Skip to work

Bronx, NY · CS @ CCNY · Gates Scholar

Brandom
Guzman‑Lora

I build research tooling that turns messy public and environmental data into something people can actually compare — RAG pipelines, agentic workflows and spatial analysis.

hackathon wins
2 hackathon wins
research appointments
4 research appointments
honors & scholarships
4 honors & scholarships
Brandom Guzman-Lora

01 — Selected work

Hackathon wins

01 ★ 1st place — Render track

Flightdeck

AI Software Factory · June 2026

An autonomous software factory. A GitHub issue goes in; a deployed preview environment and a real pull request come out.

What I built

Helped build the gated pipeline that generates preview deployments, so reviewers can click and test a feature before approving the pull request. Worked across Render deployment services, the AI-agent workflows, the React/Vite dashboard and the persistent run-state tracking that holds the whole loop together.

  • React
  • Vite
  • Render
  • AI agents
  • TypeScript
02 ★ Top 5 overall + Best Architecture

City Hacks The State

NYC Tech Week 2026 · June 2026

An AI facilities-intake platform where students report building problems by web chat, Telegram or a phone call, and the system files a real work order.

What I built

Built the agentic workflow that verifies the facility location, classifies issue priority, drafts a clear maintenance report and requires the student to confirm before anything is submitted. Connected that intake to the work-order dashboard through GraphQL, MongoDB, Telegram and Twilio, with server-side routes keeping credentials off the client.

  • GraphQL
  • MongoDB
  • Twilio
  • Telegram
  • Next.js

02 — Research

Research & fieldwork

June 2026 — Present

Supervising Research Intern

CUNY CREST HIRES · Manhattan, NY

Mentoring a cohort of undergraduate researchers while co-leading a study on how communities perceive nuclear energy facilities and AI data centres.

  • Mentor a cohort of undergraduate research interns — technical guidance, project planning and regular check-ins supporting both research execution and professional development.
  • Co-lead a study of community perceptions of nuclear energy facilities and AI data centres, combining literature review, public sentiment analysis, GIS visualisation and data analysis.

January — May 2026

Research Fellow

CCNY × MIT · Manhattan, NY

Built agentic RAG tooling that researches companies from live sources and turns their sustainability record into something a human can actually compare.

  • Developed agentic tools that research companies via RAG over live web searches and public records, extracting key business and sustainability metrics and exporting standardised comparison data to Excel.
  • Designed customisable benchmarking to compare organisations across revenue, renewable energy adoption, emissions and philanthropic initiatives.
  • Co-developed an urban upkeep proposal for New York City combining environmental research, community outreach and data-driven policy recommendations.

June — August 2025

Research Intern

CUNY CREST HIRES · Manhattan, NY

Evaluated how reliably different models read qualitative disaster reports, and published spatial work on global undernourishment.

  • Ran a comparative evaluation of models on honesty, hallucination rate, multi-modal data interpretation and agentic performance, for estimating flood depths from qualitative disaster reports.
  • Published an ArcGIS StoryMap visualising global undernourishment trends using GIS and spatial analysis.
  • Presented the findings at the NYCSRM Consortium.

February — May 2024

Student Intern

Van Cortlandt Park Alliance · Bronx, NY

Field water-quality work in the Bronx, and logistics behind a campaign that raised over $400,000 for restoration.

  • Collected and analysed water quality data, including pH measurements, to identify environmental concerns and recommend remediation strategies.
  • Supported logistics for a fundraising campaign that secured over $400,000 for engineering and restoration initiatives.

03 — Recognition

Honors & scholarships

The Gates Scholarship

April 2025

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Full-ride scholarship recognising outstanding academic achievement, leadership and commitment to community impact.

Pinkerton Science Scholar

August 2025

The Pinkerton Foundation

Selected through the competitive CUNY HIRES program for STEM engagement, research potential and applied scientific problem-solving.

NFTE National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge

October 2025

Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship

Placed in the top 16 of 46 finalists from across the United States.

NFTE Mid-Atlantic Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge

June 2025

Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship

Placed 2nd out of 75 participants, advancing to the national challenge.

04 — About

Background

I'm a Computer Science student at the Grove School of Engineering at CCNY, working where applied AI meets environmental and civic research. Most of my time goes to RAG systems and agentic tooling that pull information out of public records, live web sources and field reports, then turn it into something a person can compare and act on.

A lot of that work is spatial — GIS visualisation, ArcGIS StoryMaps, and estimating flood depth from qualitative disaster reports. The rest is sustainability measurement: benchmarking organisations on emissions, renewable adoption and philanthropic commitment. I also mentor the undergraduate researchers coming up behind me at CUNY CREST.

I'm looking for a software engineering internship where I can keep building tools that make public and environmental data legible.