Aaron Piando

Boston University Bachelor of Arts, Computer Science & Economics

Boston, MA | Expected May 2026

• Maintained a cumulative GPA of 3.82/4.00, earning Dean's List honors for three semesters (Fall '23, Fall '24, Spring '25)
• Completed BU London Study Abroad (LSA) program in Fall '24, engaging with professors from local universities while being immersed in British culture and history
• Named IDEA Scholar by College Access & Student Success (CASS) program, honoring BU students from communities underrepresented in higher education

Mathworks at Texas State University Summer Research Program

San Marcos, TX | Summer 2021

• Contributed to “Using Technology to Capture Classroom Interactions: The Design, Validation, and Dissemination of a Formative Assessment of Instruction Tool for Diverse K-8 Mathematics Classrooms,” a research initiative led by Dr. Kate Melhuish
• Implemented innovative process mining software, including ProM and Disco, to investigate relationship between patterns in classroom behaviors and peformance on standardized math exams, presenting finalized process models alongside team members at virtual Mathworks summer research symposium

IDEA Quest College Preparatory High School Diploma

Edinburg, TX | Class of 2022

• Achievements include Valedictorian, AP Scholar with Distinction, National Merit Commended Student, President of local Mu Alpha Theta chapter, Security First Credit Union Scholarship, Give Me 5 Scholarship
• Received individual and team UIL awards at the regional and state level for Number Sense, Mathematics, Computer Science Extemporaneous Speaking, Copy Editing contests

Office of the Provost at Boston University Boston, MA

First-Year Success Instructor | May 2025 - Present

• Coteach FY101: The First Year Experience, a course for incoming freshmen BU students which involves weekly discussions, activities, field trips to explore the social, academic and cultural dimensions of student life
• Support community building to support first-year students' success while setting them up for a fuller, richer experience at BU by sharing academic programs, career development resources, and other unique opportunities

Office of Admissions at Boston University Boston, MA

Diversity Outreach Board Member | February 2025 - Present

• Support multicultural admissions through initiatives like Mosaic Community Welcome and Decision Day Phoneathon to promote the enrollment and matriculation of students from underrepresented and underprivileged backgrounds

Undergraduate Admissions Representative | May 2024 - Present

• Manage visitor center operations by maintaining event registrations and applicant profiles through Salesforce TargetX
• Resolve 10+ daily inquiries via phone and email, offering tailored support to enhance visitors’ experience on campus
• Lead campus tours for groups of 10-30 visitors and information sessions for audiences of 100-150 visitors, sharing personal stories that showcase student life at BU and highlight academic opportunities and on-campus resources

Center for Career Development at Boston University Boston, MA

Career Community Coordinator | January — May 2025

• Partnered with College Success Coaches to organize inaugural Public Service & Social Impact Networking Night, bringing together 78 students and 16 professionals to share insights on career advice and professional development

Marketing Team Lead | January — May 2024

• Innovated social media strategy by creating content schedule, blending short-form video, evergreen media, and event promotional material to maximize audience reach and user engagement
• Supervised a team of 6 members by assigning marketing campaigns, conducting monthly individual check-ins, and leading weekly meetings to ensure successful completion of assigned tasks and encourage creativity and innovation
• Boosted social media outcomes, amassing over 4 million reached accounts and 200,000 engagements in 4 months

Events & Programming Team Member | October 2022 — December 2023

• Reviewed 100+ resumes, cover letters, and LinkedIn profiles, providing students with strategic and tailored feedback to help them market their skills and experiences to employers and improve their candidacy for jobs and internships
• Coordinated event logistics for Professional Clothing Closet Fashion Show, Alumni Connections Networking Night, and Internship Insights Panel, engaging 300+ students with career development resources and opportunities

South Texas Ideas Edinburg, TX

Web Designer | August 2020 — June 2022

• Designed and developed a comprehensive Wix website, utilizing data on user behavior to optimize navigation and enhance user experience, ensuring accessible and engaging content for STXi's diverse audience
• Integrated multimedia content, including images, videos, and interactive features, to create an immersive experience that increased user engagement, communicated STXi's mission, and promoted the organization's cultural events
• Regularly updated and maintained the website to reflect ongoing projects and activities, using web analytics to track performance and ensure ongoing engagement from visitors and supporters

Outreach Team Member | May 2018 — June 2020

• Orchestrated the coordination of over 200 youth participants for the annual South Texas Ideas (STXi) festival, demonstrating strong organizational and project management skills in handling large-scale community events
• Established the STXi Ambassador Program, involving the recruitment of high school students from all over the Rio Grande Valley to promote festival attendance and widen the organization's geographical reach

Application Atlas

Personal Project | May 2025 — Present

• Designing and developing a centralized platform to help high school students track college applications across systems like Common App, ApplyTexas, and Questbridge
• Integrating an AI-powered chatbot trained on college advising best practices, offering personalized guidance on essays and financial aid, including FAFSA, CSS Profile, TASFA
• Prioritizing accessibility and equity by creating a student-first interface with a mobile-friendly design and built-in support for underprivileged communities

Personal Website

Personal Project | May — August 2025

• Developed a clean, static website using HTML and CSS to showcase academic background, projects, and leadership experience
• Demonstrated front-end design, content organization, and branding skills to create a professional online presence for networking and career growth

Fake News Inspector

In-Class Project | January — May 2025

• Developed and fine-tuned a RoBERTa-based text classification model using Hugging Face Transformers to detect fake news, demonstrating proficiency in NLP, PyTorch, and model evaluation techniques
• Engineered a full-stack Flask application with interactive visualizations and a user-friendly UI for inspecting model predictions, combining backend development with frontend integration
• Improved data preprocessing and training efficiency by implementing stratified splits, optimizing training arguments, and contributing to reproducibility through GitHub workflows and dependency management

Study Spot Finder

In-Class Project | April — May 2025

• Designed and developed a full-stack Django web application that enables students to recommend, review, and discover study spaces, fostering community-based decision-making and resource sharing
• Implemented robust user features including authentication, friend networks, favoriting, and dynamic forms using Django views, models, and templates, demonstrating strong backend and frontend integration skills
• Built customizable filtering and search functionality for study spots by neighborhood, showcasing proficiency in data querying, clean UI design, and user-centric problem solving

Panel Analysis of Relation Between Income Inequality and Internet Access

In-Class Project | March — May 2025

• Applied advanced econometric techniques including fixed effects modeling, Hausman testing, and joint F-tests to evaluate the relationship between internet access and income inequality across countries using unbalanced panel data
• Cleaned, structured, and analyzed large-scale cross-national datasets from World Bank Database using Stata, demonstrating proficiency in data wrangling, variable transformation, and statistical interpretation
• Identified a statistically significant but modest relationship between internet access and income inequality using fixed effects regression, showing that a 1% increase in internet penetration is associated with a 0.048-point decrease in the Gini index

Student Spender

In-Class Project | October — December 2024

• Co-developed a full-stack budgeting web app for study abroad students using Flask, JavaScript, and SQLite, with features including user authentication, expense tracking, and personalized budget planning via OpenAI API integration
• Led backend and database development, optimizing data models and queries, managing user sessions, and resolving performance issues through exception handling and debugging
• Enhanced collaboration and deployment through Git/GitHub version control, Docker containerization, and frontend testing with Playwright to ensure a seamless and reliable user experience

Compiling Immigration Raid Reports

Cross-College Challenge (XCC) | October — December 2023

• Collaborated with Spark! at the BU Center for Computing & Data Sciences and the Center for Innovation in Social Sciences (CISS) to compile immigration raid reports, combining data science and social research to support immigrant rights advocacy
• Used the Google Search API and the gnews Python package to collect news coverage of immigration raids, then cleaned and standardized the data using Python and pandas for structured analysis

Econometric Investigation of Correlation Between Economic Output and Education Expenditure

In-Class Project | October — December 2023

• Applied advanced econometric techniques in Stata, including multiple linear, log-linear, polynomial, and log-polynomial models, to examine the relationship between GDP per capita and education expenditure relative to GNI using unbalanced panel data
• Cleaned, transformed, and analyzed World Bank data to ensure accuracy and comparability across countries, demonstrating strong command of data wrangling, model selection, and empirical evaluation
• Produced reproducible, policy-relevant insights supported by regression diagnostics and accessible visualizations, revealing a diminishing positive relationship that reverses beyond the 4.15 percent GNI expenditure threshold

The Untold History of Filipino Nurses Immigrating to the United States

Research Publication | February — August 2023

• Conducted historical research exploring the migration of Filipino nurses to the United States during the 20th century, centering the experiences of my mother and combining archival sources with personal interviews
• Analyzed cultural, economic, and geopolitical factors shaping the Filipino nursing diaspora, highlighting the commercialization of nursing education and challenges faced by immigrant healthcare workers in the US
• Published findings in Kaleidoscope, the undergraduate research journal of BU's Kilachand Honors College, presenting a narrative-driven investigation that connected personal storytelling with broader discussions of immigration and equity within the nursing profession

Chummy Education

Freelance Work | May — September 2022

• Collaborated on a research project led by a Northeastern University EdD candidate, supporting data collection on how access to resources influences high school students' engagement with social justice topics
• Designed and built a user-friendly Wix website to serve as a digital library, curating multimedia resources on issues such as LGBTQIA+ rights, climate change, and financial literacy for use in educational settings
• Leveraged web design and content strategy to promote youth empowerment and civic engagement, demonstrating a commitment to using digital tools for education and social impact

Griptape

Nonprofit | Youth Empowerment | September 2019 — Present

• Next Great Adventure Fellow: Received $2,000 grant to support career exploration journey, earned by completing mini-credentials, informational interviews, job market research centered around professional aspiration to combine skills in software development and data analytics with passion for education access and social justice
• Griptape Champion: Acted as an accountability partner for four Griptape Challengers throughout their Challenge, conducting biweekly check-ins to support goal setting, track progress, monitor grant spending, provide encouragement as they encountered obstacles
• Griptape Challenger: Received $500 grant to launch the Jopi Learning Community, a student-led organization which provided free tutoring, peer mentorship, professional skills workshops to IDEA Quest students in the face of virtual learning during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Civics Unplugged

Nonprofit | Civic Engagement | December 2019 — August 2020

• CU Fellowship Founding Fellow: As member of founding fellowship class, attended weekly discussions regarding topics including the development of political values, government structure, civic engagement to encourage Gen Z involvement in contemporary politics
• CU Summer Camp Counselor: Led weekly meetings with group of four CU Summer Campers to spark conversation tied to weekly activities about self-discovery and personal goal setting, culminating in a stronger sense of civic purpose and desire to contribute to positive social change within their communities