Hello! Intros thread!

[brendan]

Hi all,

My name is Brendan Fortuner. I'm a Software Engineer from Seattle currently on sabbatical for side projects and study. After spending 4 years at Amazon, I thought it would be nice to take a short pause and figure out what to do with my life. My life plans change daily, but I’ve started to narrow in on using machine learning to solve problems in biology and healthcare—particularly neuroscience, mental health, and medical diagnostics.

My interest in deep learning stems from my interest in studying the brain, which arose after reading The Future of The Mind by Michio Kaku. I started working with researchers at the Allen Institute for Brain Science to bring their algorithms into the cloud. One highlight was attending a hackathon at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Outside of work I enjoy reading Isaac Asimov novels, doing yoga, attending hackathons, and playing piano, tennis, golf and go (board game).

I hope to complement this course with lots of side projects, so let me know if you’re interested in collaborating!

Brendan

[nichol.bradford]

• your background
• why you're interested in deep learning
• what you hope to get out of this course
• hobbies and interests

Hi, my name is Nichol Bradford. I spent 14 years in video games, ultimately operating World of Warcraft and all Blizzard Entertainment's properties in China. Until I went on a meditation retreat and had an experience that inspired me to focus on harnessing technology to support the mental and emotional wellbeing of humans. So I co-founded a psychology tech lab @ Sofia University (www.transtechlab.org), a conference (www.ttconf.org) and a list to recognize the key contributing companies, projects and researchers (www.transtech200.com).

The potential of machine learning and AI to this end is clear -- so I want to understand more about it. Additionally, we're starting a new project where we are taking a statistically reliable meditation course that causes dramatic improvements in well being and adding bio data - HRV, EEG, and GSR. We have recruited a great team of experts in these signals to help with the data, and I wanted to be able to really participate in the strategic discussions. I was a student at Singularity University in the GSP2015 class and saw 1st hand how Jeremy makes DS and machine learning accessible. So when I found out he'd be teaching a course, I jumped on it.

Hobbies -- reading, exercising, meditation and video games.

Really excited to meet you all.

Nichol

[pandu.ranganath]

Hello everyone,

I'm Pandu, product manager with software engineering background. I have both technology and business background. I have MBA from Kellogg, but, I can also code

I've worked on product analytics (mobile, web, cloud) at my company, worked with data engineers and data scientists to build a big data stack from ground up, and have completed a number of MOOCs related to machine learning.

I'm interested in learning about deep learning to better understand what sort of problems can be solved with it. I'm currently working on starting an analytics focused product company and would love to learn more about the possibilities of deep learning.

[elin.torfadottir]

Hi all!
I'm Ella and I am from Iceland but moved to Stockholm, Sweden this summer with my family. I'm a biologist and a computer scientist. I worked for a short time as a research assistant studying protein-protein interactions of the BRCA2 breast cancer gene before studying computer science. Since then I've spent most of my carrier working with data; starting with airline data, then the human genome and now on building self service discovery tool in the BI world.
I'm fascinated with the possibilities of deep learning and how it can be applied both in our every day lives and in research.
I have three boys on the age of 4-10 and I just love spending all the spare time I have with them. I also love exercising, outdoor activities, karate and biking.
Look forward to work with you all!

[aguimaraesduarte]

Hi everyone!

My name is Andre, and I'm a current MSAN student. My previous background is a BS+MS in bioinformatics and modeling from INSA of Lyon, in France. This is where I started to learn how to combine Math and CS to different areas of interest (in this case, Biology).

Afterwards, I did research in bone mechanics at CUNY in New York, and found out that I was more interested in the Data Analytics part of the job than the pipetting and bio-lab work. So now here I am at USF, only just starting my journey into the world of Data Science and Machine Learning.

I honestly believe that ML and Deep Learning in particular will play a major role in all aspects of our lives in the near future, so I'm incredibly excited to be a part of this.

See you all tonight!

[timanglade]

Hi! I’m currently working on the HBO show “Silicon Valley”, and I’m also an Executive in Residence (EIR) at a VC firm in the Bay Area, while I take a break from the startup grind.

I’m a developer by trade (Ruby, JavaScript, iOS, Android, some C++, Java, Prolog even) with a Masters of Telecommunications from France’s National Institute of Applied Sciences, and in a previous life I was a Research Assistant at the University of Maryland (go Terps!) I did a lot of work in distributed systems and distributed databases specifically through the years.

I’m interested in Deep Learning because I think it will permeate most of tech, 10 years from now. I hope this course will take me from the small AI apps I’ve been building, to a deeper understanding of AI frameworks & techniques.

When I’m not coding or working on startups I enjoy road cycling (OLH 30min, but Kings Mountain is my favorite).

Glad to be with y’all!

[sbhaaf]

Hey everybody,

My name's Sam Haaf, and I'm a student in MSAN. I recently got my degree in Material's Science, but spent the last two years learning to apply machine learning towards forex signal-chasing.

From this course, I'm hoping to get a strong mathematical understanding of each of the differentials involved in these techniques so that I can summon them at will in the development of niche algorithms.

I keep myself busy with a number of personal projects, including (what I call) a recursive website and, in the near future, to make a bot that can play the flash game Motherload using computer vision and something resembling general intelligence.

I'd love to chat more

[melissa.fabros]

Hi! I'm Melissa,

I'm recent Hackbright Academy alum just finishing an open source developer grant sponsored by Github and Travis CI. I also completed a Googe Summer of Code internship where I contributed to a popular open source bioinfomatics visualization tool. I'm also a refugee from academia with a 4/5 complete dissertation in mid-century American poetry and university teaching experience. I have interests in applying deep learning techniques to literature, education or other narratives like pull requests on Github.

My hobbies are generally finding dive bars, yoga, and social Latin dancing (Salsa, Bachata, ChaChaCha or Kizomba). I rescued road bike that i'm too afraid to ride after spending $$ to fix it up and kit it out.

[layla.tadjpour]

Hi everyone,
My name is Layla. I did my PhD at USC in Electrical Engineering and worked for several companies in wireless/wireline communications/radar technologies for a couple years. I'v become very interested in machine learning recently and have worked on several data science projects. I am fascinated by deep learning and its potential applications in different domains especially in healthcare and automatic machine translation.
I am originally from Iran but have been living in US (for the most part in Los Angles) since 1996. Outside of data science, my hobbies are reading non fiction books, yoga and meditation.

[tom]

Hi all,

Looking forward to meeting some more of you! I've got an EE background, and currently I work on the R&D team at Fitbit. I'm here to get fast, practical exposure to DL to test the waters and see how I'd like it as a potential future path.

I noticed a few other road cyclists further up the thread - one of my favourite things about the city is being able to get out of it on the weekends into some beautiful coastlines and countryside!

T.

[sravya8]

Hello everyone!

My name is Sravya, I am a senior software engineer at Cloudera currently working at the intersection of Big data + Security + Open source. I am also the Vice President of the Apache Sentry project, a top level Apache Software Foundation project. ASF is one of the key drivers of open source software. I am also very passionate about using tech/data for social impact and have worked with various non profits and government to leverage data and technology. Some of them include DataKind, California Department of Justice, Thorn.

I started following Jeremy's work on twitter after his talk at Strata Hadoop - " Data Scientists, you can save lives". And when I heard about this course, I just jumped on it. Both my husband and myself applied and got in, but my lovely husband insisted I take up this course while he takes care of our toddler on Monday nights as he realized my passion for it.

Here are my goals for the course:
- Connect with people who have similar aspirations on using Deep Learning for social impact.
- Understand the types of problems solvable by Deep learning and get working skills to apply it.
- As a side affect, I also hope to get fluent in powerful python packages in Data Analytics, where I am currently a newbie.

While I am not doing tech stuff, I love spending time with my family, dance (Indian classical), play tennis.

[jeremy]

It's so gratifying to hear that a talk I've given has helped make a connection - thanks so much for sharing

[jeremy]

...and I met Tim when he interviewed me at Scale Venture Partners: http://tapes.scalevp.com/startups-ai-first-world-jeremy-howard-fastai/

[jbrown81]

Hi folks,
I'm Jesse, a neuroscientist at UCSF, with a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA. I use neuroimaging to ask questions about the human brain (the ultimate learning machine, for now). In the Memory and Aging center, our goal is to cure dementia, by getting better at diagnosis, disease monitoring, and understanding genetic and environmental risk factors.

I'm interested in deep learning because it's a revolution in computer vision. It is inspired by the human visual system architecture, and confers machines with human-like visual processing capability. As a side project, I've been experimenting with autoencoders on MRI images to build a brain image search engine. I want to dive deeper into this endeavor and peer under the hood of what these models are "seeing" when they identify features that make two images similar or different. This course seemed like the best place to do that! Plus, I know Jeremy's recent startup Enlitic worked on biomedical images, so who better to learn from?

I love to run, read, meditate, and travel to weird places. Looking forward to getting to know you guys!

Jesse

[nima]

I'm a bit late to the party (just joined the course a few hours after the class on Monday!) – but very excited to meet you all next week!

I'm a self-taught engineer (with two years of Computer Science from University of Toronto, a degree that I never finished) and I've worked on a few data systems at relatively high scale before at Taplytics.

My quant experience has been mostly around Product Management but have recently started to explore the realm of Machine Learning and how it can help NLP.

Excited to learn more and connect with others who are trying to do the same.

Outside of all of this, you'll find me running alongside the bay in downtown SF or reading sci-fi.

[mcc]

Hi all,

My name is Michael Castelle, I'm currently a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at the University of Chicago, working on a dissertation that examines the history and sociotechnical development of databases / transaction processing / middleware in the 1970s and 1980s, and the emergence and regulation of digital markets and exchanges (as well as today's marketplace platforms like Uber and Airbnb).

I'm taking this course because — despite often being a skeptic regarding claims about the revolutionary properties of supposedly new technologies — I'm fascinated by (and legitimately impressed by) how dramatically deep learning has transformed certain subfields of computer vision and AI in recent years. While "good old fashioned AI" has a long history of being critiqued by philosophers and other humanists in their strong assumptions about symbolic-centered reasoning, I think it's presently an open question as to what form of critique is appropriate to DL methods (in part because they are currently so inaccessible to non-specialists and to those outside Silicon Valley). But in addition, there is an exceptional amount of opportunity for visual and other multimedia artists to creatively use these techniques (as synthesis instead of analysis); and it seems possible that we have just scratched the surface of potential fun/interesting/weird interactive/real-time applications.

I would very much be interested in teaching a course like this one in the future to students without significant conventional training in math/CS, and so my primary goal is to learn enough to pass these techniques (and metaknowledge about these techniques, including their histories and applications) on to others, whether they have professional aspirations in data science fields or not.

When not in class, you'll probably find me writing at coffee shops, or researching at the Computer History Museum or the Prelinger Library.

mc

[lin.crampton]

Hi, all!

I'm Lin ... really excited re starting he class, but am a little humbled after reading all of your bios!

I am a UCLA EE, and have worked the gamut of EE/CS. Did firmware/hardware design on RadarEnvironmentSimulators, wrote SW, worked with SW engineering tools ... always on Unix/Linux (I am honestly somewhat Windows-impaired), and took a segue into patent law. Born in Michigan, but always chose to live in California (LA/OC).

For the next day or so, I'm going to be trying to run the homework on a NVidia Ubuntu, so if any of you have any suggestions, let me know.

lin

[mbaybay]

Hello, everyone! It's inspiring to read all your intros - I'm excited to learn and work with our wonderfully diverse group here!

My name is Melanie and I'm a student of USF's Masters in Computer Science Program. While studying biology during my undergrad, I became interested in the application of CS to big data issues in biology and neuroscience. Through this course, I'm hoping to connect with others that share an interest in bio/neuroinformatics, learn the guts of deep learning, and how best to apply it.

Outside of all this fun stuff, you can find me either practicing muay thai and brazilian jiu-jitsu or city-hiking up to the best viewpoints SF has to offer

[brendan]

@jbrown81 I'd love to talk sometime! I'm interested in neuroscience problems as well and have friends at the Allen Institute for Brain Science who may be able to help.

[brendan]

@mbaybay Would love to chat! Also interested in applying Deep Learning to neuroscience.