Jason Pereira

Chapel Hill, NC

2× first place · 4 AWS certifications · 1 published paper

Achievements

Awards and recognition

  1. Duke AI Hackathon

    1st of 220+

    Nov 2025 · Productivity & Enterprise Tools track

    Built in 36 hours and judged by a panel of 34+. Case Closed →

  2. Anthropic Claude AI Hackathon

    1st place, team of 2

    Nov 17, 2025

    A gamified stress-relief study app. Brain Bubble Pop →

  3. AWS Global AI Expo Challenge

    Final showcase

    2026

    Quick Sprint Demo Packs, an enablement initiative for AWS Solutions Architects.

  4. Y Combinator Startup School

    Selected

    Chase Center, San Francisco · Jul 25–26, 2026

    YC's invitation-only, hand-selected summit for technical builders.

  5. Charlotte's 20 Under 20

    Honoree

    The Dean's List · Jan 2026

    Nomination-based. Twenty of Charlotte's most influential leaders aged 14–19, giving back to the city.

  6. Eagle Scout

    Highest rank

    Scouting America · Oct 2024

    Gold and Bronze Eagle Palms, Order of the Arrow (elected by peers) and 32 merit badges, after 11 years in Scouting.

More recognition

  • 1st place, Tminus0 Startup Challenge Raised $3,635 in 4 hours against a $1,000 goal
  • UNC 1789 Student Venture Fund Mar 2026 · Seed funding and mentorship for Case Closed
  • Robert E. Bryan Fellow, UNC APPLES $1,500 grant for Carolina Corner
  • Wells Fargo Scholarship Oct 2025
  • 4th place, FBLA National Leadership Conference Website Design · Anaheim, CA · Jul 2025
  • 2× FBLA North Carolina state champion Website Design (Mar 2025) · Social Media Strategies (Mar 2024)
  • 2nd place, TSA North Carolina Structural Design & Engineering · Mar 2024
  • Good Citizenship Award Marine Corps League Detachment #750
  • Honors Carolina · Dean's List · Buckley Public Service Scholars UNC-Chapel Hill

Certifications

Six earned in six weeks, alongside a full-time AWS internship in Summer 2026.

  • AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate

    Issued Jun 18, 2026 · Valid through Jun 2029

    Credential ID 3e4dcf30-deae-4ca1-aa70-1bca45640904

  • AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer – Associate

    Issued Jul 30, 2026 · Valid through Jul 2029

    Credential ID d7073b7e-d08a-4146-8b72-b048668084a2

  • AWS Certified AI Practitioner

    Issued Jun 29, 2026 · Valid through Jul 2029

    Credential ID b3d8285e-db08-4cd8-a5e0-342321f14848

  • AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner

    Issued Jul 31, 2026 · Valid through Jul 2029

    Credential ID b7964872-ba45-4acc-ab7d-482efd10a216

Also certified

  • Google

    Generative AI Leader

    Issued Jan 2, 2026

    Credential ID VWBDWEQMAOM4

  • Anthropic

    Claude 101

    Issued Jul 17, 2026

    Credential ID r5dnjy8rh8fn

  • Anthropic

    AI Fluency: Framework & Foundations

    Issued Jul 3, 2026

    Credential ID ub7i4frjwei2

  • Duke University

    Machine Learning Foundations for Product Managers

    Issued Jan 28, 2026

    Credential ID FKWCLNDK35C1

  • Coursera

    Dynamic Dashboards with Tableau: Advanced Sales Analysis

    Issued Jan 2, 2026

    Credential ID 81BHF67SZSOJ

  • DeepLearning.AI

    Open Source Models with Hugging Face

    Issued Jun 13, 2024

    Credential ID d15812e1-b7b8-4033-b283-13d0ad7fa30c

Publications and talks

Google Scholar ↗

Analyzing Real Traffic Stop Data for Racial Bias

Adala, V., Jun, T., Pereira, J., Sandwar, V., & Fernandes, A.

Teaching for Excellence and Equity in Mathematics, 17(1), 32–43 · 2026

Co-author, 3rd of 5. A 5,000-stop random sample of ~124,000 Charlotte traffic stops, tested with simulation-based inference. Supported by NSF Grant No. 2121364. Read the paper ↗

Talks

  • The Velocity Paradox TEDxUNC talk · Feb 14, 2026 On the tension between speed and direction, and why direction comes first.
  • NCCTM State Conference Interactive workshop · Nov 2024 Co-presented the NSF-supported traffic-stop research to math educators, who analyzed the dataset in groups.