About

I’m Avani (pronounced Avni), an M.Sc. Computer Science student at the University of Alberta, supervised by Prof. Levi Lelis and Prof. Jocelyn Chen.

My current work focuses on automating the generation of Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) using an LLM-driven evolutionary search approach. It combines structured prompting with multiple feedback signals (unit test cases, domain reward, and program synthesis feedback on seen tasks) to generate and implement DSLs.

Building this pipeline has pushed me to think hard about software engineering fundamentals: clean abstractions, config-driven experiment design, and writing code that’s easy to iterate on. One thing I’m particularly proud of is how I restructured the pipeline on Compute Canada’s HPC cluster — breaking monolithic jobs into small SLURM jobs that can run in parallel to cut runtime from 4 days to 2, working around fair-share scheduling constraints.

I believe good engineering and good research go hand in hand.

Before my M.Sc., I completed my B.Sc. at NYU Abu Dhabi on a full scholarship, majoring in Computer Science with a minor in Applied Mathematics. I also got to spend a semester at NYU New York, taking classes at both Tandon and CAS, and summer courses at NYU London!

When I’m not at my desk, I’m trying to learn ice skating or tennis!