I am a second year PhD student in Dr. Umar Iqbal's lab at Washington University in St. Louis. My current research is focused on studying LLM behavior. I am additionally broadly interested in robotics and artificial intelligence, and how we can make more intelligent machines to help us solve real-world problems.
Outside of research, I have strong personal interests in robotics and game development, and enjoy working on those topics in my spare time.
Email: aldrich.s@wustl.edu — aldrich.s@wustl.edu
Keywords: Visualization; Image recognition; Sensitivity; Limiting; Text recognition; Biological system modeling; Optical character recognition; OCR; Gene; Biological Pathway; Biomedical Literature Mining; Name Recognition
Blurb: Biological pathway figures hold valuable scientific insights, but their complexity makes it difficult for computers to extract the information they contain. We tested leading Optical Character Recognition (OCR) tools to determine which could most accurately identify gene names in these diagrams. Across multiple datasets, Google Cloud Vision and MMOCR emerged as the top performers.
RoadtripEVs is a personal, data-driven resource for finding and comparing EVs optimized for long-distance travel. It estimates charging time as a share of trip duration (10–80% charge) and factors in real-world electricity and gas costs for practical context. While built around my own EV search, it’s designed to help any driver make informed road trip choices.
CommaCars is a reference site built around the openpilot comma 3x ecosystem. Instead of focusing on every vehicle on the market, it narrows in on those officially supported by Comma.ai’s driver-assistance platform, making it easier to see what’s realistically compatible today. The site also surfaces estimated resale pricing to give shoppers a ballpark sense of cost, with clear reminders to verify numbers through sources like Edmunds, KBB, NADA, or TrueCar. The goal isn’t to replace deep research, but to give drivers a quick starting point when considering whether their next car could work with openpilot.