yale hacker house

Oliver Hime

Statistics & Data Science

Oliver Hime is a junior at Yale studying Statistics & Data Science. He is the Co-Founder of UnitZero, which is scaling the world's largest robotic training factory, and currently has over 100 employees and 80 robotic arms. He previously built a recycled-plastic clothing company backed by Cambridge University and created an online tutoring platform that grew to 10,000 users. Oliver previously worked as a Software Engineer at Daemo.ai and interned at a top European venture capital firm. Oliver is the Co-President of the Yale Entrepreneurial Society and a Z Fellow.

Leïa Ryan

Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry and Philosophy

Leïa Ryan is a junior at Yale studying Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry. She is the Co-Founder of Cortex, a neurosymbolic AI platform that is building the ontology and reasoning infrastructure for modern biology, which recently raised $600,000 in pre-seed funding led by Long Journey Ventures. She previously worked at Kallyope on migraine asset development and conducts research at the Yale School of Medicine, where she developed multi-omic cell maps for drug-response prediction. She also built E(3)-equivariant graph neural networks for 3D chromatin reconstruction from Hi-C data. She is the Co-President of the Yale Entrepreneurial Society.

Freeman Irabaruta

Computer Science

Freeman Irabaruta is a graduating senior at Yale studying Computer Science. He is the Co-Founder of UnitZero, which is scaling the world's largest robotic training factory, and currently has over 100 employees and 80 robotic arms. He previously interned at NVIDIA in a systems role, co-founded Bwenge-Lab, a data labeling startup operating in Rwanda, and worked on a Department of Defense project using drones and edge machine learning for threat neutralization. Freeman is a Z Fellow.

James Masson

Mathematics and Computer Science

James Masson is a junior at Yale, studying Mathematics and Computer Science. He is the Founder of NADE (Neural Anomaly Detection Engine), a physical-layer intrusion detection system for optical inter-satellite links that is being developed in partnership with the U.S. Military and the Space Development Agency through SBIR. He also works with OpenAI on the development of Codex, their agentic coding platform. Previously, he was a design partner for Epicenter (YC S25) and researched algorithmic game theory with the NYU Department of Economics.

Riya Bhargava

Biomedical Engineering and Philosophy

Riya Bhargava is a graduating senior at Yale who studied Biomedical Engineering and Philosophy. She is the Co-Founder of Cortex, a neurosymbolic AI platform building the ontology and reasoning for modern biology, which recently raised $600,000 in pre-seed funding led by Long Journey Ventures. She previously interned at Schrödinger, where she worked on free-energy perturbation (FEP) and molecular dynamics simulations for drug discovery. At the Yale School of Medicine, she researched epigenetic regulation in cancer and developed software for large-scale DNA methylation analysis, as well as graph neural network models for RNA structure prediction.

Ariyan Patel

Electrical Engineering and Economics

Ariyan Patel is a sophomore at Yale studying Electrical Engineering and Economics. He previously co-founded Pathlight, an AI accessibility company building voice-first tools for blind and low-vision users. Through Pathlight and his broader work in accessibility, Ariyan reached more than 60,000 blind and low-vision people across the U.S. He has also worked in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Pennsylvania House of Representatives on public health initiatives. He is now building in the healthcare space while serving as Co-President of the Yale Entrepreneurial Society.

Lucas Santos

Cognitive Science

Lucas Santos is a senior at Yale studying Cognitive Science. He is the Co-Founder of Density Partners, an AI legal services startup. Lucas previously led operations at Mylon, a startup developing AI agents for education, backed by Pear VC. At Yale, he co-authored the school's AI guidelines and conducted research on behavioral addiction at the Yale School of Medicine.

Murad Abdukholikov

Computer Science

Murad Abdukholikov is a senior at Yale studying Computer Science and is the founder of Tillr Robotics, which builds autonomous drones for American orchards. Tillr's drones use AI to detect crop disease and identify pests. Murad grew up farming in Uzbekistan, and Tillr trains its systems in Central Asia. Before Tillr, he built an AI research agent at Yale's Interactive Machines Group, prototyped a wearable headset at a startup, and at 15, sold a point-of-sale system to a local business.

Bruno Bruno

Computer Science, Mathematics, and Economics

Bruno Bruno is a senior at Yale studying Computer Science, Mathematics, and Economics. He is the founder of Kesho, one of Africa's pioneering prediction markets. Born and raised in Tanzania, he previously co-founded nSynq, a company offering ERP & EOR solutions for African businesses. Prior to that, he interned at TSL, a leading stockbroker on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange.

Héctor Miranda Plaza

Statistics & Data Science and Political Science

Héctor Miranda Plaza is a graduating Yale senior from Puerto Rico who studied Statistics & Data Science and Political Science. He is the Founder of Village, a digital cooperative finance platform that enables groups to create and use pooled saving and lending groups by providing ready-to-use financial, legal, and governance infrastructure. He has previously conducted research at the Kensington Fund, focusing on US-China tech hardware volatility, and worked at a longevity biomarker startup incubated at the Yale School of Medicine.

Allah-u-Abha Rodrigues

Computer Science and Statistics & Data Science

Allah-u-Abha (Rodrigues) is a senior at Yale, studying Computer Science and Statistics & Data Science. He is the Founder of Regilon, a property-tax intelligence platform that uses machine learning, statistical modeling, and document intelligence to help commercial real estate owners detect likely overassessments, understand potential savings, and prepare stronger evidence before appeal deadlines.

Joshua Gao

Mechanical Engineering and Economics

Joshua Gao is a graduating senior at Yale who studied Mechanical Engineering and Economics. As the Co-Founder of Vault Kinetics, a startup that uses advanced pressure sensors, biomechanical analysis, and AI to track athlete performance, he led research at Yale Engineering to develop the company's IP. He grew up in New Hampshire and played over 15 sports, including sailing, and recently declined a team invitation to sail around the world.

Paul Douglass

History

Paul Douglass is a graduating senior at Yale who studied History. He is the Co-Founder of Vault Kinetics, a startup that uses advanced pressure sensors, biomechanical analysis, and AI to track athlete performance. He is a nationally competitive collegiate powerlifter who understands training realities and has led high-stakes teams. As a freshman, he created Yale's largest student-led fundraiser, raising over $60,000. As a kid, he spent his time building FPV racing drones and winning national poetry competitions.

Osama Radi

Computer Science & Economics

Osama Radi is a sophomore at Yale studying Computer Science & Economics. Previously, he founded Assure5, a preventative healthcare platform that scaled to 13,000 users across hospitals in over 40 countries, and developed the Classifier for Demyelinating Disease, a novel machine learning architecture presented at the IEEE BHI and the Asian Conference on Computer Vision. He's spending the summer at the house to meet and connect with founders and VCs.