William Howard-Snyder

I’m William, a second year MS student at the University of Washington studying computer science. I am broadly interested in machine learning, algorithm design, and reasoning under uncertainty, with applications in biology and medicine. Recently, I have been particularly excited about applying tools from these areas to understand the optimization landscape in phylogenetic inference, with the goal of better understanding large-scale viral evolution. I’m currently exploring these questions and more as a graduate researcher in the Matsen Group at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

I attained a BS (2022) at the University of Washington in Computer Science, where I was fortunate to be advised by Prof. Sheng Wang for my undergraduate thesis, as well as Erick Matsen for a research internship at FHCRC. I also attained a BA (2022) in Philosophy, where I focused on normative subjects like Ethics and Epistemology.

Outside of school, I enjoy playing board games with friends, going on walks with my wife, and I recently started doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

You can reach me at howarwil[at]cs[dot]washington[dot]edu