Daniel Kao
Research Assistant at University of California, San Francisco
Berkeley, California, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolDaniel Kao is a UC Berkeley junior studying Computer Science and Applied Mathematics who combines academic rigor with hands-on research in biomedical data science at UCSF’s Center for Intelligent Imaging. He applies classical and modern techniques across ML, NLP, and computer vision to extract actionable insights from cardiac, pulmonary imaging and text data, work that is progressing toward publication. Outside academia he contributes to embedded systems in notable open-source firmware (QMK), fixing low-level I2C issues and adding advanced trackpad features—signal of strong hardware-software fluency not obvious from coursework alone. He has tutored discrete math and probability, mentored students, and translated analytical research into strategic business recommendations during a consultancy project for Clif Bar. Comfortable with data analysis, modeling, and algorithmic design, he’s interested in the intersection of math, CS, and electrical engineering and is pursuing roles in software engineering and data science.
11 years of coding experience
1 year of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Arts - BA, Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, 2nd Year, Bachelor of Arts - BA, Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, 2nd Year at University of California, BerkeleyHigh School Diploma, High School Diploma at Monta Vista High School
Github Skills (19)
circuit10
c-language10
atmel10
controller10
qmk-firmware10
hardware-interface10
firmware10
c1110
microcontroller10
c1710
i2c10
avr10
sys10
interfacing10
atmel-studio10
Programming languages (5)
Github contributions (5)
qmk/qmk_firmware
Jun 2022 - Jul 2022
Open-source keyboard firmware for Atmel AVR and Arm USB families
Role in this project:
Embedded Systems Engineer / IoT Developer
Embedded Systems Engineer / IoT DeveloperContributions:39 reviews, 5 commits, 10 PRs in 1 month
Contributions summary:Daniel primarily contributed to the QMK firmware, focusing on low-level hardware interactions and device driver implementations. Their work includes fixing I2C communication timeouts for AVR microcontrollers and adding features for Cirque trackpads, such as circular scroll and inertial cursor support, which directly involved register manipulation and sensor data processing. Additionally, they addressed PS/2 mouse compatibility by adding support for 9-bit output and handling scroll functionality.
rp2040firmwareavratmelkeyboard-support
dkao/qmk_firmware
May 2022 - Dec 2022
Open-source keyboard firmware for Atmel AVR and Arm USB families
Contributions:107 commits, 32 pushes, 18 branches in 7 months
rp2040nrf52840firmwareavratmel
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