About me

I am a fourth-year PhD student in the Department of Statistics at the University of Chicago. I am broadly interested in causal inference, network embedding methods, representation and multi-modal learning, and differential privacy. In particular, my recent work addresses the use of NLP-inspired embedding methods to estimate peer contagion effects on networks, as well as investigating the causal representation learning properties of massive vision-language models, such as CLIP and DALL-E 2. I am very fortunate to be advised by Professor Victor Veitch.

Previously, I completed my undergraduate studies at Duke University, where I double majored in mathematics and statistical science. I had the pleasure to work with Professor Richard Durrett on developing limit theorems for spatio-temporal stochastic processes, to study statistical learning theory with Professor Sayan Mukherjee, and to collaborate with Professor Anita Layton on mathematically modelling renal physiology mechanisms.

Prior to Duke, I was born and raised in Bucharest, Romania, where I nurtured my passion for finding rigorous proofs and explanations, by participating in numerous math contests and olympiads.

e-mail: icristali[at]uchicago.edu