Mark is finishing his undergraduate studies in Computer Science and Mathematics at the University of Ljubljana while concurrently studying Finance at the University of London (lead college: London School of Economics). During high school, he played basketball professionally in the top Slovenian league and international competitions but ultimately chose to pursue an academic path. Alongside his studies and research, he is also active in leadership roles, reflecting his commitment to developing skills that will enable him to translate academic research into impactful real-world solutions. He also enjoys competing in hackathons and has received the Inženirska iskra award, among many others.

He has gained research experience at the Jožef Stefan Institute, National Taiwan University, and as a Data Engineer and Data Scientist in industry roles. His primary research interests include large-scale recommender systems, geometric deep learning, and computational biology.

As part of the ASEF Junior Fellowship, he will visit Prof. Jure Leskovec at Stanford University. Mark is eager to contribute to research on graph neural networks (GNNs), particularly in drug discovery, while immersing himself in Stanford’s unique environment at the intersection of academia and industry.