Education
University of California, Berkeley
Regents’ and Chancellor’s Scholar

B.S. Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences — 2014B.A. Philosophy — 2014-
Experience
Balachandar
Kesavan
Intern, The Scripps Research Institute
La Jolla, California
—
Summer 2013
I used Python to analyze copy-number variant DNA mutations, identifying potential links to
disease. I then wrote a PBS/TORQUE pipeline to queue analysis on the Garibaldi
supercomputer - my pipeline is available at genomics.scripps.edu (under “CNVs”).
Accomplishments
www.rajk.me —Co-authored a publication on my analysis (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25521334)
[email protected] 1.858.204.0233 Intern, San Diego Supercomputer Center
github.com/raj-kesavan La Jolla, California
—
Summer 2012
I used Fortran to merge Amber (a molecular dynamics package) and NWChem (a quantum
mechanics simulator) and benchmarked various basis sets on the Gordon supercomputer. I also
extended Amber to support Q-Chem, another quantum mechanics simulator.
Accomplishments
—Authored an short paper detailing my work (goo.gl/DhqwS)
Projects
quetzal
— github.com/raj-kesavan/quetzal
quetzal is an online, real-time, multiplayer adaptation of the classic game Snake - if you run into
another player, you lose. quetzal also includes a AI in case there’s no one else online.
I wrote the backend in Clojure, which communicates to clients over WebSockets and uses
core.async concurrency to gracefully manage all the connections and keep the code modular. I
developed quetzal with Eddie Kim (@dsch5), who created the music and visuals.
Thought Lounge
— github.com/raj-kesavan/thought-lounge
Thought Lounge is a student organization that organizes dialogues on various topics in small
group settings. We developed a webapp to schedule, track, and log these dialogues.
I built the backend (Flask/SQLAlchemy) which provides a RESTful, HATEOAS-compliant API
and authentication via API keys (with almost 100% code coverage). The front-end was created
by Genevieve Tran (@simplykhanh).
Skills
—Programming languages
—Python
—Clojure
—Java
—JavaScript
—Web technologies and standards
—Flask
—RESTful APIs
—WebSockets
—AngularJS (learning)
—Operating systems
—Linux
—Windows
—Other technologies
—SQLAlchemy
—Normalized database design
—Other languages
—Basic MIPS assembly
—LaTeX
—Telugu, native speaker
—French, conversational