S6E7: Dr. TJ LaGrow on Machine Learning & More

On this episode, host Tanmay Shah chats with Adeena Mignogna, an OMSCS graduate, aerospace mission architect, systems engineer, published author, and podcaster.  TIMESTAMPS- (00:00) - Cold Open (01:10) - Episode Begins (03:25) - Adeena's Academic History (09:29) - Early Career (16:00) - Advice on Space career (22:00) - Pursuing OMSCS  (33:47) - SciFi novels and creative hobbies (37:45) - Career advice (39:21) - Trivia (41:54) - Episode Outro  VISIT https://omscs.gatech.edu/omscs-buzz-podcast  for the entire catalog of episodes and our Feedback & Guest Nomination Form. EDITOR- Sid Ramesh

On this episode, host Tanmay Shah chats with Dr. TJ LaGrow. He teaches CS 7641 at Georgia Tech, one of the largest Machine Learning courses in the country.  Dr. LaGrow is a quadruple degree holder from Tech, and prior to being a Yellow Jacket, he worked at a medical imaging startup. He’s passionate about the intersection of artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and scalable education.TIMESTAMPS- (00:00) - Cold Intro (02:15) - Reflection on theater days starting in high school (03:58) - Decided a PhD would lead to a more stable life (10:32) - Choice to go to Georgia Tech (15:33) - Talks about getting into work on diabetic retinopathy (18:30) - More on diabetic retinopathy, prevalent in rural areas (21:50) - Advice about startup incubators (27:18) - What excites you about machine learning today? (33:12) - Talks about his favorite books about AI and ML (37:20) - FlexStack program VISIT ⁠https://omscs.gatech.edu/omscs-buzz-podcast⁠  for the entire catalog of episodes and our Feedback & Guest Nomination Form. EDITOR – Jim Lohse

On this episode, host Tanmay Shah chats with  Dr. Ellen Zegura. She is a Regents Professor in the School of Computer Science at Georgia Tech, a Fellow of both the ACM and IEEE, and the recipient of Georgia Tech's highest faculty honor — the Class of 1934 Distinguished Professor Award. Over a 30-year career, she has shaped the internet's foundational architecture through topology modeling and Software-Defined Networking, pushed the limits of connectivity in disconnected corners of the world, and built an entirely new discipline around computing for social good. In this episode, you'll hear about her remarkable career arc, the hard lessons of doing technology work in the real world, and what it actually takes to make computing matter beyond the lab.TIMESTAMPS- (0:00) - Cold Intro (1:13) - Episode begins (2:10) - Internship experience (7:20) - PhD journey (11:17) - Influential Web in the 1990s (14:25) - GT-ITM Network Generator Project, network topological structure (18:07) - Olympics Comes to Atlanta(23:10) - Disruption Tolerant Networks and Message Variance (Discussion of Origin of Software Defined Networking) (31:45) - Development of the Internet, What’s Stressing the Internet? (38:26) - Mobile Revolution’s Effect on GA Tech; Creation of Schools under CoC (44:06) - Computing for Good and Travels to Liberia(50:40) - Role at the National Science Foundation (NSF)  VISIT https://omscs.gatech.edu/omscs-buzz-podcast  for the entire catalog of episodes and our Feedback & Guest Nomination Form. EDITOR – Jim Lohse

On this episode, host Tanmay Shah chats with friend of the show, Dr. David Joyner, making his third appearance. As Executive Director of Online Education & OMSCS in Georgia Tech's College of Computing, Dr. Joyner is a Tech mainstay. In this episode, we’ll dive into topics like knowledge-based AI, the future of pedagogy, and more.  TIMESTAMPS- (0:00) - Cold Open (1:24) - Episode Begins (3:06) - KBAI course beginning (6:44) - Knowledge encoding and LLMs (14:52) - Edtech and LLMs (31:00) - Automation in different fields  (44:49) - Rapid Fire round (1:04:36) - Outro VISIT https://omscs.gatech.edu/omscs-buzz-podcast for the entire catalog of episodes and our Feedback & Guest Nomination Form. EDITOR – Sid Ramesh

On this episode, host Tanmay Shah chats with  Dr. Joy Arulraj. He is an Associate Professor in the School of Computer Science, leading the Advanced Database Systems Lab with groundbreaking work at the intersection of database systems, non-volatile memory, and AI integration. In this episode, you’ll hear about his career journey and incredibly fascinating research across data systems and machine learning. TIMESTAMPS- (0:00) - Cold Open (1:05) - Episode begins (2:02) - Internship experience (7:17) - PhD journey (11:29) - Databases and LLMs (17:28) - AI use in improving Databases  (32:02) - PDF Parsing problem (38:00) - Database implementation course (40:55) - Rapid fire round LINKS FROM THE EPISODE-1. Bw-Tree - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/bw-tree-icde2013-final.pdf2. BzTree - https://www.vldb.org/pvldb/vol11/p553-arulraj.pdf3. EvaDB - https://github.com/georgia-tech-db/evadb4. TokenSmith - https://github.com/georgia-tech-db/tokensmith5. Intel Center for Visual Computing - https://www.openedgecomputing.org/blog/index.htmlHN comments on the impact of LLMs on education - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=474779257. BuzzDB - https://buzzdb-docs.readthedocs.io/8. Andy Pavlo's Database Course at CMU - https://15445.courses.cs.cmu.edu/9. Uber's indexing system - https://www.uber.com/us/en/blog/h3/10. Rajni Restaurant - https://rajniatl.com/11. Soldiers and Cooks restaurant - https://www.cooksandsoldiers.com/VISIT https://omscs.gatech.edu/omscs-buzz-podcast for the entire catalog of episodes and our Feedback & Guest Nomination Form. EDITOR – Sid Ramesh

On this episode, host Tanmay Shah chats with Vaibhav Jain.  He’s a Tech Lead who’s built high-impact systems across India, Singapore, and the Netherlands. From scaling logistics with machine learning to architecting low-latency crypto fraud detection, he’s done it all while leading teams across multiple time zones. But he’s not just building systems; he’s building people. Vaibhav is an OMSCS alum, a mentor to over 40 engineers, and has conducted senior interviews for tech giants like Palantir and Coinbase. If you want to know what it takes to operate with a global mindset, this is the episode for you. TIMESTAMPS- (00:00) - Cold Intro (01:50) Involved in competitive programming, preparation for software engineering career (05:08) Moved from India to Singapore to explore, thought process, cultural differences (08:37) Differences in ways of working in Singapore between India startup and Singapore "scale-up" (11:45) How to motivate and persuade people when people might be resistant (14:38) "Leading from the front" and building teams that work together (17:50) Differences between junior and senior engineers (20:32) Moving to technical side, differences between real-time and event-driven (25:45) move to Amsterdam to work for crypto company (29:00) System design approach switching from tracking parcels to tracking finance (32:01) How agentic tools like Claude Code are changing the way fraud is perpetrated (35:01) What is good enough in software development related to fiduciary duties (38:58) Where does the OMSCS program come into the picture, reasons for attending (42:41) How does OMSCS keep up with the needs of the global audience (44:45) Rapid fire questions: counties visited, programming languages, travel, hiking, and more (47:48) Closing thoughts: How OMSCS has been helpful and bridging gaps VISIT https://omscs.gatech.edu/omscs-buzz-podcast for the entire catalog of episodes and our Feedback & Guest Nomination Form. EDITOR – Jim Lohse 

On this episode, host Tanmay Shah chats with Dr. Ana Mary Rusch and Alex Duncan, two members of OMSCS staff and the OMSCS Buzz team!Dr. Ana Mary Rusch has a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and with second majors in both Geography and Political Science, a master’s degree in Geography, and a Ph.D. in Global and Sociocultural Studies, all from Florida International University. Dr. Rusch has worked with online education for most of her career in different capacities across content and design with a focus on research and teaching. Currently, Dr. Rusch’s current research focuses on online education, at-scale education, and affordable degrees and has published in several avenues such as Learning @ Scale and SIGCSE Technical Symposium.Alex is the Associate Director of Student Experience for OMSCS. He oversees course maintenance, addresses student feedback, and chairs the annual OMSCS Conference. His research interests lie at the intersection of online education, learning at scale, and student experience. TIMESTAMPS- (0:00) - Cold Intro(3:16) - Alex's Introduction and Academic background (9:34) - Ana's Introduction and Academic background (21:55) - OMSCS and Covid 19 (24:58) - Day in the Life(34:38) - OMSCS Moonshot Ideas(41:00) - OMSCS Conference (51:47) - Closing Thoughts VISIT https://omscs.gatech.edu/omscs-buzz-podcast for the entire catalog of episodes and our Feedback & Guest Nomination Form. EDITOR – Sid Ramesh

On this episode, host Tanmay Shah chats with  Dr. Maria Konte. She is a researcher at Georgia Tech whose work sits at the intersection of Internet security, network measurements, and online misinformation. She’s done incredible work uncovering how malicious actors exploit online ecosystems and how we can build safer, more trustworthy digital spaces. TIMESTAMPS- (0:00) - Cold Intro (02:05) From Greece to Boston to Georgia Tech Researcher / Professor (05:10) Internship at Verisign Labs with Cybersecurity team as PhD student (09:50) Early research focused on identifying abused networks and social media research (12:15) Course Navigator Lab building a product to help students choose classes (21:45) Discussion of RAG Architecture for Course Navigator (with AI Agents) (22:47) Teaching Computer Networks (26:07) Teaching Modern Internet Research Methods course (29:53) Creative thinking in research, "is there an art to doing research?" (33:42) What sorts of research projects and topics are interesting to Dr. Konte? VISIT https://omscs.gatech.edu/omscs-buzz-podcast for the entire catalog of episodes and our Feedback & Guest Nomination Form. EDITOR – Jim Lohse 

On this episode, host Tanmay Shah chats with Erik Goh. Erik is an OMSCS student with a fascinating career ranging from film freelancing to startups to academic research at the intersection of media, machine learning, and computer science education. TIMESTAMPS-(0:00) - Cold Intro (1:15) - Episode begin (02:19) - From film industry to tech  (08:52) - Discovery of GANs and their potential for music and video  (09:58) - Major contract in Singapore  (14:10) - Building the Lightbox tool for professors (17:10) - Bridging startup life with OMSCS (24:43) - Balancing marketing career, marriage, and OMSCS (34:43) - Unsupervised learning work in CS 8903 and advice to learners VISIT ⁠https://omscs.gatech.edu/omscs-buzz-podcast⁠ for the entire catalog of episodes and our Feedback & Guest Nomination Form. EDITOR – James Lohse 

On this episode, host Tanmay Shah chats with Bree Shi—Research Program Director in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech and founder of the Human-Augmented Analytics Group. Bree’s work bridges AI, bioinformatics, and innovative online programs, empowering students and researchers across disciplines. In this conversation, we explore the creation of HAAG, her approach to mentorship, and the future of collaborative research in a digital world.  TIMESTAMPS- (0:00) - Cold Intro  (1:20) - Episode begin (4:00) - Bio Mathematics academic background (9:04) - Programming background (11:04) - HAAG research group (27:00) - Learnings from online research (37:00) - Advise to OMSCS students  VISIT ⁠https://omscs.gatech.edu/omscs-buzz-podcast⁠ for the entire catalog of episodes and our Feedback & Guest Nomination Form. EDITOR – Sid Ramesh