Stanford's youngest instructor on InfoSec, AI, catching cheaters - Rachel Fernandez [Podcast #217]

Today Quincy Larson interviews Rachel An Fernandez. She's a machine subject student astatine Stanford and the youngest coach astatine the full university. She precocious helped shape TreeHacks, Stanford's yearly hackathon, which narrowed 15,000 applicants down to conscionable 1,000 participants. They built projects complete a azygous play and competed for a cardinal dollars successful prizes. Rachel grew up successful Westminster, a mini California municipality pinch a mostly Mexican and Vietnamese population. 70% of students astatine her precocious schoolhouse had family incomes truthful debased that qualified for free schoolhouse lunches. And Rachel was the first student from location to get into Stanford successful years. We talk about: - The authorities of machine subject acquisition successful 2026 - Her thoughts connected C++, a connection she teaches astatine Stanford, and its continued importance - And her tips for really devs should usage AI devices without "deskilling" themselves Support for this podcast comes from the 10,113 benignant folks who donate to our kindness each month. Join them and support our ngo astatine https://donate.freecodecamp.org Get a freeCodeCamp tshirt for $20 pinch free shipping anyplace successful the US: https://shop.freecodecamp.org Links from our discussion: - Rachel connected LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-fernandez28/ - freeCodeCamp book connected AI Assisted Coding that Quincy mentions: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-become-an-expert-in-ai-assisted-coding-a-handbook-for-developers/ 1. freeCodeCamp conscionable published an automation for beginners course. You'll study really to automate your regular daily tasks by piping together triggers and actions. By the extremity of the course, you'll person your ain Model Context Protocol server that tin stock info betwixt your productivity apps and your agents. (4 hr YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/reclaim-your-time-master-automation-with-zapier/ 2. freeCodeCamp besides published a full-length handbook connected information quality. You'll study the astir communal ways that bad information enters a system, and really to forestall them. You'll get vulnerability to the different layers wherever information validation needs to happen: beforehand end, backmost end, database, business logic, and information ingestion. The handbook will besides locomotion you done testing strategies to support bad information retired of your projects. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/data-quality-handbook-data-errors-the-developer-s-role-validation-layers/ 3. AI Governance whitethorn sound for illustration thing only managers request to interest about. But successful practice, it's america developers who person to really build the responsible AI systems. You tin bookmark this caller freeCodeCamp handbook and codification on pinch 4 hands-on Python projects: a exemplary paper generator, a bias discovery pipeline, an audit way logger, and a human-in-the-loop escalation system. (full magnitude handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-ai-governance-handbook-build-responsible-ai-systems/ 4. Today's opus of the week is Danza Marilù by French disco set L'Impératrice. This 2024 banger features a heavy syncopated bass statement that I deliberation you'll love. The vocalist subtly alternates betwixt French and Italian. And the euphony video is unsocial and each bully vibes arsenic well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YC0ErOoQcUA