sports
Advisor: David Danks
Date of degree: May 2009
First position: Intern, Baseball Prospectus

Savitar Sundaresan
Ph.D. student, Columbia University
Thesis: Blame it on My Equilibrium: Insurance Contact Valuation
Advisor: Teddy Seidenfeld
Date of degree: May 2009
First position: Trader, Life Finance Desk, Credit Suisse Life Finance Group
Second position: Ph.D. student, Columbia University

2008

Nick Radcliffe
Research Assistant, University of Houston
Thesis: On the Orbits of Finite State Transducers
Advisor: Klaus Sutner
Date of degree: August 2008
First position: Research Assistant in Computer Science, University of Houston

2007

Lindsay Spriggs
Research Scientist, MITRE Corporation
Thesis: A New Semantics for Belief in Security Protocols
Advisor: Horacio Arló-Costa
Date of degree: December 2007
First position: Research Scientist, MITRE Corporation

Tim Grinsell
Grad Student, University of Chicago
Thesis: Russian Aspect without Traditional Aspectual Notions
Advisor: Mandy Simons
Date of degree: August 2007
First position: Law Student, Duke University
Second position: Grad Student, University of Chicago

Steve Kieffer
Ph.D. Student, Monash University
Thesis: A Language for Mathematical Knowledge Management
Advisor: Jeremy Avigad
Date of degree: August 2007
First position: PhD Student in Mathematics, Simon Fraser University
Second position: PhD Student, Monash University

William Nichols
Operations Analyst, Office of Planning, FDA
Thesis: Causal Reasoning and Decision Making: An Empirical Approach
Advisor: David Danks
Date of degree: August 2007
First position: Analysis Practice Consultant, Management Concepts Inc.

Douglas Perkins
Thesis: Strategic Proof Tutoring in Logic
Advisor: Wilfried Sieg
Date of degree: August 2007

Trevor Tompkins
Thesis: Efficient fuel, Tetra-ethyl Lead, and Lead Toxicity
Advisor: Clark Glymour
Date of degree: August 2007

2006

Tyler Gibson
Research Associate, CMU
Thesis: Proof Search in First-Order Logic With Equality
Advisor: Wilfried Sieg
Date of degree: December 2006
First position: Research Associate, Laboratory of Symbolic and Educational Computing, Department of Philosophy, CMU

Kevin Jarrett
Data Scientist, Crowe Horwarth
Thesis: Fine-Grained Selective Communication and the Hippocampus
Advisor: David Danks
Date of degree: August 2006
First position: Ph.D. Student, Computational Biology and Center for Neural Science, NYU
Second position: Data Scientist, Crowe Horwarth

Mikel Negugogor
Assistant Professor, Brooklyn CUNY
Thesis: The Constitutive Role of Reasons in Action
Advisor: Horacio Arló-Costa
Date of degree: August 2006
First position: Ph.D. Student in Philosophy, CUNY

Huichun (Joy) Zhu
Ph.D. Student, Lehigh University
Thesis: Effects of Category Application on Category Learning
Advisor: David Danks
Date of degree: 2006
First position: Ph.D. Student in Psychology, Lehigh University

2005

Ramyaa
Postdoc Researcher, Ludwig-Maximilians Universitaat
Thesis: Proof Search For Provability Logic
Advisor: Wilfried Sieg
Date of degree: August 2005
First position: Ph.D. Student in Computer Science, Indiana University

Jim Soto
Associate Professor of Philosophy and English, St. Clair County Community College
Thesis: Poverty of Stimulus Arguments in Language Acquisition
Advisor: Mandy Simons
Date of degree: August 2005
First position: Professor of English and Philosophy, CCAC

David (Disco) Gerdes
Researcher, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Thesis: Command Structure Identification from Communication Logs
Advisor: Clark Glymour
Date of degree: 2005
First position: Researcher, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Nicholas Hoffman
US Navy
Thesis: Preference Formation in Games of Complete and Incomplete Information
Advisor: Peter Vanderschraaf
Date of degree: May 2005
First position: US Navy

2004

Carlos Fasola
Ph.D. Student, Rutgers University
Thesis: The Logical Form of Action Sentences with 'With'
Advisor: Mandy Simons
Date of degree: August 2004
First position: Ph.D. Student in Linguistics, Rutgers University

Joanna Tamburino
Thesis: Emotional Learning: How we Implicitly Learn to Feel
Advisor: David Danks
Date of degree: August 2004

Adam Kramer
Facebook Data Scientist
Thesis: An Analysis of the Causes of Learning Outcomes in Online Education
Advisor: Richard Scheines
Date of degree: May 2004
First position: Ph.D. Student in Social & Personality Psychology, University of Oregon
Second position: Facebook Data Scientist

Stephen Douglas White
Project Director, Northwest Tribal Registry
Thesis: Axiomatics, Methodology, and Dedekind's Theory of Ideals
Advisor: Jeremy Avigad
Date of degree: May 2004
First position: Project Director, Northwest Tribal Registry

2003

Jessi Berkelhammer
Researcher, Department of Computer Science, Universität des Saarlandes, (Saarbrücken)
Thesis: From Reducibility to Extensionality: the Two Editions of Principia Mathematica
Advisor: Jeremy Avigad
Date of degree: September 2003
First position: Researcher, Institute for Human and Machine Cognition

Keith Douglas
Logician, Systems Development Division, Statistics Canada
Thesis: Super-Turing Computation: A Case Study Analysis
Advisor: Wilfried Sieg
Date of degree: January 2003
First position: Logician, Systems Development Division, Statistics Canada

William Taysom
Researcher, Institute for Human and Machine Cognition
Thesis: Kratzer Semantics and Filters
Advisor: Horacio Arló-Costa
Date of degree: 2003
First position: Researcher, Institute for Human and Machine Cognition

Orlin Vakarelov
Assistant Professor, Duke University
Thesis: Accessible Domains from a Category Theoretic Perspective
Advisor: Wilfried Sieg
Date of degree: 2003
First position: Ph.D. Student in Philosophy, University of Arizona

Sarah Eisenhart
Criminal Defense Attorney; Contra Costa County Public Defender
Thesis: Implementing the Model Generation Calculus: Predicted Interpretations and Actual Intuition
Advisor: Mandy Simons
Date of degree: September 2003
First position: Criminal Defense Attorney; Contra Costa County Public Defender

2002

Erica Lucast Stonestreet
Professor, College of St. Benedict
Thesis: A New Case for Proof in Mathematics Curricula
Advisor: Jeremy Avigad
Date of degree: December 2002
First position: Ph.D. Student in Philosophy, University of Michigan

Dan Handley
Scientific Director, Clinical and Translational Genome Research Institute
Thesis: Evaluating Machine Learning Algorithms Used to Infer Gene Regulatory Network Structure
Advisors: Clark Glymour and Peter Spirtes
Date of degree: November 2002
First position: Ph.D. Student in Human Genetics, University of Pittsburgh

Shane Harwood
Chief Operating Officer and Senior Engineer, Harwood Surveying PC
Thesis: Learning Causal Structure with Genetic Algorithms
Advisor: Richard Scheines
Date of degree: August 2002
First position: Chief Operating Officer and Senior Engineer, Harwood Surveying PC

Dawn McLaughlin
Researcher and Instructor, CMU
Thesis: Multiple Proposition Semantics
Advisor: Mandy Simons
Date of degree: May 2002
First position: Researcher and Instructor, CMU

Srisha Rao
Associate Professor, International Institute of Information Bangalore
Thesis: Consensus and Common Knowledge
Advisor: Horacio Arló-Costa
Date of degree: May 2002
First position: Ph.D. Student in Computer Science, University of Iowa

2001

Davin Lafon
Technical Advisor, BlueTree Capital Group
Thesis: The Structure of Metaspaces: Empirical Evidence from Logic Tasks
Advisors: Herbert Simon and Richard Scheines
Date of degree: May 2001
First position: Research Associate, Laboratory of Symbolic and Educational Computing, Department of Philosophy, CMU

1999

Nicola DePisapia
Chief Science Officer, Neocogita
Thesis: Gandy Machines: An Abstract Model of Parallel Computation for Turing Machines, the Game of Life, and Artificial Neural Networks
Advisor: Wilfried Sieg
Date of degree: August 1999
First position: Ph.D. Student in Neuroscience, University of Edinburgh
Second position: Associate Researcher, Department of Psychology, Washington University

Hyunchul Kim
Resonance and Reproduction, CEO
Thesis: Global Pattern Matching for Cognitively Faithful Proof Generation by an Automated Theorem Prover
Advisor: Herbert Simon
Date of degree: August 1999
First position: Resonance and Reproduction, CEO

Lillian Lovich
Owner, Good Egg Web Studio
Thesis: Chinese Rooms, Robots, and Understanding
Advisor: Teddy Seidenfeld
Date of degree: August 1999
First position: Owner, Good Egg Web Studio

Mark Shipman
Researcher/Instructor, CMU
Thesis: An Optimization to the Naïve Classifier for Text Documents
Date of degree: May 1999
First position: Researcher/Instructor, CMU

1998

Colleen Baker
Assistant Professor, Notre Dame
Thesis: Cooperation as the Norm: Social Dilemmas and the Role of Social Norms in Promoting Cooperation
Advisor: Cristina Bicchieri
Date of degree: August 1998
First position: Assistant Professor, Notre Dame

Kevin Grobman
Physics and Philosophy Teacher, St. Joseph's Academy
Date of degree: August 1998
First position: Physics and Philosophy Teacher, St. Joseph's Academy

1997

Richard Romanowski
Date of degree: December 1997
Advisor: Richard Scheines

Christina Skalka
Associate Professor, University of Vermont
Thesis: Some Decision Problems for ML
Advisor: Frank Pfenning
Date of degree: May 1997
First position: Ph.D. program in Computer Science, Johns Hopkins University

Susan Colvin
Thesis: Intelligent Machinery: Turing's Ideas and their Relation to the Work of Newell and Simon
Advisor: Wilfried Sieg
Date of degree: May 1997

1996

Gianluca Magnani
Thesis: Visual Representation and Scientific Discovery: The Historical Case of the Discovery of Electromagnetic Induction
Advisor: Herbert Simon
Date of degree: December 1996

Martha Lacey
Thesis: Choice in Intransitive Contexts
Advisor: Teddy Seidenfeld
Date of degree: May 1996

Jefferey Schanding
Date of degree: May 1996

1995

Raymond Pelletier
Lead Developer, Wombat Security Technologies
Thesis: The Goal-Driven Production System Tertl and its Abstract Machine
Date of degree: December 1995
First position: Lead Developer, Wombat Security Technologies

Andre Beskrowni
Senior Software Engineer, Spanning Cloud Apps

Date of degree: May 1995
First position: Senior Software Engineer, Spanning Cloud Apps

Stuart Adam Eisenstadt
Assistant Dean of Information Technology Programs, Thomas Edison State University (Trenton, NJ)
Thesis: Prologomena to a Theory of Intentionality for Physical Symbolic Systems
Advisor: Herbert Simon
Date of degree: May 1995
First position: Knowledge Engineer, CLARITECH Corp. (Pittsburgh, PA)

Carsten Schurman
Associate Professor, IT University of Copenhagen
Thesis: A Computational Metalogic for the Horn Fragment of LF
Advisor: Frank Pfenning
Date of degree: May 1995
First position: Ph.D. Student in Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University

Timothy Herron
Systems Analyst, US Veteran Affairs
Thesis: A Commentary on the First Three Sections of Gaifman and Snir's 1982 JSL Paper Concerning Probabilities Defined on a First Order Empirical Language
Advisor: Teddy Seidenfeld
Date of degree: May 1995
First position: Research Scientist, Kromos Technology

1994

Craig Lovell
Director of Product Development, Primatics Financial, LLC
Thesis: Goal-Directed Proof Search in the Sequent Calculus
Advisor: Wilfried Sieg
Date of degree: May 1994
First position: Mitre Corporation

1993

Mario Chiari
Thesis: A Note on the Herbrand Analysis of Bounded Arithmetic
Advisor: Wilfried Sieg
Date of degree: May 1993

Michael Mecca
Thesis: Tempo Following Behavior in Musical Accompaniment
Advisors: Roger B. Dannenberg and Herbert A. Simon
Date of degree: May 1993

Saverio Cittadini
Ph.D. Student, University of Sienna
Thesis: Intercalation Calculus for Intuitionistic Propositional Logic
Advisor: Wilfried Sieg
Date of degree: May 1991
First position: PhD Student in Mathematics, University of Sienna