01About

I am a first-year Ph.D. student at MIT CSAIL, advised by Profs. Constantinos Daskalakis and Russ Tedrake. My research interests lie broadly in the theory of machine learning. More specifically, I am interested in the theory of post training in the context of diffusion models (and their applications to robotics), continual learning in language models, and other questions related to generative modeling. Previously, I worked on various questions related to the theory of low-rank fine tuning in neural networks, distributed optimization and learning in multiagent systems, and strategic interactions in LLMs.

During summer 2026, I am a research intern at Microsoft Research New England, advised by Dylan Foster.

Previously, I received an A.B. in Computer Science and Mathematics and an S.M. in Computer Science from Harvard University in May 2025. During my undergraduate education, I was fortunate to work on the theory of low-rank fine-tuning with SGD (advised by Prof. Sitan Chen), and various problems in distributed / multi-agent optimization (advised by Profs. Stephanie Gil and Angelia Nedich).

02Publications

A selection of work below. For the full list, see my Google Scholar page.

  1. Low-rank fine-tuning lies between lazy training and feature learning

    Arif Kerem Dayı, Sitan Chen

    Conference on Learning Theory (COLT) 2025

  2. Learning From Synthetic Labs: Language Models as Auction Participants

    Anand Shah, Kehang Zhu, Yanchen Jiang, Jeffrey G Wang, Arif Kerem Dayı, John J Horton, David C Parkes

    ArXiv Preprint 2025

  3. Projected push-pull for distributed constrained optimization over time-varying directed graphs

    Orhan Eren Akgun*, Arif Kerem Dayı*, Stephanie Gil, Angelia Nedich

    American Control Conference (ACC) 2024

  4. Learning trust over directed graphs in multiagent systems

    Orhan Eren Akgun, Arif Kerem Dayı, Stephanie Gil, Angelia Nedich

    Learning for Dynamics and Control Conference (L4DC) 2023

03Industry Experience

  1. Summer 2026

    Research Intern

    Microsoft Research - Cambridge, MA

  2. Summer 2022

    Data Science Intern

    Trendyol Group - Istanbul, Turkey

04Teaching

During my time at Harvard, I had the privilege of serving the CS and math community as a course assistant for:

  • CS 121

    Introduction to Theoretical Computer Science

    Theory of computation — circuits, Turing machines, computability, complexity, reductions, and randomized computation. Taught by Boaz Barak.

  • Math 25b

    Theoretical Linear Algebra & Real Analysis II

    Rigorous single- and multivariable real analysis, metric space topology, and basic Fourier analysis. Taught by Wes Cain.

  • Math 25a

    Theoretical Linear Algebra & Real Analysis I

    A rigorous introduction to linear algebra based on the wonderful Linear Algebra Done Right. Taught by Wes Cain.

  • ES 150

    Probability with Engineering Applications

    Fundamental probability concepts and their applications to engineering problems. Taught by Yue M. Lu.

05Writing

Some expository notes and essays