About

Hi! I’m Kyanna, an incoming MSc student in Computer Science at McMaster University, where I’ll be conducting research in the Software Systems and Modeling (SSM) Lab under the supervision of Professor Istvan David. I received my BSc in Mathematics & Computer Science at McMaster University, and conducted research in the SSM lab during the final two years of my undergraduate studies.

My research lies at the intersection of reinforcement learning, and model-driven engineering, with the goal of advancing sustainability in AI through blended human-AI systems. I’m particularly interested in how we can integrate domain knowledge and user input to make reinforcement learning more efficient, interpretable, and applicable in real-world systems.

I was awarded first place in the ACM Student Research Competition at MODELS 2024 for my work “Towards Model Repair by Human Opinion–Guided Reinforcement Learning,” and am also a proud recipient of the ACM-W Women in Computing Scholarship to attend the conference.