Harshal Chaudhari
Personal Information
Date of Birth
Contact
Website
May 14, 1991
harshal@bu.edu
+1-857-294-8568
http://cs-people.bu.edu/harshal
Research Interests
Statistical data analysis in E-commerce, Bayesian Learning
Education
2015–current
Ph.D. in Computer Science, Boston University
Research Adviser : Prof. John Byers
GPA : 4.0/4
2013–2015
2009–2013
M.S. in Computer Science, Boston University
B.E.(Hons.) in Computer Science, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani
Research Experience
Fall 2015
Impact of Zero-price Promotions on Sales: A case study of Amazon Appstore, Ongoing
Supervisor : Prof. John Byers
Amazon, after making a late entry in the app economy, has captured considerable marketshare by providing
attractive deep discounted promotions like ‘Free App of the Day’. Even though such promotions offer highly sought
after visibility to the participating developers, they only benefit if the incremental post promotion sales offset the
cost of ‘free giveaways’ on the day of promotion. In this work, I perform a rigorous statistical analysis to show that
exposure received during such promotions does not always lead to incremental future sales. Moreover, the utility of
the promotions strongly depend on the app characteristics themselves.
Fall 2014
Identity discovery challenge
Instructor : Prof. Peter Chin
In a course project on Compressed Sensing, we aimed at using compressed sensing techniques to identify a potential
disease carrier from a sparse healthcare dataset, using his incomplete record. We used Bayesian mixture models
and Expectation-Maximization to identify overlapping communities. Identifying the community to which the partial
record belongs to reduces the search space by an order of magnitude. Within this community, we used shortest
paths between attributes of the incomplete record to identify a set of potential disease carriers.
Spring 2014
De-anonymizing users across social networks
Supervisors : Prof. John Byers, Prof. Evimaria Terzi
We evaluated the efficacy of privacy measures on social networks; we conjecture that it is possible to map users
across different networks using the similarity of the induced subgraphs of users irrespective of their privacy settings.
We used de-anonymizing coverage of a social network based on its look-ahead to compute a lower bound on the
number of completely observable users required to de-anonymize the entire network and validated it on synthetic
power-law graphs.
To verify results on real datasets, I extensively scraped Quora and Instagram, by reverse engineering XHR
requests to scrape dynmaically loaded AJAX content. I also gave a talk on techniques of data collection and
organization for computational journalism at the “Story Telling with Data” conference at Boston University.
Spring 2012
Cluster Labeling Using Term Ranking
Supervisor : Prof. Rajendra Roul
Modified Google’s PageRank algorithm to incorporate undirected edges and edge weights in a relational graph and
segregate keywords of a cluster into categories of discriminative, ambiguous and common terms. The high ranking
discriminative terms are used to extract generic cluster labels from the external sources such as pre-categorized
knowledge of Wikipedia.
Work Experience
Summer 2015
Personalized Marketing User Simulator, Globys Inc., Seattle, USA
Developed a user simulator for personalized marketing platform, Amplero, developed by Globys Inc. The
characterstics of the simulated users are derived from real world telecom usage data in a probabilistic manner.
It removes operational lag associated with marketing, facilitates A/B testing for various predictive models devised by Amplero. Modular design of the user simulator further enables fine tuned differential analysis of the strategies.
Spring 2013
Clone Prioritization Algorithm, Siemens Corporate Research, Bangalore, India
Developed a strategy for identification of code clones and optimal resource allocation for clone refactoring. Modeled
this as a multi-constrained, multi-objective Knapsack problem and investigated various heuristics in multi-criterion
branch and bound algorithms in addition to evolutionary algorithms based on Pareto optimality. We developed an
Eclipse plugin for the assessment of code duplication characteristics. In my leisure, I also implemented a customized
version of GIT on SCR servers.
Summer 2011
Database Management System for Production charts, KPCL, India
Developed a PHP API and a Web application for migration from legacy data storage to a centralized database
system. The data extracted from the gearbox production design charts is presented in an organised sequential
manner to the managers of the production process. This software is being used at Kirloskar Pneumatic Company
Ltd., India (KPCL) and has increased the efficiency by reducing production time by over 20%.
Teaching Experience
Fall 2014
Summer 2014
Fall 2013
Spring 2014
CS131 : Combinatoric Structures, Instructor : Prof. John Byers
The course provides a strong background in mathematics to computer science majors. My responsibilities include
designing questions for lab sessions, leading discussion hours in addition to grading exams.
CS111 : Introduction to Java Programming, Instructor : Prof. David Sullivan
I am responsible for lab sessions, discussion hours, grading of over 200 students along with review lectures. At the
end of the year, I was rated 4.7/5 on an average for my teaching capabilities by over 400 students.
Key Academic Projects
Spring 2014
Modelling Königsberg Problem in Alloy Analyzer
We used Alloy specification language to model the famous Königsberg problem. Our model verified the predicate that no Eulerian path exists in an undirected graph representing the seven Königsberg bridges. We further
generalized the model to show that an Eulerian path exists if and only if every vertex of the graph has an even degree.
Fall 2013
MemOS - Operating System
Programmed a barebone OS that boots via GRUB and probes system BIOS. It features a preemptive round-robin
thread scheduler functionality, implementation of a custom filesystem based on EXT2 and its corresponding file
operations. Implementation in C and assembly languages.
Fall 2013
Multi-threaded Streaming Video Server
Implemented a multithreaded server that streams sequences of Star Wars video frames, via sockets, to client threads.
It also supports text based client requests. Advanced part of this project involved adding monitor abstraction and
synchronisation routines in the kernel space.
Fall 2013
Author Disambiguation
Implemented duplicate author detection over a Microsoft Academic Search database of 2 million authors. Identification criterion uses metadata such as publication topics, affiliations and co-authors along with fuzzy name matching.
Implemented in a mutithreaded program that iteratively maximizes precision and recall.
Autumn 2012
Android Lens
Developed an Android application which recreates the universal search functionality of Ubuntu Unity dock. It
combines the search functionality of major websites like Wikipedia, YouTube, Amazon, eBay, etc. as well as local
phone media. User has the ability to dynamically add more search Lenses via Google Play.
Spring 2012
Convex Polygon Parser
As a part of Compilers course, a lex based convex polygon parser was developed. The parser takes bitmap image as
its input and identifies the number of sides of a polygon.
Hobby Robotics Projects
Summer 2010
Micromouse, a maze solving robot
Developed an autonomous maze solving robot which uses the A∗ algorithm for path planning. Novel techniques
like chopper control of stepper motors, modeling inverse kinematics are used to achieve better performance.
Programmed an algorithm simulator using GTK and a RF debug interface for development.
Spring 2009
Line Grid Solver
Developed an autonomous line grid solving robot programmed to find the least expensive route to the goal in
an unknown grid using Dijkstra’s algorithm. It uses control systems feedback techniques like PID with inverse
kinematics for proper positioning of the robot.
Awards and Scholarships
Academic
2007–2012
2005–2007
2005–2007
National Talent Search Scholarship by the Government of India.
Maharashtra Talent Search Scholarship by the Government of Maharashtra state.
Bombay Talent Search Scholarship.
Miscellaneous
2004
1st place in All India Camel Color Contest.
Over 100 awards at state and zonal levels in painting, chess and quizzes.
Extra-curricular activities
2011–2012
Chief Designer, Department of Arts and Decoration, BITS Pilani
I was responsible for various art related activities of the institute. I designed logos and branding material for institute
cultural, technical and sports events.
2011
Co-ordinator, Kala, Fine arts club of BITS Pilani
I played a pivotal role in the foundation of the club and organised art events in the institute. I also conducted a series
of workshops on Digital Art and portraiture.
2009–2011
Chief Artist, Department of Creative Works, BITS Pilani
I was responsible for designing and development of websites of institute festivals, conferences and other departments.
I conducted workshop on Website Designing and Development.
Skills
Programming
Softwares
Python, Java, MATLAB, R, C/C++, Javascript, Php, MySQL.
OpenCV, Xilinx, Verilog VHDL, Omnet++, Pspice, Eagle CAD,
Autocad.
Recommendations
Prof. John Byers
Professor, Department of Computer Science,
Boston University, Boston.
Ph. No. +1-617-353-8925
byers @ cs.bu.edu
Prof. Evimaria Terzi
Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science,
Boston University, Boston.
Ph. No. +1-617-358-5851
evimaria @ cs.bu.edu
Dr. Oliver Downs
Chief Technology Officer and Chief Scientist,
Globys Inc., Seattle.
Ph. No. +1-206-352-3055
odowns @ globys.com