Hello, I'm Leon

Welcome, I'm glad you found your way here! I'm a researcher at OpenAI, working on frontier evals. I spend most of my time trying to understand the models we train, and care about responsibly achieving superintelligence. I was previously @ umich, and like to hike, read, play music, explore parks, play board games, and spend time with my 5 younger siblings. I love to create and solve hard problems. But enough talk about myself, I'd rather just show you:

Interactive 3D map of books powered by embeddings and WebGL

BookGraph

Ingest and embed open-source Goodreads data, project books into 3D space, and render the world of books in WebGL. You can explore clusters, use queries for semantic teleportation, and even upload your own personal Goodreads CSV to place yourself on the map 📚🐛

UMAPpgvectorTHREE.jsFastAPIPostgreSQLDuckDBPython

Real-time audio-reactive visualizer for music

Music Visualizer

Takes live sound or music input and turns it into art real-time! Each panel shows a visualization sensitive to frequencies, amplitudes, and more. Choose one of the provided songs, or play into your microphone to see the magic happen live 💃 🕺

ProcessingJavascriptAudio

Donation platform with generative solana crystals for donators as incentive

AngelBoard

Developed a donation platform hosted on the Solana blockchain that incentivizes donators through beautiful generative crystal NFTs. Solana, Ethereum, and card payment processing allows charities to receive almost 100% of donations and forego most processing fees.

RustProcessingReactJavaScriptSoliditySolana

Online marketplace for college students and future college creator platform

ZTrade

Secure, fast, and easy-to-use online marketplace built to facilitate easy exchange for students, creators, and local businesses built as a full-stack application. Currently facilitates transactions at 3+ college campuses but plateauing growth; project on hold indefinitely.

DjangoReactNode.jsJavaScriptHerokuAWS

Nonprofit educating students about aerospace with hands-on projects

NYC Aerospace

NYC Aerospace was founded in 2018 and encapsulated nine schools, 150+ students, three museum programs, and six intensive projects. Projects included a 100,000ft rocket build in California, educational rocketry competition, incubator program, and more.

FlaskJavascript

Social media platform for discussing and recommending intellectual content

Wander

Spearheaded product design process and oversaw four teams as product manager by creating sprints, owning roadmap, developing features, and guiding team operations. Grew to 200+ active users and achieved sustainable growth in retention while on team.

ReactNode.jsJavascriptHerokuAWS

The University of Michigan's original pro-bono consulting group

BOND Consulting

We have worked with over 120 local businesses, startups, and non-profits in the Ann Arbor area to help them solve their toughest problems over the last 16 years. Have gotten to work with some awesome clients, and met my closest friends on campus 💙

Javascript

WebGL meets link-tree, of sorts

Trees

My first project using WebGL, and a fun way to spend a Tuesday. Interactive stress reliever I've turned to countless times.

THREE.jsJavascript

In the future, we plan our trips with AI...

GPT-3 Travel Finder

Pick a spot on the map, choose a category of activities, and let GPT-3 plan the rest! The website will create a smart prompt for any input, then call OpenAI's' API to share a few recommendations.

GPT-3JavascriptNext.js

Currently playing with processing in my free time

Generative Art

Check these artworks/simulations/whatever-you-want-to-call-it!

ProcessingJavascript

Some productivity scripts to prevent your procrastination Daemons

Super Scripts

An automatic site blacklister and closer, a shutdown script linked to your calendar, and a guest/incognito access toggler. Built to boost productivity and learn Bash, AppleScript, and Daemons. Let me know if you'd like to set these up and try them out for yourself!

BashAppleScriptXML

a little more about me [slightly outdated]

I was a student at the University of Michigan majoring in Computer Science and Business Administration, and minoring in Mathematics. I've always had an intense passion for creating, and have built anything from rockets to physics simulations to WebGL websites. I also have strong interests in startup, product, growth, software, and innovation in the fields of aerospace, AI, edtech, community-building, music, and want to break down barriers. I strive to create as much as possible, and in my free time, I enjoy reading, exercising, playing card games and chess, and spending time with my five younger siblings. Contact me at leonsmaksin@gmail.com!