Tuan (Alan) Le profile picture

Tuan (Alan) Le

M.S. Computer Science Student at Iowa State University.

Ames Area
Iowa, United States

I am a Master's student in Computer Science at Iowa State University. I previously earned a double major in Computer Science and Mathematics from DePauw University with honors. My research interests are trustworthy and secure AI, natural language processing, multi-modal foundation models, large language models, computer vision, and federated machine learning.

Research Interests

Trustworthy and Secure AI, Natural Language Processing, Multi-modal Foundation Models, Large Language Models, Computer Vision, Federated Machine Learning.

Honors and Awards

  • 🥇 1st Prize, NanoGiants Data Analytics Global Hackathon, competed with 200 people from 30+ nations to build user-centric apps and get AI-driven feedback insights [GitHub]
  • Robert J. Thomas Outstanding Computer Science Senior Award, highest honor for Computer Science students at DePauw University - 2024
  • Eugene C. Pulliam Senior Scholarship, a highly competitive, merit-based scholarship awarded to top-performing senior students at DePauw University - 2024
  • Presidential Scholarship & Merit Award, DePauw University - 2020-2024
  • DePauw Dean's List (all semesters) - 2020-2024
  • Deeplearning.AI Natural Language Processing Specialization, completed four advanced courses on Coursera covering Natural Language Processing [Certificate]
  • Deeplearning.AI Deep Learning Specialization, completed five advanced courses on Coursera covering COmputer Vision and Natural Language Processing [Certificate]

Skills

Programming: Python, C++, Java, MATLAB, R, Bash, Git
Cloud Services: AWS EC2, S3, IAM, Bedrock, Azure, GCP
Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence: TensorFlow, Keras, PyTorch, Langchain, Scikit-Learn, OpenCV, SpaCy, NLTK, Hugging Face
Operating Systems: Linux, OS

Iowa State University

Master of Science in Computer Science
Aug 2024 - May 2026
GPA: 4.00/4.00

Coursework: Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Natural Language Processing, Artificial Intelligence, Computational Perception, Robotics and Computer Vision

DePauw University

Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science and Mathematics (Double Majors)
Aug 2020 - May 2024
Overall GPA: 3.85/4.00 | Mathematics GPA: 4.00/4.00 | Computer Science GPA: 3.97/4.00

Computer Science Coursework: Data Mining, Database and File Systems, Data Structures and Algorithms, Graphics, Object-Oriented Programming.

Mathematics Coursework: Statistical Modeling, Linear Algebra, Real Analysis, Calculus III, Ordinary Differential Equation.

2025

Verification-Guided Falsification for Safe RL via Explainable Abstraction and Risk-Aware Exploration
Tuan Le, Risal Shefin, Debashis Gupta, Thai Le, Sarra Alqahtani
European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI 2025). (Submitted)
Byzantine Resilient Federated Multi-Task Representation Learning
Tuan Anh Le, Shana Moothedath
IEEE Global Communications Conference 2025. (Submitted)
Provably federated active multi-task representation learning
Jiabin Lin, Shana Moothedath, Tuan Anh Le
IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing 2025. (Submitted)

2023

Emotion-aware music recommendation
Tran Hieu*, Tuan Le*, Anh Do, Tram Vu, Steven Bogaerts, Brian Howard
In Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, vol. 37, no. 13, pp. 16087-16095. 2023
@article{2023emotionmusic, author = {Hieu, Tran and Le, Tuan and Do, Anh and Vu, Tram and Bogaerts, Steven and Howard, Brian}, year = {2023}, title = {Emotion-aware music recommendation}, journal = {Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence}, volume = {37}, number = {13}, pages = {16087--16095} }

2022

Group-equivariant convolutional neural networks for 3D point clouds
Thieu Ngoc Vo, Phong Xuan Nguyen, Nghia Trung Huynh, Binh Cong Phan, Tuan Anh Le (inventors)
United States Patent US 11,295,170. FPT USA Corp, assignee. 2022 April 5
@misc{2022patent3dpoint, title = {Group-equivariant convolutional neural networks for 3D point clouds}, author = {Vo, Thieu Ngoc and Nguyen, Phong Xuan and Huynh, Nghia Trung and Phan, Binh Cong and Le, Tuan Anh}, year = {2022}, month = {April}, note = {US Patent 11,295,170}, assignee = {FPT USA Corp} }

2025

Iowa State University
Ames, IA
Graduate Teaching Assistant
February 2025 - May 2025
  • Assisted in teaching COMS 127 Introduction to Programming, supporting over 50 students in mastering foundational concepts including data structures, algorithms, and object-oriented programming.
  • Supervised and guided students during weekly lab sessions, clarifying homework and project requirements, and helping students debug and improve their code.
  • Contributed to grading and assessment by evaluating lab submissions, assignments, and exams, ensuring consistent feedback and reinforcing key programming concepts.

2022

DePauw University
Greencastle, IN
Teaching Assistant
March 2022 - August 2022
  • Offered personalized tutoring for Calculus I and II to a class of 20 students, significantly improving comprehension and performance, especially for ESL and underrepresented students.
  • Collaborated with professors to understand their teaching methods and enhance the ability to provide tailored assistance.
  • Held total 40+ hours of office hours to grade makeup quizzes, assist with homework and assignments, and explain lecture notes.

Research Experience

Indiana University
Bloomington, IN
Research Intern to Prof. Thai Le and Prof. Sarra Alqahtani
January 2025 - May 2025
  • Led research on a novel framework for RL safety assurance, combining local and global policy explanations into a unified directed graph abstraction to enable interpretable and structured safety analysis.
  • Applied formal verification with the Storm model checker on the abstracted policy graph and integrated a risk- and uncertainty-guided falsification strategy to explore high-risk or underrepresented states.
  • Developed an ensemble of deep neural network encoders, trained via contrastive learning, to guide the agent toward high-risk and uncertain regions to uncover violations missed by abstraction.
  • Achieved 30% more safety violation detections than baseline methods across three high-stakes domains: Navigation2, Maze (CMDB Mujoco), and a simulated insulin dosing task for Type 1 Diabetes.
Iowa State University
Ames, IA
Research Assistant to Prof. Mengdi Huai
February 2025 - May 2025
  • Researched and implemented approximate unlearning methods to reduce toxicity in large language models by removing memorized toxic data subsets, achieving 15% reduction in toxicity metrics.
  • Fine‑tuned multiple LLMs using toxic prompt templates and datasets and evaluated their toxicity reduction post‑unlearning, proving improved ethical model behavior.
Research Assistant to Prof. Shana Moothedath
August 2024 - December 2024
  • Developed a fast and sample-efficient approach for multi-task active learning when the amount of data from source tasks and target tasks is limited.
  • Proposed an adaptive sampling-based alternating projected gradient descent (GD) and minimization algorithm that iteratively estimates the relevance of each source task to the target task.
  • Evaluated proposed algorithms on Corrupted MNIST datasets, achieving over 12% greater efficiency compared to baseline multi-task learning approaches.
DePauw University
Greencastle, IN
Research Assistant to Prof. Steven Bogaerts and Prof. Brian Howard
March 2022 - August 2022
  • Developed an emotion recognition system using Dynamic Routing for Vision Transformer and Convolutional Neural Networks to recommend music based on human facial expression.
  • Achieved a 9.7% improvement in the performance of the emotion recognition system on the AffectNet dataset, enhancing model accuracy across diverse facial orientations.
  • Integrated the emotion recognition system into a music recommendation platform, demonstrating practical application of AI in enhancing user experience through personalized content suggestions.
FPT Software Company
Richardson, TX
Research Intern to Dr. Thieu Ngoc Vo
April 2021 - August 2022
  • Designed and developed a group equivariant version of the PointNet-like Multi-Layer Perceptron for the 3D point cloud objects, contributing to theoretical proving its efficacy as a group-equivariant universal approximator.
  • Implemented the innovative G-PointConv group equivariant Convolutional Neural Network, achieving state-of-the-art performance in 3D point cloud classification tasks (91.77% on the original ModelNet40 dataset; 91.21% on random rotated datasets).

Work Experience

Zotec Partners Inc
Carmel, IN
AI Engineer Intern
June 2025 - August 2025
  • Designed AI Agent using AWS Bedrock and Claude LLMs to automate SQL query optimization, reducing manual database administration tasks by 85% and improving query performance across enterprise systems.
  • Built scalable RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) system indexing 2000+ enterprise database tables to provide context-aware SQL recommendations and automated troubleshooting.
  • Integrated real-time monitoring capabilities to track query performance metrics and automatically suggest optimization strategies based on historical patterns and database usage analytics.
Zotec Partners Inc
Carmel, IN
Data Science Intern
June 2023 - August 2023
  • Analyzed 3M customer service calls using advanced statistical methods and machine learning techniques to identify patterns, trends, and optimization opportunities in healthcare revenue cycle management.
  • Developed and deployed machine learning models using XGBoost and CatBoost algorithms on AWS SageMaker, achieving 93.11% accuracy in call volume forecasting to optimize staffing and resource allocation.
  • Created automated data pipelines and interactive dashboards to provide real-time insights for business stakeholders, enabling data-driven decision making and improving operational efficiency.

Personal Projects

ChatAgent Project
ChatAgent
GitHub
Next.js, React, LangChain, LangGraph, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, IBM Wxflows, Convex, Clerk, Tailwind CSS, TypeScript

A full-stack AI chatbot built with Next.js that can interact with users in real-time using streaming responses. The agent can execute various tools autonomously and provides a terminal-like interface to display tool operations, making it suitable for a wide range of applications including data retrieval, analysis, and task automation.

  • Real-Time Streaming Chat Interface: Implemented Server-Sent Events (SSE) for streaming responses with typing indicators, providing immediate feedback and natural conversation flow using Next.js API Routes and React components.
  • Autonomous Tool Execution Framework: Integrated LangChain and LangGraph for agent workflow orchestration with Claude 3.5 Sonnet, enabling the AI to autonomously select and execute appropriate tools based on user queries with visual terminal-like display.
  • Multi-Modal Information Retrieval: Built comprehensive tool suite including Google Books API integration for book search and detailed information retrieval, Wikipedia Search API for encyclopedia content, and YouTube transcript extraction supporting multiple languages.
  • Enterprise-Grade Authentication & Data Management: Implemented Clerk authentication system with Convex database for persistent chat history, user management, and secure data handling across multi-turn conversations with context preservation.
  • Advanced Customer Data Analytics: Developed customer information retrieval system with access to names, addresses, order histories, shipping tracking, and comments data including user engagement metrics and post analytics.
SQLGenius Project
SQLGenius
GitHub
Python, Flask, OpenAI API, SQLite

SQL Query Generator Using Large Language Model. Through a user-friendly web application, users input database schemas, feature specifications, and requirements in natural language. SQLGenius will generate the SQL query for developers and non-technical users to get insights from data.

  • Efficient Database Schema Management: Users can define and edit database schema by interacting with the UI or uploading CSV files containing the data, streamlining the schema creation process.
  • Database Schema Visualization: Provides visual representation of the input database schema including table structures and column relationships for better understanding and validation.
  • Natural Language SQL Generation: Converts natural language requirements into SQLite code by gathering information from database schema and user specifications, bridging the gap between technical and non-technical users.
  • Automated Query Creation: Significantly accelerates query development process, offering an efficient and accessible solution that revolutionizes database interaction for both developers and non-technical users.
MovieNet Project
MovieNet
GitHub
React.js, Node.js, Express.js, Socket.io, Firebase, PostgreSQL, Bootstrap CSS

A next-generation movie streaming platform offering a feature-rich viewing experience, equipped with real-time interactive capabilities for movie enthusiasts and cinephiles.

  • Secure User Authentication: Implemented seamless sign-in using Google and traditional email/password methods with Firebase integration, ensuring secure data handling and smooth user access.
  • Extensive Movie Library: Built comprehensive movie database integration with The Movie Database (TMDB) API, enabling users to explore vast collections and stream both classic favorites and new releases.
  • Real-Time Commenting System: Developed community-driven commenting functionality using Socket.io that updates in real-time, allowing users to share thoughts and insights on scenes as they unfold during viewing.
  • Personalized Recommendations: Created intelligent recommendation engine that learns user viewing habits and preferences to provide tailored movie suggestions, enhancing content discovery.
  • High-Quality Streaming: Implemented adaptive streaming technology that automatically adjusts video quality based on internet speed, ensuring optimal viewing experience across different connection types.