Amani Maina-Kilaas

Amani Maina-Kilaas is a first-year doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he is pursuing research in computational psycholinguistics in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.

Supported by the School of Science Dean’s Fellowship, he is excited about using artificial intelligence as a scientific tool to study how the mind works, and using what we know about the mind to develop more cognitively realistic models.

Prior to attending MIT, Maina-Kilaas earned his bachelor’s in computer science and mathematics from Harvey Mudd College. When he wasn’t tutoring or teaching people to ride freeskates, he conducted research regarding intention perception and theoretical machine learning, which earned him the Astronaut Scholarship and Computing Research Association’s Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award. Prior to attending Harvey Mudd, Maina-Kilaas grew up in Berkeley and Oakland, where he continually underappreciated the year-round moderate weather.