Shanaa Modchalingam

Shanaa Modchalingam

Shanaathanan
Multimodal MLWearable TechnologySensorimotor NeuroscienceData ScienceVR / XR

I'm a research engineer and data scientist who works at the intersection of machine learning, neuroscience, and human-computer interaction. My career has moved between academic research and industry — most recently building and deploying multimodal ML systems for wearables at Meta Reality Labs, and before that, earning a PhD in sensorimotor neuroscience at York University.

What I enjoy most is taking ownership of ambiguous, high-impact problems. At Meta, that meant leading research integration into production ML pipelines and setting org-wide data standards for a team of about 100 people. During my PhD, it meant founding a new research workstream, growing it from zero to 15 members, and building tools that were adopted across multiple labs. I've also held elected leadership positions on committees overseeing significant R&D funding decisions, which gave me a perspective on research strategy that goes well beyond any single project.

Technically, I work across the stack — Python, C++, PyTorch, React, Unity — and across modalities, from computer vision and motion sensing to language models. I'm always looking for opportunities where deep technical skill and broad organizational thinking intersect.

MetaResearch Engineer & Data Scientist · Research Scientist Intern
York UniversityPhD (2024) · MSc (2018)
Marburg UniversityVisiting Researcher