Matt Franchi

I am a third-year Computer Science PhD Candidate at Cornell University. I study at Cornell's New York City campus, Cornell Tech. Before that, I was an undergraduate student at Clemson University, where I completed a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science (during the pandemic, unfortunately).

My research interests include urban data science; computational social science, particularly in issues pertaining to societal inequity; fashion & design; applied computer vision.

I play classical and neoclassical piano music, and write my own 'peaceful piano' compositions since 2020.

Featured

• Estimating the Perceived 'Claustrophobia' of New York City's Streets

  Published:Jul 26, 2024 |  at 03:30 AM

  New York City is a large place; almost 469 square miles of pretty dense civilization. Within the city, there are thousands of miles of sidewalks. As you walk through different neighborhoods, you may experience a variety of different atmospheres. In Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, it's quaint and quiet. In SoHo these days, there are so many pedestrians that they spill off the narrow sidewalks. While a neighborhood's atmosphere is, of course, a function of time, it is possible to get an average consensus of how 'crowded' each neighborhood feels by averaging over time. When we say 'crowded', we mean not just with people; we also mean with static objects, or street furniture, or, to get even more colloquial, 'clutter'. When we mix 'crowdedness' within the narrow environment of NYC's sidewalks, we endeavor to call this feeling 'claustrophobia', a direct mapping to the definition in psychology.

• Winter's Best, '23

  Published:Apr 26, 2024 |  at 03:30 AM

  My favorite sonic finds from the winter of 2023.

• Is the English Alphabet at its Brim?

  Published:Feb 9, 2024 |  at 03:30 AM

  I investigate the extent to which 3 and 4 letter combinations are populated by online search results, in an attempt to find underutilized words (or, at least, pronounceable letter combinations.)

Recent Posts

• Fall's Best, '23

  Published:Dec 1, 2023 |  at 03:30 AM

  My favorite sonic finds from the fall of 2023.

• Summers's Best, '23

  Published:Sep 18, 2023 |  at 03:30 AM

  My favorite sonic finds from the summer of 2023.

• Arbor + Sheet Music

  Published:Mar 17, 2023 |  at 03:30 AM

  Sheet music and a short background of the writing process behind my piano composition, Arbor.

• Best Listens of October, '22

  Published:Oct 31, 2022 |  at 03:30 AM

  My favorite musical listens of October, 2022.