Open to AI / ML & Quant internships

Matthew Helton
mathematics, in motion.

PhD candidate in Mathematics at NYU Courant, building machine-learning and dynamical-systems models for high-dimensional data — from cortical circuits to deep networks trained from scratch.

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§ 01Profile

I work where applied mathematics meets machine learning — designing models with a real theoretical spine, then proving they hold up against data.

My research applies deep learning and optimization to high-dimensional, neural data: crafting loss functions and minimization schemes that recover the structure underneath. The same toolkit — rigorous modeling, gradient-based optimization, and disciplined experimentation — is what I'm looking to bring to an AI/ML or quantitative research internship.

Research focus

  • Dynamical systems — limit cycles, bifurcations, averaging & Lyapunov analysis
  • Computational neuroscience — LIF & Hodgkin–Huxley network models
  • Deep learning — self-supervised & sequence models on real data
  • Optimization — custom losses, minimization methods, backprop from scratch
§ 02Research & Experience
Machine Learning Researcher 2025 — Present
Young Research Group · NYU Courant Institute
  • Built a dynamical model explaining surround suppression in the visual cortex, demonstrating the feasibility of a theoretical model in practice.
  • Applied optimization expertise to design advanced loss functions and minimization methods, producing a model that replicates key cortical phenomena.
Machine Learning Researcher 2022 — 2024
Shea-Brown Lab · University of Washington
  • Engineered and benchmarked time-series models — including LSTMs — against baseline statistical methods for forecasting activity from the mouse brain.
  • Collaborated with PhD students and faculty via GitHub, contributing primary code implementations and incorporating feedback.
§ 03Selected Projects
2025 · Self-Supervised Learning
DINO — Implemented & Trained from Scratch
  • Procured data for, implemented, and trained from scratch a DINO model with a Vision Transformer backbone and MLP head on a dataset of over two million images.
  • Achieved top-5 classification accuracy on held-out test data in a class-wide competition.
Matrix Calculus · NumPy
MLP From Scratch
  • Derived, via matrix calculus, all gradients needed for backpropagation through a two-layer MLP with MSE loss and ReLU activations.
  • Implemented the computation in NumPy and verified that every result matched PyTorch exactly.
§ 04Toolkit

Languages

PythonSQL

Libraries

PyTorchNumPySciPyPandasMatplotlibScikit-learn

Methods

Deep LearningSupervised & UnsupervisedRegression AnalysisPredictive ModelingHPCA/B Testing

Tools

GitGitHubColab
§ 05Education
Ph.D. in Mathematics
New York University · Courant Institute
Expected May 2028GPA 3.92 / 4.0
B.S. Applied Mathematics & Neuroscience
University of Washington · Mathematics Minor
June 2023GPA 3.97magna cum laude
§ 06Awards
2024
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
National Science Foundation
2023
Boeing Excellence Award for Outstanding Research
UW Applied Mathematics

Let's build something provably good.

Currently seeking a Summer 2027 internship in AI/ML or quantitative research. If your team values mathematical rigor and models that actually hold up, I'd love to talk.