People

Saad Mneimneh is an associate professor in computer science and a core member of CoSSMO at Hunter College. His research focuses on the application of mathematical modeling and algorithmic techniques to various problems, including scheduling, load balancing, and more recently, computational biology with a strong interest in RNA interaction and combinatorial problems inspired by it. He received a BE in Computer and Communication Engineering from the American University of Beirut in June 1995, and MS and PhD from MIT in June 2002. He joined Southern Methodist University in 2003 and was visiting Professor at the City University of New York (CUNY) from 2006 to 2011, when he received the Cecile Insdorf Award for Excellence in Teaching. He joined CUNY in 2012. He is a recipient of a number of research Awards from industry, NSF, and private research foundations. Here's a CV. Professor Mneimneh is a doctoral faculty at The Graduate Center of CUNY and works with the following members of his group (all PhD candidates in Computer Science at the Graduate Center of CUNY).

Alexey Nikolaev Alexey has a background in Physics. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Moscow State University in 2008. He received an MS degree in physics from Clarkson University New York in 2011. He is interested in studying various systems using mathematical and probabilistic models. He worked on probabilistic evolutionary models and genetic algorithms for protein secondary structure to understand the origin of the probability distribution of hydrophobic, hydrophilic, and breaker amino-acids. He is also exploring the use of simulation and game theory to develop metric functions that assess team strength is social networks, with applications to code management, wikipedia, and other domains. The work combines graphs theory (and more generally simplicial complexes), heuristics, simulation, and game theory. Now at Schrodinger Email: a(last name) at gradcenter dot cuny dot edu	Ali Ahmed Ali obtained his Bsc degree in Computer Science in 2009 from the Lahore University of Management Sciences. His research focuses on Computational Biology. In particular, he develops algorithms for the Multiple RNA Interaction problem using various combinatorial formulations and approaches. In addition, he makes use of random sampling and Monte Carlo methods to obtain different sub-optimal solutions that better describe the spectrum of biological structures in RNA interaction. He is currently developing a computational formulation/model for RNA interaction that accounts for dependece among different parts of the interaction. His research interests generaly revolve around approximation and optimization algorithms. Now at Google. Email: sali(last name)86 at gmail dot com	Saman Farhat Saman graduated with a Bachelor degree in Computer Science from Sharif University of Technology in 2013. He is interested in the application of mathematics to various problems. He worked on load balancing such as chairman assignment/carpool problems. He recently started exploring the connection between some topics in mathematics and musical scales, as well as algorithmic composition. He is currently working on approximation algorithms for general classes of RNA interaction problems. Saman was on leave during the academic year 2016-2017, and was not able to come back due to VISA issues. He is now pursuing PhD in Iran. Email: saman(first name) at gmail dot com
Leafy Leafy graduated from a local flower shop in NYC. She was the first member of the group. She started on a desk and had her own old computer, screen, and keyboard. Despite an accidental drought, she survived. Now she makes sure that there is always someone working in the lab and maintains a watering schedule. She's a valuable member, and while she almost never conveys her ideas, she is very inspiring.