Taleh Malikov
MS Student, University of Chicago
Taleh Malikov | HCI MS student
Taleh Malikov is a Computer Science M.S. student at University of Chicago. He is a research assistant in the Human Computer Integration Lab, directed by Professor Pedro Lopes.
His work focuses on Human-Computer Interaction. He explores how biomechanical simulation can stand in for a real body, so systems that act on the body can be designed and tested in 3D before they reach a wearer.
Before UChicago, Taleh spent three years building production distributed systems, including a national health insurance platform serving 200+ hospitals and over 10 million citizens.
Research
An avatar interface for embodied AI motor commands
Taleh Malikov, Romain Nith, Pedro Lopes. Human Computer Integration Lab, University of Chicago, 2026
Electrical muscle stimulation is normally only observable by being stimulated — you have to wear the electrodes to know what the system is doing. I built a 3D avatar that renders EMS commands as visible body motion instead, so the output can be inspected without a participant in the loop. Language-generated stimulation commands are mapped onto skeletal joint rotations and validated against anatomical limits, with the requested value shown beside the applied one, so a motion the body could not perform reads as a visible constraint rather than an impossible pose. It runs as the lab’s public interface for this work, with a manual control mode and a debug mode for stepping through a sequence command by command, and is extending toward closed-loop EMS with biomechanical simulation.
Awards
Scholar, State Program for Education of Azerbaijani Youth Abroad, 2025. Azerbaijan’s flagship government scholarship for graduate study abroad, providing full funding.
Teaching
Teaching Assistant, Cloud Computing
University of Chicago, Fall 2026
Teaching Assistant, Programming Principles (Python)
The Academy of Public Administration, 2021–2023
Experience
Software Engineer
The State Agency on Mandatory Health Insurance, 2023–2025
Built three clinical microservices (registration, laboratory, radiology) for a HIMSS-certified national hospital system serving 200+ hospitals and over 10 million citizens. Owned two systems end to end, including a military conscript records pipeline integrating three government organizations through an inter-agency gateway with electronic signing.
Information Technology Specialist
The Academy of Public Administration, 2023
Proposed and led the Academy’s first electronic library (lib.dia.edu.az) — directed a five-person team, built the application and full API layer, and deployed it on Academy infrastructure. Still in active use.
Education
M.S. Computer Science, University of Chicago, 2025–2027. Specialization in Artificial Intelligence.
B.S. Computer Science, The Academy of Public Administration, 2024. 96.96/100, graduated with honors.