{"634175":{"#nid":"634175","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Four Machine Learning Faculty Members Earn Promotions and Tenure","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EFour faculty members at the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/ml.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EMachine Learning Center at Georgia Tech\u003C\/a\u003E have received promotions or been granted tenure.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EJake Abernethy\u003C\/strong\u003E has been promoted to associate professor in the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/scs.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Computer Science\u003C\/a\u003E and granted tenure. Abernethy\u0026rsquo;s research focus is machine learning, where he enjoys discovering connections between optimization, statistics, and economics.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EIn 2011, he completed his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley before becoming a Simons postdoctoral fellow for the following two years. After the water crisis in Flint, Mich., Abernethy worked on \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/~jabernethy9\/flint\/\u0022\u003Edetecting lead contamination and infrastructure remediation\u003C\/a\u003E. Prior to studying and teaching machine learning, Abernethy performed comedy and juggling shows, opening for Sinbad and Dave Chappelle.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMunmun De Choudhury\u003C\/strong\u003E has been promoted to associate professor in the\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/ic.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003E School of Interactive Computing\u003C\/a\u003E and granted tenure. De Choudhury is also affiliated with the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/gvu.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EGVU\u003C\/a\u003E Center and \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/ipat.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EInstitute for People and Technology (IPaT)\u003C\/a\u003E and leads the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/socweb.cc.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESocial Dynamics and Wellbeing Lab (SocWeb Lab.)\u003C\/a\u003E De Choudhury studies problems at the intersection of computer science and social media, building computational methods and artefacts to help understand human behaviors and psychological states and how they manifest online.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EPrior to joining Georgia Tech in 2014, De Choudhury was a postdoctoral researcher in the nexus group at Microsoft Research, Redmond. In 2011, she received her Ph.D. from Arizona State University, Tempe. After graduate school, De Choudhury spent time at Rutgers University and was a faculty associate with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EYajun Mei\u003C\/strong\u003E has been promoted to professor in the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EH. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering\u003C\/a\u003E. Mei\u0026#39;s research interests include change-point problems and sequential analysis in mathematical statistics and sensor networks and information theory in engineering. Mei also examines longitudinal data analysis, random effects models, and clinical trials in biostatistics.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EMei received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the California Institute of Technology in 2003. He has also worked as a postdoc in biostatistics at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. In 2010, Mei was awarded the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award and in 2008 was awarded Best Paper at FUSION. Mei was awarded the prestigious Abraham Wald Prize in Sequential Analysis in 2009.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAlex Endert \u003C\/strong\u003Ehas been promoted to associate professor and granted tenure in the School of Interactive Computing. Endert directs the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/gtvalab.github.io\/\u0022\u003EVisual Analytics Lab\u003C\/a\u003E where he and his students apply fundamental research to\u0026nbsp;domains including text analysis, intelligence analysis, cybersecurity, and decision-making, and explore novel user interaction techniques for visual analytics.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EEndert earned his Ph.D. from Virginia Tech in 2012, and in 2013 his work on Semantic Interaction was awarded the IEEE VGTC VPG Pioneers Group Doctoral Dissertation Award, and the Virginia Tech Computer Science Best Dissertation Award. In 2018, Endert received the NSF CAREER Award.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EEditors Note:\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003EMolei Tao\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;has been promoted to associate professor with tenure in the School of Math. Tao is an applied and computational mathematician, designing algorithms for faster and more accurate computations and developing mathematical tools to analyze and design engineering systems or answer scientific questions.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EHe earned his Ph.D. in control and dynamical systems with a minor in physics from the California Institute of Technolgy where he also worked as a postdoctoral researcher. He is the 2011 recipient of the W.P. Carey Ph.D. Prize in Applied Mathematics and a 2019 NSF CAREER Award.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Four faculty members at the Machine Learning Center at Georgia Tech have received promotions or been granted tenure."}],"uid":"34773","created_gmt":"2020-04-08 17:37:17","changed_gmt":"2020-05-11 18:57:34","author":"ablinder6","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2020-04-08T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2020-04-08T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"634173":{"id":"634173","type":"image","title":"Four ML@GT faculty members earn promotions and tenure","body":null,"created":"1586367276","gmt_created":"2020-04-08 17:34:36","changed":"1586367276","gmt_changed":"2020-04-08 17:34:36","alt":"Congratulations Alex, Jake, Munmun, and Yajun","file":{"fid":"241321","name":"Spring 2020 ML Promotions.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/Spring%202020%20ML%20Promotions.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/Spring%202020%20ML%20Promotions.png","mime":"image\/png","size":440694,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/Spring%202020%20ML%20Promotions.png?itok=eykZsruJ"}}},"media_ids":["634173"],"groups":[{"id":"1299","name":"GVU Center"},{"id":"576481","name":"ML@GT"},{"id":"50875","name":"School of Computer Science"},{"id":"50876","name":"School of Interactive Computing"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAllie McFadden\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ECommunications Officer\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003Eallie.mcfadden@cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}