Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of California, San Diego
5604 EBU1
Mailcode 0407
La Jolla, CA 92093-0407
USA
Fax: + 1 858 534-6976
Phone: + 1 858 539-6003
My research interests are on the interplay between machine learning, applied statistics and convex optimization techniques. I am interested in developing methods for pattern discovery from extremely large-scale data sets, taking uncertainty into account and respecting computational constraints. More precisely, my research focuses on the integration of multiple, heterogeneous data types for a variety of pattern discovery tasks where the amount of data is extremely large and the solutions desired to be sparse. An important challenge in the field of machine learning is to deal with the increasing amount of data that is available for learning and to leverage the (also increasing) diversity of information sources, describing these data. Beyond classical vectorial data formats, data in the format of graphs, trees, strings and beyond have become widely available for data mining, e.g., the linked structure of communication networks, amino acid sequences describing proteins, etc. Moreover, for interpretability, stability and economical reasons, decision rules that rely on a small subset of the information sources and/or a small subset of the features describing the data are highly desired: sparse learning algorithms are a must. My research is inspired by practical applications in computational genomics, financial engineering and computer music.
I joined the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at UCSD in September 2005. I received my M.Sc. and Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley in 2001 respectively 2005, working with Laurent El Ghaoui and Michael Jordan. I received the Electrical Engineering degree from the Catholic University Leuven, Belgium, in 2000. I currently lead the interdepartmental (ECE/CSE/CogSci) group on Computational Statistics and Machine Learning (COSMAL), I teach core undergraduate level courses in electrical engineering, graduate level courses in convex optimization and machine learning and I assist in the development of a graduate sequence in machine learning and applications. I was born in Bruges, Belgium on March 1, 1977.