I am currently at Columbia University.  Please check out my active website there: http://www.columbia.edu/~cgr2130/.

My name is Cynthia Rush and I am a sixth year Ph. D. candidate in the Department of Statistics at Yale University. Originally from North Carolina, I completed my undergraduate coursework at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where I obtained a B.S. in Mathematics.

My research interests lie broadly in statistics and applied probability with a current focus on statistical machine learning algorithms, such as message passing. These algorithms can be used for inference and optimization in many applications including communications systems and compressed sensing. In recent work I have obtained sharp theoretical guarantees on the performance of message passing algorithms in these settings. In addition to algorithmic development, much of my work has used concentration of measure tools and applied probability ideas to extend performance guarantees of such algorithms to the non-asymptotic regime. I am excited to continue exploring these areas in my future work and for the opportunity to apply these tools to new problems.

In my free time, I enjoy working on advocacy issues related to graduate student life in my position as Vice President of the Graduate and Professional Student Senate at Yale and as my department’s representative on the Graduate Student Assembly. I also enjoy traveling, watching Netflix, and hanging out with my cat, Kitty.