May 2020
Data Science and Big Data Analytics: Making Data-Driven Decisions
online
Developed by 11 MIT faculty members at IDSS, this seven-week course is specially designed for data scientists, business analysts, engineers and technical managers looking to learn strategies to harness data. Offered by MIT xPRO. Course begins May 4, 2020.
Find out more »Naive Feature Selection: Sparsity in Naive Bayes
Alexandre d'Aspremont (ENS, CNRS)
online
Abstract: Due to its linear complexity, naive Bayes classification remains an attractive supervised learning method, especially in very large-scale settings. We propose a sparse version of naive Bayes, which can be used for feature selection. This leads to a combinatorial maximum-likelihood problem, for which we provide an exact solution in the case of binary data, or a bound in the multinomial case. We prove that our bound becomes tight as the marginal contribution of additional features decreases. Both binary and…
Find out more »April 2020
How to Trap a Gradient Flow
Sébastien Bubeck (Microsoft Research)
online
Abstract: In 1993, Stephen A. Vavasis proved that in any finite dimension, there exists a faster method than gradient descent to find stationary points of smooth non-convex functions. In dimension 2 he proved that 1/eps gradient queries are enough, and that 1/sqrt(eps) queries are necessary. We close this gap by providing an algorithm based on a new local-to-global phenomenon for smooth non-convex functions. Some higher dimensional results will also be discussed. I will also present an extension of the 1/sqrt(eps)…
Find out more »On Using Graph Distances to Estimate Euclidean and Related Distances
Ery Arias-Castro (University of California, San Diego)
online
Abstract: Graph distances have proven quite useful in machine learning/statistics, particularly in the estimation of Euclidean or geodesic distances. The talk will include a partial review of the literature, and then present more recent developments on the estimation of curvature-constrained distances on a surface, as well as on the estimation of Euclidean distances based on an unweighted and noisy neighborhood graph. – About the Speaker: Ery Arias-Castro received his Ph.D. in Statistics from Stanford University in 2004. He then took…
Find out more »Matrix Concentration for Products
Jonathan Niles-Weed (NYU)
online
Abstract: We develop nonasymptotic concentration bounds for products of independent random matrices. Such products arise in the study of stochastic algorithms, linear dynamical systems, and random walks on groups. Our bounds exactly match those available for scalar random variables and continue the program, initiated by Ahlswede-Winter and Tropp, of extending familiar concentration bounds to the noncommutative setting. Our proof technique relies on geometric properties of the Schatten trace class. Joint work with D. Huang, J. A. Tropp, and R. Ward.…
Find out more »February 2020
Webinar: Inside the MITx MicroMasters Program in Statistics and Data Science
Devavrat Shah, Karene Chu
online
Interested in starting your data science journey? Register for this special free virtual event. You'll receive a confirmation e-mail with further details about the webinar. Demand for professionals skilled in data, analytics, and machine learning is exploding. A recent report by IBM and Burning Glass states that there will be 364K new job openings in data-driven professions this year in the US alone. Data scientists bring value to organizations across industries because they are able to solve complex challenges with…
Find out more »Data Science and Big Data Analytics: Making Data-Driven Decisions
online
Developed by 11 MIT faculty members at IDSS, this seven-week course is specially designed for data scientists, business analysts, engineers and technical managers looking to learn strategies to harness data. Offered by MIT xPRO. Course begins February 3, 2020.
Find out more »November 2019
SES PhD Admissions Webinar
Ali Jadbabaie (MIT)
Learn about admission to the Social and Engineering Systems Doctoral Program. Webinars are led by a member of the IDSS faculty who introduces the program and answers your questions. Please register in advance.
Find out more »SES PhD Admissions Webinar (updated start time)
Ali Jadbabaie (MIT)
Learn about admission to the Social and Engineering Systems Doctoral Program. Webinars are led by a member of the IDSS faculty who introduces the program and answers your questions. Please register in advance.
Find out more »October 2019
SES PhD Admissions Webinar
Ali Jadbabaie (MIT)
Learn about admission to the Social and Engineering Systems Doctoral Program. Webinars are led by a member of the IDSS faculty who introduces the program and answers your questions. Please register in advance.
Find out more »