Alex Castronovo

About Me

I am a Magar Fellow at the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience since June 2024. My research focuses on developing software tools to automate image analysis in electron microscopy (EM) images of the brain. My neuroscience research borrows from several fields, including computer graphics, signal processing and statistics.

I am also an undergraduate at Florida Atlantic University Wilkes Honors College, concentrating in Data Analytics, while concurrently attending FAU High School. Before FAU, I attended Stanford Online High School, where an astrophysics course shaped my academic journey.

I am also the lead of the software team for a satellite. We are currently developing WolfSat-1, a CubeSat which aims to test the effectiveness of plastic-eating bacteria in low Earth orbit. The project is fully-funded and scheudled to launch in Q3 2026. I am honored to receive the inaugaral 2025 Charles M. Duke Award for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in the Wolfpack for my work on this team.

Work Experience

1. Max Planck Florida Instute for Neuroscience

   Magar Fellowship

   Summer 2024

   

   Currently, I am a Magar Fellow at the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience. I have received this fellowship for two consecutive years. I have developed several Python software tools in the Electron Microscopy (EM) core to automatically analyze the morphology of synapses, the communication link connecting two neurons. These tools automate workflows that would otherwise require hundreds of hours of manual work, completing them in seconds.

Education

1. Florida Atlantic University

   Fall 2023 - Spring 2027 (expected)

   GPA: 3.94

   

   I am an undergraduate sophomore at Florida Atlantic University Wilkes Honors College with a concentration in Data Analytics (data science). Concurrently, I attend Florida Atlantic University High School, an early college program that allolws high-achieving students to earn a high school diploma while completing degree requirements for FAU.

2. Stanford Online High School

   Fall 2022 - Spring 2023

   GPA: 3.9

   

   I was a student at Stanford Online High School for the 2022-2023 academic year. I took an astrophysics course, which is the most influential course I have taken. It exposed me to the world of astrophysics, academia, and the process of writing scientific a paper. Through this course, I published to the peer-reviewed Journal of Double Star Observations and also wrote a pre-print on data analysis of galaxy filaments. This experience helped me with subsequent research projects at FAU.

Projects

1. Reina

   Reina is a renderer that simulates light bouncing in a scene to generate photorealistic images. I wrote it in the low-level Vulkan graphics API to take advantage of its ray tracing pipeline. This multidiciplinary project combines the fields of computer science, physics, and statistics.

   The image on the right was rendered with my program.

   

   Go to GitHub

2. Launchify

   

   Launchify is a full-stack web application and service that notifies users via text or email when a rocket is about to launch. The Launchify service is free and fully customizable, with up to 3 notifications per launch and notifications up to 24 hours before launch.

   Go to Website

3. JANGL

   

   JANGL is an acronym for "Java Graphics Library." It is a software library I created utilizing the OpenGL graphics API to make the process of developing 2D graphics and games in Java easier by abstracting many low-level concepts. JANGL is designed to be simple while still allowing the option to access many low-level features, such as overriding the shader automatically applied to an object.

   Go to GitHub

4. Mathematix

   Provided a heavy contribution to an in-development web application which uses 'node blocks,' allowing the user to graph mathematical functions with a visual interface. My contribution primarily focused on reorganizing code and fixing bugs to take the application to a minimum viable product. In 2024, the project won first place in the QubitX Hacks competition with over 560 participants and 40 projects.

   

   Go to Website Go to GitHub Go to Devpost

5. Multiplayer Sudoku

   Multiplayer Sudoku lets you and your friends solve the same Sudoku puzzle together in real-time over the internet, adding a new dimension of collaborative fun to this classic game.

   

   Go to Website Go to GitHub

6. Golden

   

   GOLDEN (Gold Labeling and Density Evaluation Network) analyzes the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience (MPFI) gold particle dataset. It identifies immunogold particles in an electron microscopy image of the brain, splits the particles into clusters, and evaluates the density of each cluster. The density is calculated using an approach derived from graph theory.

   On the left, you can see an example image of the input data. The gold particles are the small black dots.

   Go to GitHub