cv
Updated 06-19-2025
Basics
| Name | Ha Dong |
| Label | Undergraduate Student |
| hdong26@amherst.edu | |
| Phone | (413) 472-9240 |
| Url | https://hadong1502.github.io/ |
| Summary | A passionate undergraduate student with a keen interest in biological and artificial intelligence |
Education
-
2025.02 - 2025.06 Cambridge, MA, USA
-
2022.09 - 2026.05 Amherst, MA, USA
Awards
- 2025
Charles Hamilton Houston Summer Research Grant
Amherst College
- 2024
Scholar Award, NeurIPS
NeurIPS Conference
- 2024
Gregory S. Call Student Research Grant
Office of the Provost and Dean of the Faculty, Amherst College
- 2023
Meiklejohn Summer Research Grant
Amherst College
- 2022
The Grosfeld Family Scholarship
Amherst College
- 2021
Twenties Outstanding Young Vietnamese Award
Government of Vietnam
- 2021
Labor Order: Third Class
Government of Vietnam
- 2021
Gold Medal, International Medicine Olympiad
International Medicine Olympiad
- 2021
Youth with Impacts National Award
Vietnam Youth Federation
- 2020
Top 50 Global, The Global Student Prize
Chegg.org & Varkey Foundation
- 2020
Silver Medal, Rudolf Ortvay International Competition in Physics
Rudolf Ortvay Competition
- 2020
Silver Medal, International Biology Olympiad
International Biology Olympiad
- 2020
Best Poster Prize, International Biology Olympiad
International Biology Olympiad
- 2020
Gold Medal, National Biology Olympiad
Ministry of Education and Training, Vietnam
- 2020
Gold Medal, National Science Contest
Vietnam National University
- 2020
Certificate of Merit
Minister of Education and Training, Vietnam
Publications
-
2024 Sounds of Faith: A Story of Quranic Reciters in the Connecticut River Valley
Soundscapes of the Connecticut River Valley Archive
-
2023 Advancements in ligand-based virtual screening through the synergistic integration of graph neural networks and expert-crafted descriptors
Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling
Skills
| Experimental Techniques | |
| DNA, RNA, and protein handling | |
| PCR | |
| Restriction enzymes | |
| Cell transfection | |
| Affinity chromatography | |
| Western blot | |
| Enzyme activity assay | |
| Immunostaining | |
| NeuroPixel 1.0 | |
| Animal care | |
| Behavioral assays | |
| TEM/STEM/HRTEM/SEM | |
| Ultramicrotomy |
| Computational Chemistry | |
| RosettaLigand Docking | |
| BioChemical Library | |
| RDKit | |
| PubChem | |
| ChEMBL |
| Machine Learning & Data Analysis | |
| Linux / cmd | |
| Python | |
| RStudio | |
| Scilab | |
| PyTorch & PyG | |
| scikit-learn | |
| Git | |
| STELLA II | |
| ImageJ | |
| OpenEphys | |
| Kilosort | |
| DeepLabCut | |
| Boris |
Languages
| English | |
| Fluent |
| Vietnamese | |
| Native |
Interests
| Biological Systems | |
| Electrophysiology | |
| Behavioral Biology | |
| Neurodegenerative diseases | |
| Theoretical Neuroscience |
| Artificial Intelligence | |
| Reinforcement Learning | |
| Graph Neural Networks | |
| Artificial Neural Networks |
Projects
- 2025 - Present
Does HMAX Subject to Müller-Lyer Illusion? @ Harvard Neuro240
Trained an SVM on HMAX embeddings for length classification and evaluated its performance on an illusion dataset, observing human-like perceptual biases.
- 2024 - Present
Forecasting Bioactivity: Building Predictive Models for Drug Discovery @ Alkermes Plc
Collaborated on generating ensemble models for bioactivity endpoints targeting serotonin and dopamine receptors using ChEMBL data during my internship.
- 2023 - Present
Biology Focus Group @ Amherst College Biology Department DEI Committee
Led research and data analysis on access to learning for underrepresented students; conducted 10+ focus groups informing departmental pedagogical improvements.
- 2019 - Present
Biology For All Vietnam
Founded a non-profit that delivered free advanced biology courses to 23 high schools, resulting in 78 national and 3 international Olympiad medals.