Hi, I'm Alvina and I write code that mostly behaves.

I'm a student at the University of Toronto studying Computer Science (specialist) and Mathematics (major).

This summer, I'll be joining Rippling as a Software Engineer intern on the Employee Experience team. In the past, I have interned at Blackberry QNX on the IDE/Graphics team, Seismic on the AI/ML team, and Amazon on the Supply Chain Optimization Technologies team. I have also done research in HCI (human-computer interaction) at the IAI Lab, and in causal reasoning in LLMs at the Vector Institute.

My interests tend to jump around a bit but they usually circle the same themes:

• Abstract mathematics
• Distributed systems
• Natural language processing
• Applied AI

Outside of code I also read a lot. Some of my favourite books are Kafka on the Shore (Haruki Murakami), The Secret History (Donna Tartt), Piranesi (Susanna Clarke), and Almond (Won-pyung Sohn).

I also like building mildly unhinged projects for fun. Recently that has looked like a doxer (Hack the North winning project, using facial recognition to surface publicly available information about someone), a hackathon cheating assistant that rewrites your commits and files for you, and Rizz Glasses, an AI pair of glasses that feeds you conversation prompts in real time. Please don't ban me, MLH.

When I'm not (hypothetically) breaking hackathon bylaws, I build more normal things too, like a live pitch simulator (UofTHacks 12 winner) and a reminiscence therapy tool (UofTHacks 11 winner).

I replaced my previous website after realizing I was disproportionately focused on layouts and animations rather than substance. I kept iterating on the interface instead of articulating anything meaningful. This version is a small course correction that prioritizes what I build and think about over how the page looks. If you are curious, the previous version remains accessible here.

If any of this piques your curiosity, feel free to reach out via LinkedIn or email; I am always open to conversation.