From: Kayur Patel, CSE PhD Student
Machine learning is cool! It allows us to unleash the power of data to attack hard problems like controlling computers with our minds, diagnosing diseases, and even understanding the very nature of the physical universe.
Machine learning is also changing the way we program. Instead of just writing code to tell a computer what to do, programmers have to both write code and provide data to teach a computer what to do. Learning from data leads to all sorts of unique programming challenges. For example, how does a programmer know if the computer has learned the correct concepts? And how do they determine if poor performance is due to bad data or buggy code?
Our research group tries to understand how to build software that uses machine learning and creates tools that allow ordinary developers to effectively apply machine learning. We try to accelerate progress by increasing the number of people using machine learning so we can reduce the time until we get to control computers with our minds*. Specifically we want to know what development environments, debuggers, and version control systems look like when building software that learns program behavior from data, and we’re looking for smart, hard-working undergrads to help out during the spring and/or summer quarters.
– Writing GUI code to create interactive data visualizations.
– Creating, building, and testing small machine learning projects.
– Working in a small group to refine and extend a development environment for machine learning.
These projects will give you a chance to learn about machine learning, visualization, and research in computer science. We can figure out how to get you course credit or a paid position depending on your skills and interest. If you’re interested, send an email with a bit about yourself to kayur@cs and we’ll chat.
-k
*Disclaimer: You probably won’t be controlling computers with your mind, but we might do cool things with Kinnects and iPhones and such.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you,
then they fight you, then you win”
– Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)