About Me
Hi, my name’s Rafi. I am a third-year computer science PhD student at UAB, specializing in functional compilation and functional program analysis under the supervision of Dr. Thomas Gilray in the HARP lab.
Prior to that, I worked as a Software Engineer (R&D) at Bangla Search Engine (Pipilika) for almost 4 years. Before that, I was working in the software industry for more than 3 years taking on roles such as Programmer, Senior Software Engineer, and Software Developer. I earned my bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Leading University, Bangladesh, in 2013.
Education
UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Computer Science
January, 2022 - Present
www.uab.edu
LEADING UNIVERSITY
B. Sc. in Computer Science and Engineering
September, 2009 - August, 2013
www.lus.ac.bd
Research Interest
- Programming Languages, Software Engineering, High-Performance Computing, Machine Learning, Information Retrieval, and Human-Computer Interaction
Experience
BANGLA SEARCH ENGINE (PIPILIKA)
Software Engineer (R&D)
August 2017 - March 2021
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipilika
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Search Engine Improvement: Conducted extensive research using ML techniques such as Deep Learning to solve Natural Language Processing (NLP) problems for the Bengali Language.
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Search Relevancy Improvement: Improved keyword-based search relevancy by designing dynamic schema in Apache Solr supported by the calculative implementation of Solr’s dismax query parser and query boosting.
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A2i Search Portal: Spend around six months to discover a generic approach to Crawl, Parse, and Index the unstructured data from over 40,000 websites and later on wrote REST API using Spring Boot.
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Spellchecker Context-Aware Library: After month-long, thorough research into the project improved the file—Dictionary—loading time by 20 seconds.
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Solr Analytic Library: The development of this plug-and-play library required a lot of individual research which can provide domain-wise time series data for any project build upon Apache Solr.
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Rich Document Parser Library: Wrote generic parser using jsoup library to extract data from file types such as DOC, PDF, PPT, CSV, etc. Extracting Bangla Unicode data from PDF files was the biggest challenge of all.
- Served more than three months as In-Charge of the Information Technology (IT) department
- Developed Result Prediction Tool and Online Admission System using PHP, MySql, Ajax, jQuery, Bootstrap3
- Modify, correct, and improve the overall performance of the University Support System (USS)
- Coordinated and Monitored vendor company on developing Human Resources Management System (HRMS) Software as per the Software Requirements Specification (SRS)
- Establish, build, and manage relationships with corporate partners
- Developed the annual Local Health Bulletin - 2015 report and Photo Archiver System for the Government of Bangladesh under the Ministry Of Health and Family Welfare as a vendor company
- Used Bootstrap Framework for cross-platform compatibility
IT LAB SOLUTIONS LTD.
Software Developer (While Doing Bachelor's)
February 2012 - June 2014
www.itlabsolutions.com
- Designed and Developed customized web-based Shop Management software for different businesses
- Involved in back-end coding to manage dynamic pages using the CodeIgnitor framework
Technical Skills
- Programming Languages: Java, Python, Racket, C, C++, PHP, JavaScript
- Databases: MySQL, Apache Solr, MongoDB
- Frameworks/Libraries: Spring Boot, Java Servlet, Jsoup, Scrapy, Flask, Codeigniter, jQuery, Bootstrap3
- Web Technologies: AJAX, HTML5, CSS3, JSON
- Web Servers: Lampp, Xampp, Apache
- Version Control: Git
- CMS: WordPress
- Software Methodologies: SDLC, STLC, MVC, Agile, Scrum, Waterfall
- OS Environments: Linux, MacOS, Windows
- Others: Docker, Maven, Rancher, AWS, System Analysis and Design
Programming Background
- Contest Participation: IUT 4th National ICT Fest - 2012, NSU ACM ICPC Dhaka Site - 2011, SUST Inter-University Programming Contest – 2011, IUT Inter-University Programming Contest – 2011
- Solved over 400 problems from different online judges such as LightOJ, UVa Online Judge, etc.
Voluntary Services
- Treasurer: Managed all the financial operations of the graduate student organization, Bangladesh Student Association (BSA) at UAB, 2023
- Judge: Served as a judge of Summer 2023 Undergraduate Research Expo, UAB
- Competitive Programming Instructor: Conducted workshops on problem-solving especially using C and C++ with dedicated sessions on Data Structure and Algorithms at Leading University
- Public Relations Officer: Coordinated and managed several Intra-university programming contests for Leading University Computer Club (LUCC)