Tarik Can Ozden

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Hi! I am a Computer Science Master’s student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and a recent Computer Engineering graduate from Bogazici University, Turkey. I am currently a graduate research assistant at Rehg Lab.

Previously, I completed a research internship at UT Austin Swarm Lab under the supervision of Founder Prof. James Rehg and Prof. Sandeep Chinchali. In my research, I studied preventing diffusion-based edits. You can check out our paper here.

Education

Master of Science: Computer Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Graduate Research Assistant at Rehg Lab
2026 - Present
Bachelor of Science: Computer Engineering at Bogazici University
(Exchange Student at the University of Texas at Austin)
2020 - 2025
High School: Izmir Science High School
(Mathematical Olympiads, Valedictorian)
2016 - 2020

Experience

UT Austin Swarm Lab: Research Intern
Conducted a research internship focused on preventing image editing techniques in diffusion-based models.
Developed an optimization-free, end-to-end framework for image immunization, effectively preventing edits using diffusion models.
May - Aug 2024


Google Lens: STEP Intern
Redesigned and reimplemented Answer Relations at Google Lens, Zurich.
July - Oct 2023


Publications

  1. ICLR 2026
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    Optimization-Free Image Immunization Against Diffusion-Based Editing
    Tarik Can Ozden*, Ozgur Kara*, Oguzhan Akcin, Kerem Zaman, Shashank Srivastava, Sandeep P. Chinchali, and James M. Rehg
    The Fourteenth International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR), 2026
    arXiv PDF Website