Shean Rahman

I'm currently a junior studying applied physics with a computer science minor at Columbia Engineering. My journey began in aerospace engineering at the University of Virginia, where I spent my freshman year designing and flying rockets. I ended up transferring to Columbia, focusing my studies at the intersection of AI/ML with real world physics.

I care about work that actually moves something forward, not just in a paper or a simulation, but in the real world. That's what drew me from rockets to fusion plasmas to autonomous robots: they are all domains where the stakes are high enough that getting it wrong matters, and where understanding the underlying physics isn't academic, it's the difference between something that works and something that fails.

I'm not interested in building things for the sake of building them. I want the work to compound toward something larger, whether that's cleaner energy, smarter machines, or tools that genuinely make someone's life better.

Outside of academics, I train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, do physics/astronomy with Columbia Spectra and Blueshift, and keep a steady rotation of podcasts and books on startups and neuroscience.