Brandon Cole

About Me

My love for computer science originally stemmed from my childhood passion for video games and from there it flourished into a love for the subject as a whole. My goal is to gain experience in the computer science field and use the knowledge I gain as a means to create helpful and efficient tools.

Academic Journey

I am currently in my fourth year at the University of Maryland - College Park, studying Computer Science with a focus on Cybersecurity. While doing general education courses, I discovered that I am also interested in learning how people think, and why they think the way they do, so I am also taking upper (300/400) level classes in psychology. Over the past 3+ years, I have had the great privilege of working with serveral different programming languages. For example, functional languages, such as OCAML, Dafny, and Haskell, and imperative languages, such as Java, C, Python, and even some AVR assembly.

The rigorous program at UMD has introduced and given me the opportunity to explore numerous topics such as, object-oriented programming, memory allocation, compilers, garbage collection, algorithms, web development, databases/queries, and machine learning to name a few.

Personal Passions

Aside from computer science, my passion for video games is still very alive and I enjoy playing games such as Apex Legends, Monster Hunter, and Marvel Rivals. Some other interests of mine include spending time with friends, music, sewing/fashion, art, and traveling/sightseeing.

Projects

• Mini Shell
Used C to build a mini-shell that could handle commands and supported boolean (using pipes, I/O redirection, exec, threads/processes).
• Functional Compiler
I used OCaml, to implement all three stages of a working compiler; a lexer, a parser, and an evaluator.
Implemented a (Mini-Dafny) compiler using Haskell that used verification conditions for improved functionality.
• Machine Learning
Trained a ML model using data from PlanetTerp that could predict a professors rating based on reviews (sentiment level), department, and course level. 3 models that used linear regression, KNN, and decision trees.
• Web Development (Frontend & Backend)
Created functional websites using HTML/CSS. These websites contained forms and were able to get and post data. Used XAMPP.
Used JavaScript to make a functional Photo Viewer that displayed photos continuously in a random order and could read user uploaded photos. Created an Event Planner using Node.js and Express that relied on databases like MongoDB to store and remove events. This stored the weather on the day of the event and was linked to a person object (JSON notation).
• Data Structures
Used Java to create an original data structure that was similar to a set but could also store duplicates. Constructed functional data structures from scratch (Linked List, HashSet, Binary Search Tree). Wrote iterators for all.

Programming Languages

Java, C, AVR Assembly, HTML/CSS, JavaScript, OCaml, Rust, NodeJS, Express, MongoDB, Python, Pandas, SQL, Unix, R, Haskell, Dafny