<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div class=""><span class="" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2; font-size: large;">UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO</span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div class=""><span class=""><font size="4" class="">DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE</font></span></div><div class="" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><font size="4" class="">SEMINAR:</font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p class=""> </o:p></p><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div class="" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><img apple-inline="yes" id="D3C03C38-442E-4AB9-8393-98544E2AA078" class="" src="cid:15E0B67D-4D09-4CCD-B321-4A8F1D89DF8E@cs.uchicago.edu"></div><div class="" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><font size="4" class=""><b class="">Cyrus Rashtchian</b></font></div><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div class="" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><font size="4" class=""><i class="">University of California, San Diego</i></font></div><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><i class=""><p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><o:p class=""></o:p></p></i></span><div class=""><br class=""></div></div><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class=""><span class=""><font class=""><font size="4" class=""><b class="">Wednesday, March 31st at 12:30 pm</b></font></font></span></span></div><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class=""><br class=""></span></div><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;">Join via zoom (enables questions):</span></span></div><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="https://uchicago.zoom.us/j/94553895401?pwd=R01EYlNDajZjZjJCR1JXSE5laW9PZz09" class="" style="font-size: 15px;">https://uchicago.zoom.us/j/94553895401?pwd=R01EYlNDajZjZjJCR1JXSE5laW9PZz09</a></div><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;">Meeting ID: 945 5389 5401</span></div><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;">Passcode: uccs2021</span></div><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;"><br class=""></span></div><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;">Or</span></span></div><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;"><br class="">Watch via live stream:<br class=""></span></span></div><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></div></div><div class=""><div class=""><font class=""><font class=""><span class=""><b class="" style="color: rgb(33, 33, 33);"><span class="" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 15px;"><a href="http://live.cs.uchicago.edu/cyrusrashtchian/" class="">http://live.cs.uchicago.edu/cyrusrashtchian/</a></span></b></span></font></font></div><div class=""><font class=""><font class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;"><br class=""></span></font></font></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;"><span class=""><span class=""><span class=""><font class=""><font class=""><span class=""><b class="" style="color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">Title: </b></span></font></font></span></span></span><span class="">Foundations of Data Science: Algorithms, Models, Explainability</span></span></div><div class=""><font color="#212121" class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;"><b class=""><br class=""></b></span></font></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;"><span class=""><span class=""><span class=""><span class="" style="color: rgb(33, 33, 33);"><span class=""><b class="">Abstract: </b></span></span></span></span></span><font color="#212121" class=""><span class="">Building a theory for data science involves formulating new </span></font><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">theoretical frameworks for important applications, as well as </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">developing efficient and reliable solutions for associated </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">computational challenges. Central themes of my research include new </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">models and algorithms for bioinformatics and trustworthy machine </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">learning. In this talk, I first describe my work on trustworthy </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">machine learning, where I will present a new model for explainable </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">k-means clustering based on small decision trees and a new algorithm </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">for finding a tree-based clustering with provably low cost. This work </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">is the first to identify an unsupervised learning problem where </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">explainable-by-design algorithms do not suffer from a large loss in </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">their effectiveness. Turning to DNA data storage, I will provide an </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">overview of this exciting, emerging technology. It promises orders of </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">magnitude improved density and longevity compared to existing storage </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">media. However, efficiently retrieving data that has been stored in </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">DNA requires solving many interesting theoretical and practical </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">problems. I will survey my contributions in this area, including </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">efficient DNA synthesis methods, a distributed clustering algorithm </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">for edit distance, and new statistical reconstruction algorithms. </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">Next, I will discuss how to reconstruct node-labeled trees when given </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">samples from an appropriately defined deletion channel. This involves </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">new combinatorial and statistical algorithms, and it showcases a </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">difficult model where worst-case reconstruction is possible with a </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">polynomial number of samples. Finally, I will share my plans for </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">future work in the areas of statistical reconstruction, trustworthy </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">machine learning, and applied algorithms more generally.</span></span></div></div><div class=""><font color="#212121" class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;"><br class=""></span></font></div><div class=""><div class=""><font class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;"><div class="" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class=""><font class=""><b class="" style="color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">Bio: </b></font>Cyrus Rashtchian is currently a postdoc in the Computer Science & Engineering department at the University of California, San Diego. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science & Engineering in 2018, advised by Paul Beame, from the University of Washington, Seattle, and his BS in Computer Science from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He has broad research interests in the foundations of data science, including DNA data storage, robust and explainable machine learning, statistical reconstruction, clustering, and distributed algorithms. In general, he applies diverse geometric and algorithmic tools to problems in data science, with a keen eye for new applications. Prior to UCSD, he completed research internships at Facebook Reality Labs, Microsoft Research, and Cray. He has published in top machine learning and theoretical computer science conferences, including SODA, COLT, ITCS, ICML, NeurIPS, and AISTATS, and journals such as Nature Biotechnology and the Annals of Applied Probability. Personal website: <a href="http://www.cyrusrashtchian.com/" class="">http://www.cyrusrashtchian.com</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></span></font></div><div class=""><div class="" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#222222" class=""><i class=""><b class=""><font class="" style="font-size: 15px;">Host: Sanjay Krishnan</font></b></i></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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