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Wolfram High School
Summer Research Program

Bentley University, Boston, MA June 25–July 12, 2025

2018 Faculty

Directors

Kyle Keane

Program Director

Kyle Keane is currently a full-time lecturer at MIT and part-time consultant at Wolfram in the Technical Communications and Strategy Group. Kyle was a research programmer in the Special Projects Department of Wolfram Research from 2012–2015, where he worked on establishing K–12 programming initiatives, including developing a general step-by-step physics and equation solver in Wolfram|Alpha and helping Siri speak Wolfram|Alpha results. His main areas of interest are the pedagogical effectiveness of interactive graphics, evidence-based infusion of programming into science education, improving the accessibility of technology for people with disabilities and user experience. Kyle has a PhD from the University of California, Riverside, where his dissertation was on utilizing weak quantum measurements to protect quantum systems from information loss during quantum computing.

YEARS:

 2018  |  2013

Chip Hurst

Academic Director

Chip Hurst joined Wolfram in 2011. He holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics and computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a master's degree in mathematics from Purdue University. He has experience teaching in graduate school and loves helping people learn. Currently, Chip is a math content developer for Wolfram|Alpha, concentrating mainly on Step-by-step solutions. His scholarly interests include analytic number theory, algorithms, and numerical methods.

YEARS:

 2018  |  2017  |  2016  |  2015  |  2013

Andrea Griffin

Assistant Program Director

After attending the Wolfram Summer School in 2016, Andrea joined Wolfram Research as the Special Projects department's office administrator. She received a bachelor of arts in applied physics with minors in mathematics and secondary education from Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, in 2014 and a master of science in computer science from Rivier University in Nashua, New Hampshire, in 2016. Andrea has spent several years teaching students from young to old in a wide variety of subjects and in many settings. When she is not managing the office, Andrea spends her time at Wolfram utilizing her background to contribute to education-based efforts in the Special Projects department.

YEARS:

 2018  |  2017

Carol Cronin

Admissions Director

Carol Cronin joined Wolfram in 1996 and leads the program administration for educational initiatives, including Wolfram Sponsorships, the Wolfram Foundation, and the Wolfram Summer Programs. She attended Eastern Illinois University and has six kids. She is a court-appointed special advocate and guardian ad litem for foster children in her community, and has served on her school district's Teaching and Learning Advisory Committee.

YEARS:

 2018  |  2017  |  2016  |  2015  |  2014  |  2013  |  2012

Instructors

Rick Hennigan

Rick Hennigan recently completed a bachelor's degree in mathematics at Salem State University. His research interests primarily involve computational topology and geometry with a focus on algorithms for computing the persistent homology of large high-dimensional datasets. Aside from mathematics, Rick has interests in astronomy, cycling, and all things related to space exploration.

YEARS:

 2018  |  2017  |  2016  |  2015  |  2014  |  2013

Robert Morris

Robert Morris is a midwesterner who bounced between the coasts before finally settling back in the Midwest. He received undergraduate degrees in math and physics from Brown University. After college he worked with the Special Projects group at Wolfram Research, where he helped launch the Wolfram Demonstrations Project. Rob then went back to grad school to get a PhD in particle physics theory from NYU. After a brief stint of research in stem cell development, Rob has rejoined Wolfram Research with the goal of creating new Wolfram technology-based educational initiatives.

YEARS:

 2018  |  2017  |  2016  |  2015

Christian Pasquel

Christian Pasquel was part of the first group to join the Wolfram Research South America offices in Lima, Peru, in 2012. He has a physics background, and has been working on research since 2009. He currently leads the ServiceConnect group in working on connecting the Wolfram Language to external services. His interests include evolutionary biology, astrobiology, artificial intelligence, music, films, playing with data, and everything tech related. A self-proclaimed Wolfram fan, he works on different personal original projects using Mathematica. He is a cat lover, and had the main part in an official music video available online.

YEARS:

 2018  |  2017  |  2016

Dariia Porechna

Dariia Porechna was born and grew up in the beautiful city of Kyiv, Ukraine. In 2016, she graduated with a bachelor's degree in applied maths and cryptology at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. Her graduation project was an attempt to attack the Kuznyechik cipher with differential cryptanalysis. Recently she contributed to research in the field of elliptic curves. Dariia fell deeply in love with the Wolfram Language in early 2015 and attended the Summer School as a student the same year. After graduation, she joined the Wolfram|Alpha team as a part of the localization project. Aside from working, she loves self discovery, reading books and traveling, especially taking long walks around cities and enjoying the ocean views.

YEARS:

 2018  |  2017

Michael Kaminsky

Michael Kaminsky is an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studying computer science.

His interests within the field include neural networks and data visualization. He has worked on Wolfram's neural net repository by translating existing networks into a format usable by the Wolfram Language. He enjoys creating digital art and gaming.

YEARS:

 2018

Douglas Smith

Douglas Smith studied mathematics and computer science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. At Wolfram, he works as a math content developer on the Wolfram|Alpha team. Outside of work, he has interests in linguistics, machine learning, programming languages and other topics. He is also passionate about fiction writing, has recently written a storybook and continues to write for a surrealist newspaper. In his free time, he enjoys music, being outdoors and playing basketball. He plans to attend graduate school in the near future.

YEARS:

 2018

Teaching Assistants

Katie Orenstein

Katie Orenstein is a New York City native and a proud alumna of the Wolfram High School Summer Research Program. Her other love, besides computer science, is theater, and she works to blend the two fields, which she believes have a lot in common. She is passionate about diversity and inclusion in technology (both for consumers and workers) and is very concerned about the ethics of innovations like artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things. Before working at Wolfram, Katie was an intern in the communications and astrophysics departments at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, as well as an improv performer and Shakespeare director. She’s excited to share her experiences in science communication and applied computer science with this year’s Summer Research Program class before she starts at Dartmouth College in the fall. She also loves 30 Rock, Settlers of Catan and everything chocolate.

YEARS:

 2018