Hayan Saab

HAYAN
SAAB

Computer science at Whitman College. Founder of the Whitman Innovation Lab. Researching who fraud models get wrong.

/Who am I

Who am I?

I'm Hayan, a computer science student at Whitman College with minors in data science and finance, class of 2028. You can find my code on GitHub and my work history on LinkedIn.

Outside of work: guitar, basketball, photography, camping, astronomy, and telling stories through writing and video.

Resume

/What I believe

Understand every part of what you build.

I want to lead engineering teams and still know how each piece works.

01

Shipping beats showing up.

In the Innovation Lab, the group project and GitHub commits make up 70% of the grade. Attendance is 10%.

02

Own the code AI writes.

Lab students must be able to explain every line of AI-assisted code they submit.

03

Ask who a model gets wrong.

Fraud models are judged on how much fraud they catch. I also want to know who they wrongly flag.

04

/Goals for the next two years

  • Go deep on fundamentals

    80% software engineering fundamentals, 15% cloud, 5% security.

    Roadmap

  • Ship something of my own every semester

    One project I build and deploy on my own, start to finish.

    Each semester

  • Code every day

    Two hours, every day.

    Daily

Toolkit: Python (pandas, NumPy, scikit-learn), R, C++, machine learning ensembles and fairness auditing, Git, and agentic coding with Claude Code.

/Journey

From Syria
to the States

  1. 01

    Syria

    Born and raised.

  2. 02

    Hong Kong

    IB Diploma at UWC Li Po Chun.

  3. 03

    The States

    Whitman College in Walla Walla, class of 2028. Where I am now.

I want to found a technology company, lead its engineering team, and still understand every part of what we build.

/Projects

Things I've built

Founder, program lead · Since April 2026

Whitman Innovation Lab

AI · Security · Fintech · Health

A semester-long accelerator where CS students build and ship a prototype for a real problem brought by an alumni mentor.

The program pairs lectures on version control, system design and agentic coding with hands-on labs, weekly presentations and set milestones. I designed the curriculum, wrote the student guide, and built the budget proposal with high, low and pilot funding scenarios.

24
students in the first cohort
6
teams, two per alumni mentor
47
industry contacts, from Apple and Nvidia to OpenAI and Anthropic
3
nights in San Francisco for the strongest team per mentor
/Grading Shipping code counts for more than showing up.

The two 5% slices are pre-class work and post-class tasks.

Product

Quak

Carpooling · Housing · Events · Marketplace

The hub for carpooling, housing, events and marketplace.

  • Carpooling
  • Housing
  • Events
  • Marketplace

Research · Summer 2026

Fraud detection & fairness

Python · pandas · scikit-learn

Fraud models are judged on how much fraud they catch. I also wanted to know who they wrongly flag.

I built a stacked ensemble classifier on the synthetic Sparkov transaction dataset, comparing random forests, XGBoost and neural networks. Because fraud is rare, I evaluated with precision, recall and precision-recall curves rather than accuracy. I then audited the models across cardholder groups using statistical parity, equalized odds and equal opportunity.

  • Preprocessing and feature engineering in Python with pandas, NumPy and scikit-learn, including log transforms for skewed features like city population
  • A literature review covering Kozodoi et al. (2022), Kamalaruban et al. (2024), Hardt et al. (2016) and the Bank Account Fraud dataset suite
  • Methods sections of a technical paper on fraud-injection calibration, preprocessing and skewness analysis

Advisor: Richard Torres Molina

Whitman Finance Accelerator · Sep 2025 – Mar 2026

AI in healthcare

Consulting

A consulting project on embedding AI in healthcare.

I led the project, weighing the costs and benefits of AI adoption against its effects on organizations and patients.

Side projects

Built with Claude Code

Agentic coding

Small tools for problems I ran into, built with agentic coding.

  • A carpool app for Whitman students
  • A budgeting system
  • A course analytics dashboard

/Leadership

Leadership & roles

Jul 2025 – now

President, ACM Student Chapter

Operations · Budget

I lead the executive board, run the chapter's budget and operations, and worked with faculty, the CCEC and alumni to launch the Innovation Lab as a chapter initiative.

Whitman College

Member, President's Budget Advisory Committee

Budget · Governance

Associated Students of Whitman College

Finance Senator, ASWC

Student government · Finance

April 2026 – now

Founder, Whitman Innovation Lab

Curriculum · Mentors

I designed the curriculum, wrote the student guide, built the budget proposal, and brought together alumni mentors and 47 industry contacts for the first cohort of 24 students.

2026 – now

Organizer, CCSC-NW Hackathon

Industry partners

Organizing a hackathon alongside the regional computing conference hosted at Whitman, and recruiting a company to bring a real problem for participants to solve.

Sep 2024 – now

IT Consultant, Whitman Technology Services

Support · Security

About 15 hours a week supporting students, faculty and staff: resolving tickets, administering Duo multi-factor authentication, and supporting Microsoft 365.

Oct 2024 – May 2026

Content Creator, Whitman Digital Fluencies

Design · Writing

Designed posts, video visuals and posters in Canva, Photoshop and Illustrator, and wrote articles on topics from Apple Notes to how people work with AI.

Let's connect.

I'm looking for mentors for the Innovation Lab, research collaborators, and summer engineering roles.