Pittsburgh, PA · Pitt '27 · EN / FR
Emmanuel
McGrail
Aspiring polymath. I work at the intersection of machine learning, systems, and data — but I'm equally drawn to math, history, philosophy, and more. I care about ideas as much as what you build with them.
“Fortis imaginatio generat casum.”
— Montaigne, On the Power of Imagination · a strong imagination begets the event
01 — about
Researcher by instinct,
generalist by design.
I'm Manny — a Data Science & Computer Science student at the University of Pittsburgh, with a minor in French. I spent last semester on exchange at ENSEA in Cergy, France, and I'm back in Pittsburgh now, currently interning at BNY. My work sits at the intersection of machine learning, systems programming, and data engineering — I'm drawn to problems that are both mathematically interesting and practically hard.
Outside of engineering I read research papers, philosophy and history, think seriously about physics and mathematics for their own sake, grind LeetCode for the pure joy of a clean algorithm, and make music. I find the connections between fields as interesting as the fields themselves.
coursework
also into
02 — experience
Sept 2024 – Present
University of Pittsburgh Athletics
Data Engineering Intern
- Built a serverless data pipeline for the diving team using AWS Lambda, turning raw web data into real-time performance analytics.
- Engineered and deployed an LLM-powered TEXT2SQL tool, democratizing SQL access for non-technical staff.
- Built PowerBI dashboards for donors and leadership; integrated position-specific metrics into football recruitment pipelines under the assistant AD.
May 2025 – Present
Bank of New York (BNY)
Engineering Intern
- Built a data reprocessing algorithm via Spring and Kafka to automatically resolve failed enrichment pipeline messages.
- Optimized reconciliation workflows — $1.7M in cost savings and 8x reduction in processing time.
- Migrated legacy data zones into a new strategic architecture, improving access for risk analysis teams.
Sept 2024 – June 2025
Pitt School of Computing
Undergraduate Researcher — NLP & AI
- Collaborated with PhD students and faculty on LLM-enhanced conversational AI for smart home devices.
- Integrated ChatGPT with the Alexa API via Python and NodeJS to expand functionality and usability.
- Studied how diverse communities interact with AI-driven home technology; presented findings to faculty.
03 — projects
04 — research
Conversational AI for Smart Home Devices
NLP & AI · Pitt School of Computing · 2024–2025
Collaborated with PhD students and faculty to develop LLM-enhanced conversational AI for smart home environments. Integrated ChatGPT with the Alexa API via Python and NodeJS. Studied how diverse communities interact with AI-driven home technology and presented findings to faculty.
Virtual Locomotion in VR
VR Research · Pitt School of Computing · Summer 2024
Researched the effects of different locomotion methods on user experience in virtual reality. Built and optimized immersive Unity environments and wrote C# scripts supporting the research study.
Current interests: deep learning, NLP, computer vision, GPU computing.
05 — music
Drums, composition,
and whatever comes next.
Before the code, there was rhythm. I composed much of this album and played the drums on it — music is one of the ways I think through ideas. More to come.
