Nayera Hasan ’26, a computer science major with a minor in data science, is headed to Adobe, where she will work as a software engineer on enterprise generative AI within Adobe Experience Cloud. The role is a natural next step for someone who spent her final year at Haverford asking hard questions about how AI systems reason and if they do so equitably across languages.
Hasan’s senior thesis evaluated how large language models perform logical reasoning in both English and Arabic, a project that sits at the intersection of computer science and linguistics. “Haverford gave me the space to take a question I genuinely cared about and turn it into real research,” she says. That combination of curiosity and rigor, she adds, is exactly what she plans to bring to her work in industry. She says she plans to publish the multilingual reasoning benchmark she developed for her thesis so that other researchers can continue to build on it.
Hasan says several courses and professors shaped her path during her time at the College. “Machine Learning” with Associate Professor of Computer Science Alvin Grissom gave her a clearer picture of what actually happens inside AI systems. “Data Science,” which she later returned to as a teaching assistant, taught her that how you analyze data is itself an argument. “Advanced GIS” with Visiting Assistant Professor of Growth and Structure of Cities Dirk Kinsey at Bryn Mawr pushed her to think about information spatially, while “Culture Through Arabic Films” with Visiting Lecturer in Arabic Manar Darwish taught her to seek the context behind anything she encounters.
Grissom, who also served as her thesis advisor, was central to her academic development, Hasan says. “He trusted me to take on a thesis that bridged computer science and linguistics, and pushed me to make the work rigorous on both sides,” she says. She also credits Douglas & Dorothy Steere Professor of Quaker Studies David Harrington Watt for being a steady presence in her life since her first year at Haverford. The classes he led, she says, encouraged her to get comfortable sitting with difficult questions.
Hasan’s trajectory was shaped by a Center for Peace and Global Citizenship-funded software engineering internship in Egypt the summer after her freshman year. “That was my first real experience in tech and the moment I realized this was the work I wanted to keep doing,” she says. She later joined Shibulal Family Computer Science Professor Sorelle Friedler’s lab as a KINSC Scholar, where the research she conducted is now on track to be published. She also led HaverCode, the College’s computer science club; served as a peer academic coach and tutor through the Office of Academic Resources; and led the Haverford Middle Eastern & North African Club for four years, building community for students from the region. She also competed on the varsity squash team.
Looking ahead, Hasan hopes to keep growing as an engineer while staying involved in efforts to bring more women and underrepresented students into the tech sector. More importantly, she plans to show up for the people she works alongside, something she says Haverford taught her to do. She leaves her fellow graduates with this: “Keep working on problems you genuinely care about, even when they don’t fit neatly into existing fields. And stay as generous with each other out in the world as Haverford taught us to be.”