Chinasa T. Okolo

I am a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University, co-advised by Nicki Dell and Bharath Hariharan. I came to Cornell after receiving a degree in Computer Science from Pomona College in Spring 2018. After graduating, I completed a summer internship at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, England where I worked in the Biological Computation group, helping to develop computational models and domain-specific computational tools for bacterial quorum sensing. I am currently supported by The National GEM Consortium, Oracle Corporation, and NANOG.

In undergrad, I conducted research at the University of Georgia, Pomona College, Columbia University, and Carnegie Mellon University in fields ranging from computational neuroscience to human-computer interaction. My research interests include computer vision, global health, machine learning , and information & communication technologies for development.

I develop machine learning models to improve healthcare information technologies in Sub-Saharan Africa for the rapid diagnosis and treatment of infectious and tropical diseases. These models are integrated into mobile health applications that aid community health workers in low-resource regions, fundamentally altering the way patients with these issues are managed and treated. I am also interested in developing computer vision methods to recognize fine-grained human respiratory motions and analyzing privacy and security issues in mobile health applications deployed throughout the Global South.

I was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri to Nigerian immigrants. I proudly graduated from Lincoln College Preparatory Academy and the KCPS Early College Academy at MCC - Penn Valley, earning both a high school diploma and Associate's degree. For fun, I like to sing, update my blog, read intriguing articles, travel the world, and scroll down my Twitter feed.