Michael Maurer | Student OpenCBDC Software Engineer Spring 2023-present
Michael is currently a Senior at Northeastern University studying Electrical and Computer Engineering, with minors in Computer Science and Mathematics. He will be working on OpenCBDC as a Software Engineering Intern.
Previously, Michael worked as a research assistant at The Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, developing software-implemented methods for motion-robust NMR image processing. He has also worked as a hardware engineer at Doble Engineering and as a tutor.
Michael has academic interests in high-performance computing, distributed systems, and computer architecture. Michael is also a big sports fan and likes to cook.
Claire Bao | Masters of Engineering
Claire is a Master's of Engineering student at MIT this year after completing her MIT undergrad in Computer Science(6-3) in 3 years. She is currently an MEng research assistant with the MIT DCI after previously doing multiple semesters of undergrad research at the DCI where she had worked on the utreexo project. Her current research aims to improve blockchain security by modeling and investigating blockchain mining behavior in an effort to mitigate undercutting attacks. Outside of her research, she has done multiple internships at various fintech and trading companies, including Stripe and Jump Trading. In her free time, she loves to stay active by going on runs, dancing, and playing sports like soccer, volleyball and tennis.
Ayesha Ali | Masters of Engineering
Ayesha is an MEng student at MIT in the EECS department. Previously, she did her undergrad at MIT in Computer Science (6-3) and Economics (14-1). She is working on scaling privacy-preserving payments for OpenCBDC. Previously, she worked with the City Science group and has interned at Duolingo and Instabase as a software engineer. In her free time, Ayesha likes watching movies and TV shows, especially sitcoms, and hanging out with friends, and she is closely involved with the MIT Muslim Students Association.
Hannah Shen | Strategic Partnerships & Research Associate
Hannah Shen is a 2nd-year MBA student at MIT Sloan focusing on data analytics. At DCI, she serves as the Strategic Partnerships and Research Associate. Hannah was the Co-director of MIT Bitcoin Expo ‘23 and the Co-President of Sloan Blockchain Club. She was a founding member of Next.ID, a decentralized-identity protocol connecting identities across Web2 and Web3. Prior to Sloan, as an early-hire in business and product teams, she grew two media-tech startups in Silicon Valley from zero to one with successful further fundraise / exit. In her spare time, she enjoys comedy, painting, and camping.
Sazma Sarwar | Undergraduate Researcher Fall 2023 and Spring 2024 - Programmability and Treasury Operations
Sazma is a junior at Wellesley College majoring in Computer Science and Economics. She will be working on the Programmability and Treasury Operations project to help design and build a programmable treasury function for use by commercial banks for their corporate clients. She hopes to learn more about the economic impact of digital currencies. In her free time, Sazma enjoys watching TV, trying out a new cafe or restaurant, and occasionally, reading.
Lillian Wang | Undergraduate Researcher Fall 2023 - Proof-of-Work Protocol Modification and Repo Market Intermediation through Smart Contracts
Hello! I’m Lillian, a first year undergraduate likely majoring in Computer Science and Mathematics. I’m from central Texas and Long Island and I love swimming, digital art, and origami. I’m interested in crypto and ZK proofs having done previous research in DeFi, and I’m excited to work in the Digital Currency Initiative.
Nicole Li | Undergraduate Researcher Fall 2023 - Programmability and Treasury Operations
Hello, I’m Nicole! I’m a prospective 18-C (Mathematics with CS) and 15-3 (Finance) double major. I’m interested in anything tech and quantitative finance. Outside of academics, I am on MIT Women’s Lightweight Crew, enjoy digital painting and like to cook!
Willie McClinton | Graduate Researcher Spring 2024
Willie is a Ph.D. candidate in CSAIL at MIT, working on AI and Robotics with Leslie Kaelbling and Tomas Lozano Perez. Before then, he had roles working on Multi-Modality ML Model Competitions at NIST, Perception at Google, and Planning at Boston Dynamics AI Institute. He has also contributed to the launch of the wrapping protocol between Bitcoin and Cardano, and more recently, inspired by time in the MIT Bitcoin Club, he's delving deeper into blockchain research. His current side projects focus on multi-resource blockchain consensus, aiming to validate inference and train AI models in decentralized networks, and on maintenance of DCI’s Central Bank Digital Currency.
Natasha Khoso | Undergraduate Researcher 2024 - User Experience
Natasha is a junior at Wellesley College majoring in Computer Science. She will be conducting UX research for the DCI website, working on wireframing, archiving, and finding potential updates to the site. Natasha is looking forward to developing her design and user research skills while working at the DCI. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, making puzzles, and baking.