Derrick Sun

About Me

I am a graduate student at Purdue University, studying Computer Science. I am especially interested in machine learning and artificial intelligence. I plan to graduate in December 2025.

I got my Bachelor’s degree from the University of California Berkeley, which I graduated from in 2024.

I am also on LinkedIn, and much of my work can be found on GitHub.

My Education

Purdue University(2024-2025)

I am a Master's student at Purdue University studying Computer Science. I plan to graduate in December 2025. At Purdue, I have focused mainly on studying AI and machine learning, with a lesser emphasis on computer security, distributed systems, and compilers.

University of California, Berkeley(2020-2024)

I earned my Bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley, where I did a double major in Computer Science and Applied Math. As a Computer Science major, I focused on machine learning, AI, and algorithms. I also participated in in-context model research.

As a Applied Math major, I also studied statistics and data science.

Westview High School(2016-2020)

I attended Westview High School.

Skills

• Programming Languages: Python, Java, SQL, C/C++, R, MATLAB, Swift, JavaScript, HTML/CSS
• ML/AI Frameworks: PyTorch, TensorFlow, DSPy, Scikit-learn
• Data Tools: Pandas, NumPy, Matplotlib, Seaborn, RStudio, Jupyter
• Cloud & Databases: AWS S3, Redshift, PostgreSQL, MongoDB
• Development Tools: Git, Docker, Prefect, XCode, LaTeX, RISC-V

My Experience

Purdue University: Teaching Assistant(August 2024 - May 2025)

I worked as a graduate teacher's assistant at Purdue University for CS 361 (Great Issues In Computer Science) and CS 182 (Foundations of Computer Science). As a GTA, I designed grading rubrics, led undergraduate assistants in grading assignments, and provided consistent professional correspondence with students and the professors in a timely manner.

Bridger Investment Partners: Data Scientist Intern(May 2024 - August 2024)

I interned with Bridger Investment Partners, an investment firm that focuses on mortgages. I worked as a data scientist, using Prefect to automate their data processing. I also analyzed mortgage data from AWS S3 and Redshift using Python, SQL, and statistics.

NewsBreak: iOS Developer Intern(May 2022 - August 2022)

I interned at NewsBreak, a company that focuses on providing news tailored to a user's location and interests through their mobile app, NewsBreak, under my mentor, Zhengwen Wang. I worked as a front-end programmer for the NewsBreak iOS app, where I used XCode to design a part of the app and became proficient in Swift, data fetching, and programmatic coding in UIKit. The part I designed will be released as the discover-search page of the app.

UCSD Nanomaterials and Nanomedicine Laboratory(June 2019 - March 2020)

I interned at UCSD as a Research Analyst Intern. I implemented modern cell membrane coating technology, including cell counting, pating, culturing, and membrane derivation procedures. I made use of lab equipment such as autoclaves and pipettes. Our results were published in an academic journal: "Cartilage-targeting ultrasmall lipid-polymer hybrid nanoparticles for the prevention of cartilage degradation," Bioengineering & Translational Medicine, 2021; 6; e10187.

My Projects

Recent Projects

Website Construction

This webpage was coded with a mix of markdown, HTML, and Javascript, as well a Bootstrap theme from here. While I have continuously modified the page, it was last modified August 20th, 2025.

Deep Learning for Mushroom Classification (2025)

I developed neural network models and assisted in the development of decision tree and naive bayes models to classify mushroom edibility, and was able to achieve over 90% accuracy on all three. I also helped apply LIME to enhance model interpretability, which showed smell was one of the most dominant factors.

Uncerainty Evaluation with Neural Networks (2025)

I trained neural networks to estimate uncertainty in Walmart sales forecasts, evaluating model performance using quantile calibration error curves. I developed a neural network capable of predicting uncertainty within a 10% margin of error.

Older Projects

County Representatives Website (2023)

I wrote the code for an app that allows for the viewing of representatives of counties in the United States. Counties can be looked up by either name or by clicking on a map of the United States. News articles relevant to certain representatives can also be added. The code is written in a mix of Ruby, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. Testing was done with Cucumber and Rubocop. I had two collaborators when writing this code.

Project Ark (2018)

A simple video game I made using inspiration from various other games. I started this game as a tool to practice my Java skills. The game is run from the driver file in src.