[Colloquium] 11/10: Benjamin Recht (UC Berkeley) - Steampunk Data Science

[Rob Mitchum]

*Part of the **Committee on Computational and Applied Mathematics
Colloquium* <https://cam.uchicago.edu/events/cam-colloquium/>

*Thursday, November 10th*
*4:00pm - 5:00pm*
*Jones 303*

*Benjamin Recht*
*Professor, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science*
*University of California, Berkeley*


*Steampunk Data Science*

*Abstract*: How did scientists make sense of data before statistics and
computing? This talk will explore this question by focusing on the
discovery of vitamins, which occurred in the early 20th century just before
the advent of modern statistical methodology. I will describe the varied
practices in experimentation and reporting and highlight the sorts of
insights required to uncover what “works.” Through this discussion, I will
draw connections to contemporary data science tools to illustrate their
pros and cons in facilitating discovery.

*Bio*: Benjamin Recht <http://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~brecht/> is a
Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
at the University of California, Berkeley. He was previously an Assistant
Professor in the Department of Computer Sciences at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison. Ben received his B.S. in Mathematics from the University
of Chicago, and received a M.S. and PhD from the MIT Media Laboratory.
After completing his doctoral work, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the
Center for the Mathematics of Information at Caltech.

Ben is the recipient of a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists
and Engineers, an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, the 2012 SIAM/MOS
Lagrange Prize in Continuous Optimization, the 2014 Jamon Prize, the 2015
William O. Baker Award for Initiatives in Research, and the 2017 and 2020
NeurIPS Test of Time Awards. He has served on the Editorial Boards of the
Journal for Machine Learning Research and Mathematical Programming. He also
cofounded the Conference on Learning for Decision and Control.


-- 
*Rob Mitchum*

*Associate Director of Communications for Data Science and Computing*
*Department of Computer Science*
*Data Science Institute*
*University of Chicago*
*rmitchum at uchicago.edu <rmitchum at ci.uchicago.edu>*
*773-484-9890*
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