Hi! I am Anna, a first-year PhD student at
Cornell University, advised by
Sainyam Galhotra.
My research spans a wide range of interests focused on rigorous testing
and evaluation techniques to ensure the reliability and correctness
of softwares and machine learning models based on their specifications.
Before starting at Cornell, I completed my MS in Computer Science at UIUC,
advised by Tianyin Xu.
There, my research centered around cloud systems reliability.
Work Experience
Research Assistant - xlab, UIUC
Sep. 2022 – May 2024 | USA
- Local Developer Testing and Cloud Emulation
- REST API Analysis of Azure Storage, AWS S3, and DynamoDB
- Breaking down Emulator's Fidelity using Differential Fuzzing
- Tooling for Testing Cloud-based Software in CI/CD Environments
Research Assistant - Networks and Systems Group, LUMS
Jun. 2020 – May 2022 | Pakistan
- Webpage Load Performance Testing on Low-end Devices
- Tooling for Reducing Webpage Complexity
- Lighthouse, Puppeteer, and WebPageTest
Research Intern - dlab, EPFL
Jun. 2021 – Dec. 2021 | Switzerland
- Natural Language Processing (NLP)
- React Web Development
Education
- Cornell University(2024 – Present)Ph.D. in Computer Science
- UIUC(2022 – 2024)MS in Computer Science
- LUMS(2018 – 2022)BS in Computer Science
Publications
Fidelity of Cloud Emulators: The Imitation Game of Testing Cloud-based Software
[pdf] | [bib]
Anna Mazhar, Saad Sher Alam, William Zheng, Yinfang Chen, Suman Nath, and Tianyin Xu
International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) | April 2025.
Selected Projects
- Testing for Machine Unlearning | Pandas, NumPy, scikit-learn, SHAP (Sep. 2024 - Present)
Developing a suite to assess feature unlearning in ML models, evaluating existing metrics for accuracy and limitations. - Verifying Cloud Block Storage in Coq | Coq (Oct. 2024 - Present)
Developing a Coq-based verification framework using separation logic to model cloud storage properties. - Multi-Writer Multi-Reader Shared Registers | Go, gRPC, Protobuf (Apr. 2023 - May 2023)
Implemented a MWMR Shared Register protocol with fault tolerance and data consistency through quorum-based operations. - Raft | Go (Oct. 2021 – Nov. 2021)
Built a fault-tolerant key-value storage service using the Raft consensus algorithm for log replication and leader election. - QuestSpace | ReactJS, MongoDB, ExpressJS, Node.js, AWS (Feb. 2021 – Apr. 2021)
Developed a MERN-stack web app for hosting competitions with quizzes, rapid-fire, and submission rounds.
Selected Awards
- Erasmus Mundus Scholarship (€49000) - Awarded to 26 applicants out of 735.
- LUMS Merit Scholarship Award (5000 USD) - For academic excellence.
- Dean’s Honor List (LUMS) - Recognized three consecutive times for academic performance.
