Broader Impacts and Advising Activities:
AI4ALL Camps for High School Students
I have served as one of the faculty organizers of summer AI camps at UMD in 2019-2023 for high school students in collaborations with the AI4ALL organization as well as Maryland Center for Women in Computing (MCWIC). The goal of this camp is to create an inclusive and diverse field of AI by targeting and serving high school students from underrepresented communities.
During these camps, I have mentored 46 high school participants including 28 women students and 15 underrepresented minorities.
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Summer REU for Undergraduate Students
The CS department at UMD hosts an annual NSF-funded REU program whose goal is to bridge between the theory and other disciplines within the computer science and engineering. I have been one of the faculty organizers of this program, mentoring 12 undergraduate students including six female students in Summers of 2019-2021.
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Tech + Research: Welcoming Women to Computing Research
I have been one of the organizers of the Tech+ Research program in Fall 2019, 2021 and 2022 at UMD. This program is a workshop to engage undergraduate women in computing areas specially AI. This is a joint program with Technica.
During these programs, I have mentored six women students who worked on understanding deep generative AI models.
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Gemstone Honors Program
I have mentored two Gemstone teams (a research program for undergraduate students) between 2019-present at UMD (one team successfully defended their thesis in Spring 2021 and the other team started in Fall 2021).
During this program, I have mentored 15 undergraduate students including four female students.
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Rising Stars in Machine Learning
I have started a nation-wide initiative called “Rising Stars in Machine Learning”. The goal of this program is to support women researchers in machine learning as they pursue new scientific discoveries and academic opportunities.
This program invites outstanding applicants to visit UMD to present their work in their distinguished machine learning seminar series. This helps invited women graduate and post-graduate students to promote their research and also provides excellent role models for current women students. We have successfully organized this program in the last four years.
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Open-Access Video Lectures
I strongly believe in open access research and education specially for students who do not have the opportunity to attend in-person lectures. In that spirit, I have made all materials and lectures of his newly-designed “Foundations of Deep Learning” course publicly available on YouTube.
These lectures have been viewed more than 95,000 times.
Watch Lectutres.
Mentoring Graduate Students
I have established a vibrant, active and productive research group. See my students profiles below:
Current Ph.D. Students:
Former Students:
Sahil Singla
Next: Google Research. webpage.
Aya Ismail
Next: Genentech Research. webpage.
Yogesh Balaji
Next: Nvidia Research. webpage.
Cassidy Laidlaw
Next: UC Berkeley PhD. webpage.
Eric Wallace
Next: UC Berkeley PhD. webpage.