Devon Tao (the Scientist)
About Me
I am a second-year Data Science PhD student at UC San Diego in the Sociotechnical Security Lab with Deepak Kumar. I graduated from Harvey Mudd College in 2025 with a B.S. in Computer Science and Mathematics, where I researched HCI and Machine Learning with Lucas Bang.
I am interested in researching widespread low-grade sociotechnical harms on the internet.
- In particular, I am interested in researching attentional capture on the internet at scale, such as how YouTuber attentional capture mechanisms have changed over time
- In general, I am interested in questions about internet-based social interactions that can be answered using data science
For my main page, go here. For my theatre work, go here
Publications
Fitness Landscape Analysis of a Cell-Based Neural Architecture Search Space
Devon Tao and Lucas Bang. nternational Conference on Explainable AI for Neural and Symbolic Methods (EXPLAINS), 2024.
Braitenberg Vehicle Simulator: Visualizing the Classic Thought Experiment
Devon Tao and Lucas Bang. Artificial Intelligence x Humanities, Education, and Art (AIxHEART), 2024.
Talks
It’s alive…. IT’S ALIVE!!! Braitenberg vehicles!
!!Con, 2024.
Teaching
Graduate Teaching Assistant, UC San Diego
- DSC40A: Theoretical Foundations of Data Science I (statistics, machine learning)
- DSC40B: Theoretical Foundations of Data Science II (data structures)
Undergraduate Teaching Assistant, Harvey Mudd College
- CS42: Principles and Practice of Computer Science
- CS70: Data Structures and Program Development
- CS131: Programming Languages
Other
Last updated July 23, 2026