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Prashanti Priya Angara

PhD in Computer Science

University of Victoria

About Me

I am a first-year Ph.D. student at the University of Victoria with Dr. Hausi Muller and Dr. Ulrike Stege and I am interested and fascinated by Quantum Computing. For the last few months, I have delved into the world of quantum computing and I find it incredibly fascinating. Specifically, I’m interested in the areas of quantum graph algorithms, optimization, and quantum hybrid algorithms. I’m a student of the IBM Centre for Advanced Studies in Markham, Ontario with principal investigators Mehdi Bozzo-Rey and John Longbottom along with my supervisors. This CAS project grant is titled “CAS 1116: Quantum Problem Solving and Algorithm Design”.

I’m currently looking for research internships for Summer 2020.

Interests

  • Quantum Computing
  • Quantum Algorithms
  • Deep Learning
  • Artificial Intelligence

Education

  • PhD in Computer Science, Current

    University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada

  • MSc in Computer Science, 2018

    University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada

  • BTech in Computer Science, 2012

    Gandhi Institute of Technology and Management, Visakhapatnam, India

Skills

Python

Java

JavaScript

Qiskit

SQL

PyTorch

Experience

 
 
 
 
 

Research Assistant

University of Victoria

Aug 2015 – Present Victoria, BC, Canada
I work as a Research Assistant for Dr. Hausi Muller and Dr. Ulrike Stege at the RigiResearch Lab. More recently, we’ve started working on quantum computing and algorithm design with support from IBM Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS), Canada.
 
 
 
 
 

Teaching Assistant

University of Victoria

Aug 2015 – Present Victoria, BC, Canada
I’m passionate about teaching and have contributed to instructing and leading labs for various courses at the university including:

  • CSC 230 - Introduction to Computer Architecture (Summer ‘17)
  • CSC 226 - Algorithms and Data Structures (II) (Summer ‘17)
  • CSC 460⁄560 - Design and Analysis of Real-Time Systems (Spring ‘17, Spring ‘18)
  • CSC 225 - Algorithms and Data Structures (I) (Fall ‘17)
  • CSC 115 - Fundamentals of Programming (II) and Data Structures in Java (Summer ‘16)
  • SENG 321 - Requirements Engineering (Spring ‘16)
  • CSC 111 - Fundamentals of Programming with Engineering Applications in C (Fall ‘15, Fall ‘18, Fall ‘19)
 
 
 
 
 

Junior Developer Co-op

BC Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources

Aug 2015 – Present Victoria, BC, Canada
I was a Full-Stack Web Developer for the Content Management System.

  • Technologies: MongoDB, Express.js, AngularJS, Node.js (MEAN stack)

Achievements

University of Victoria Fellowship

University of Victoria Aug 2019 – Aug 2020
For the academic years 2019-20, 2015-16, I have received funding from the Faculty of Graduate Studies as recommended by the department of computer science September 2019, 2015

Undergraduate Project Supervision

University of Victoria May 2019 – Aug 2019
Along with my supervisor Dr. Hausi Muller, I supervised an undergraduate software engineering capstone project. In this project, students developed BlueTape (Project 25), an application and a smart measuring tape, that automates clothing measurements and compares them with brand sizes in Summer 2019

Organizer: Ideafest

University of Victoria Mar 2019 – Mar 2019
Ideafest is a university event that promotes research to the public. For the department of computer science, I co-ordinated the organization of this event in March 2019

Organizer: Ideafest

FIRST Robotics Mar 2018 – Mar 2019
I volunteered as a judge for a high school robotics competition for two years.

Projects

  1. Style Transfer using GANs: In this project, I implemented a PyTorch pipeline for Style Transfer of images using Generative Adversarial Networks

  2. Foodie: A conversational agent for the smart kitchen: For my master’s thesis, as a prototype, I built Foodie using IBM Watson Conversation and Spoonacular, a food database that provides personalized recipes.

  3. GymSlick: Smart Activity Workout Tracker: This was an IoT based application using Bluetooth Low Energy Devices (Estimote Beacons) which tracked gyom workouts

  4. Priority-Based Real-Time Operating System for Arduino https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGwMPk6ojA8

  5. For a real time systems course, I developed a Priority-Based Real-Time Operating System and an application on top of it for controlling Roomba robots.

  6. Flickr Trends This trend detection data mining project uses time-series trend analysis on the geo-tags of images uploaded to Flickr, a photosharing website.

Recent & Upcoming Talks

Recent Publications

  1. Quantum Problem Solving and Algorithm Design
  2. Foodie: A Conversational Agent for the Smart Kitchen
  3. Towards a Deeper Understanding of Current Conversational Frameworks through the Design and Development of a Cognitive Agent

Contact