Dr. Chandrasekhar received his undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Caltech, and he received his PhD in bioinformatics and systems biology from UCSD. Prior to coming to Southwestern, Dr. Chandrasekhar worked as a computer science lecturer at UCSD, the University of San Diego, and the University of Pittsburgh. He has taught courses in computer programming, algorithm design, applied machine learning, and theory of computation. He has also taught survey courses that introduce students to some of the broad ideas and themes in computer science and information science. Outside of the university context, Dr. Chandrasekhar has taught for the Bridge to Enter Advanced Mathematics (BEAM), and he has facilitated the administration of local clubs for Girls Who Code (GWC). For more information, please see my academic website!

Nature is abound with examples of biological systems, such as insect colonies, networks of neurons, slime molds, and bacteria swarms, that manage to overcome environmental obstacles and challenges in a distributed manner. Rather than relying on a centralized processor to direct control flow, the systems use limited local communication to produce complex collective behavior. Not only are these systems quite elegant in their emergent properties; the challenges they overcome often have direct analogues to problems in computer science and combinatorial optimization. My research seeks to understand how these systems operate in order to reverse-engineer efficient distributed optimization algorithms.

One of the reasons I came to SU was the chance to work with undergrad students. If you are interested in working with me, please do the following:

1. Read my research page (including the publications) carefully.
2. After you have completed step 1 (and not a moment sooner), send me an email with a thorough description of what kind of what background/skills you have, experience you are looking for (capstone, summer research, etc.), and why you believe you and I would be a good fit.