Max Hartman

Hi, I’m Max Hartman, an MS student at the UIUC ECE department, where I am fortunate to be advised by Prof. Minh N. Do. Previously, I completed my BS at UIUC in Computer Engineering, advised by Prof. Lav R. Varshney. In Summer 2026, I will be a software engineer intern at Meta. Previously, I was a software development engineer intern at Amazon (Summer 2025).

My research is centered around how information is stored and processed in large models (currently focused on VLMs). I am particularly interested in what in how information across modalities is used. I enjoy theoretically explaining why certain mechanisms occur in models and using such insights to improve model performance, reasoning, and efficiency with archtectural and inference-time modifications.

Additionally, I have been working on building Federated systems so AI techniques can be safetly applied to fields with sensitive data (e.g. Healthcare) or in industries where competitors cannot share raw data but can mutually benefit from a shared global model (e.g. manufacturing).