Storrs, CT · B.S. Computer Science & Engineering + B.S. Mathematics, UConn

Luis Mendez

Building at the intersection of AI/ML, quantum computing, and applied security — currently researching computer vision at UConn and shipping hackathon projects that keep placing.

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01About

I'm a dual-degree Computer Science & Engineering / Mathematics student at the University of Connecticut, concentrating in AI, and expecting to graduate in April 2027. My work spans two threads: research — pose-based person re-identification, transportation infrastructure detection with Vision Transformers, and stochastic process simulation — and fast-moving hackathon builds in quantum computing and Bitcoin/Lightning security, several of which have placed first. I'm active in Husky Developers, SHPE, ColorStack, AI Club, the Quantum Computing Club, and Codepath.

02Experience

  1. Undergraduate Researcher — Person Re-Identification

    May 2025 – Present

    Dr. Yuan Hong Research Lab, UConn · Advisor: Dr. Hanbin Hong

    • Developing a pose-based Person Re-Identification (ReID) model for robust identity matching.
    • Exploring keypoint refinement, Brownian motion augmentation, and Vision Transformers to improve embedding consistency.
    • Implementing and benchmarking model variants for accuracy and robustness under occlusion and pose variation.

  2. Transportation Systems Research (CTDOT Collaboration)

    2025 – Present

    Dr. Yuan Hong Research Lab, UConn · Advisors: Dr. Hanbin Hong, Dr. Kai Wang

    • Developed a Vision Transformer model for detecting centerline rumble strips from roadway imagery.
    • Built a scalable computer vision pipeline for automated infrastructure detection on large-scale datasets.
    • Designed data pipelines for frame extraction, sampling, and annotation across multi-terabyte roadway archives.

  3. Research Assistant — Department of Mathematics

    Sep 2025 – Dec 2025

    University of Connecticut · with Graduate Assistant Albert Michael

    • Simulated Brownian motion and stochastic differential systems for applied probability research.
    • Developed Python-based simulation and visualization tools for random processes and diffusion phenomena.
    • Performed numerical verification of theoretical models related to stochastic convergence behavior.

  4. Software Engineer Intern — Valour Software (Open Source)

    Sep 2024 – Jan 2025
    • Contributed 10,000+ lines of code to a community-driven platform using Git and agile workflows.
    • Developed a user engagement feature enabling reactions via RESTful APIs and a modular frontend.
    • Extended the database schema using ModuleBuilder, supporting 5,000+ active users.

03Publications

When Do Quantum Kernels Help?

Preprint · 2026

An Empirical and Diagnostic Study of the ZZ Feature Map · Qiskit-free NumPy simulation

  • From-scratch, exactly-simulated ZZ feature-map fidelity kernel, validated bit-for-bit against an independent brute-force implementation.
  • On an engineered positive control, the quantum kernel reaches 98.3% accuracy vs. 48–53% (chance) for classical kernels.
  • On the real MiniBooNE particle-identification benchmark, the result reverses: classical kernels hit 81–87% while the quantum kernel collapses to the 71.7% majority-class baseline — diagnosed via kernel-target alignment and kernel-value concentration.

Read paper →

04Projects

Markov Lab

Independent Project · 2026

Julia · Vanilla JS/SVG · Discrete-time stochastic simulation

  • Discrete-time Markov chain simulator written in Julia, paired with a from-scratch browser frontend: an editable transition matrix, a live state-transition graph, and a step scrubber tying the two together.
  • Validates against theory in real time — the stationary distribution is computed independently by power iteration and compared to the simulated population via total variation distance.
  • Part of a small suite of from-scratch Julia scientific simulators, including a reimplementation of the quantum-kernel fidelity simulator above, cross-validated to machine precision (5.6×10⁻¹⁵) against the original NumPy version.

View repo →

Aegis Wallet

MIT Bitcoin 2026 · Top 10

Bitcoin · Lightning (LND/litd) · MCP · Node.js · Next.js

  • Secure MCP server exposing 7 wallet tools for agent-driven transactions with macaroon-based authentication.
  • AI-agent wallet interface enabling autonomous transaction execution without exposing private keys.
  • Lightning Network integrated in Docker with account-based isolation and scoped permissions.

View repo →

Quantum Risk Engineering

MIT iQuHACK 2026 · 1st Place

Qiskit · NumPy · SciPy · Matplotlib · Classiq

  • Benchmarked Monte Carlo vs. Iterative Quantum Amplitude Estimation for VaR and CVaR.
  • Demonstrated quadratic error-scaling improvement of quantum methods across precision levels.
  • Proposed Soft-CVaR, cutting quantum circuit depth ~5x and improving NISQ feasibility.

View repo →

Full Quantum Hash Function

Yale · 1st Place

Qiskit · NumPy · Matplotlib

  • Designed a quantum-secure hash function using quantum walks and parametric circuits.
  • Encoded classical inputs into entangled quantum states for fixed-length outputs.
  • Validated entropy, determinism, and collision resistance on IBM's 20-qubit simulator.

View repo →

Phoenix

HackHarvard 2025

Google Cloud Vision (Gemini) · PyTorch · React · Flask

  • AI platform leveraging Google Cloud Vision to enhance document intelligence.
  • Visual similarity system using Vision Transformers and cosine similarity.
  • Full-stack application for real-time feature extraction and analytics visualization.

View repo →

Neural Data Visualization Tool

HackDartmouth

C++ · ImGui · CMake · Python (SciPy, NumPy)

  • Real-time C++ application to visualize spike-based neural signals.
  • Applied bandpass filtering and normalization to raw waveform data.
  • Implemented multithreaded rendering for low-latency performance.

View repo →

05Open Source Contributions

Fixes I've shipped to codebases I don't own — found through real bug reports, root-caused by reading the actual source, and sent through each project's normal review process.

Cherry Markdown

Merged · PR #1847

Tencent · 4.8k★ · JS/CSS

  • Root-caused a CSS bug where the code-block toolbar's copy/edit icons balloon up and overlap when a user increases the editor's base font size.
  • Traced it to a missing icon-size constraint the rest of the toolbar already used elsewhere, and fixed it with a 4-line change.

View PR #1847 →

Microsoft STL

Merged · PR #6393

Microsoft · C++ · MSVC's implementation of the C++ Standard Library

  • Bumped the _MSVC_STL_UPDATE compatibility macro to the current release month in yvals_core.h, closing that month's tracking issue as part of the repo's regular update cadence.

View PR #6393 →

OpenManage Enterprise

Merged · PR #254

Dell · PowerShell

  • Fixed a PowerShell 7 compatibility break across 16 scripts caused by a .NET certificate-validation API that PS7 removed.
  • Replaced it with PS7's built-in -SkipCertificateCheck flag, matching the fix already adopted elsewhere in the repo.

View PR #254 →

Valour

9 PRs · 5 Merged

Valour Software · C#/.NET, Blazor — kept contributing after my internship

  • Cleaned up database models and updated foreign key constraints, during my internship. (Merged)
  • Fixed a NullReferenceException crash when opening an invite link while logged out. (Merged)
  • Fixed onboarding copy that leaked an internal type name ("HostedPlanets") into user-facing text. (Merged)
  • Root-caused a client/server cache-merge bug that silently dropped reply references when editing a message. (Merged)
  • Fixed context menus rendering off-screen near the top/right viewport edges, extracting the boundary math into a unit-testable pure function. (Merged)
  • Followed up by adding the missing bottom-edge check for submenus, which still overflowed past the viewport's bottom.
  • Fixed the notification navigator silently dropping "N messages from M people" channel-activity notifications instead of opening the triggering message.

View PRs →

JsDeAgent

29 PRs · 21 Merged

TypeScript · LangChain/LangSmith — a multi-agent JS deobfuscation tool

  • Fixed a Windows path bug where a hardcoded forward-slash .replace() silently no-op'd on Windows' backslash paths, corrupting the AI-message cache; documented the environment setup.
  • Added token-based cost tracking, a duplicate-tool-call guard, and few-shot examples across the supervisor and worker agent prompts. (Merged)
  • Added a planning tool for the agent.
  • Built the control-flow-flattening deobfuscation agent and its tools. (Merged)
  • Built the dead-code-removal agent, across two iterations. (Merged)

View PRs →

k8s-test-infra

Open · PR #576

NVIDIA · Shell/Kubernetes

  • Fixed demo scripts that silently ran kubectl/helm against the reader's ambient cluster context instead of the demo's own Kind cluster, risking real (wrong) resources being matched and modified.

View PR #576 →

extra

2 PRs · 1 Merged

Docker · Python

  • Fixed the local Docker build's image tag to match the production registry prefix, closing a mismatch that made it unclear a local build was the same image as prod. (Merged)
  • Added a check so agentctl generate reports tools declared in the top-level registry but never referenced by any agent, which previously looked identical to an intentional, unused declaration.

View PRs →

tsauditor

Merged · PR #51

Python

  • Fixed a count mismatch in a security-guard reporting library where to_dict() silently dropped the "info" count that to_json() included, plus added a regression test.

View PR #51 →

pathreview

Open · PR #199

Python · Redis

  • Fixed an AI code-review orchestrator that lost all progress on a mid-review restart by checkpointing each tool's result to Redis immediately, instead of only after the entire run finished.

View PR #199 →

06Skills

Languages

PythonC++Java CC#JavaScriptTypeScript

Backend

Node.jsExpressFlask REST APIsWebSocketsDocker MCPGitLinux

Frontend

ReactNext.jsTailwind CSS AngularVue.js

Machine Learning & CV

PyTorchVision TransformersOpenCV Hugging FaceScikit-learnNumPy PandasSciPyLangChainLangSmith

Blockchain & Security

BitcoinLightning Network Post-Quantum CryptographyZero-Knowledge Proofs

Certifications

Microsoft Foundational C# Frontend Masters — Functional JS & Angular edX — Python for Data Engineering

07Education

University of Connecticut

Apr 2027

Dual Degree: B.S. Computer Science & Engineering — B.S. Mathematics · AI Concentration · Mansfield, CT

Husky Developers · SHPE · ColorStack · AI Club · Quantum Computing Club · Codepath