Part six of our AI Researcher Profile series invites Assistant Professor Yifan Sun of the Department of Computer Science, to speak of her ongoing collaborative research in optimization and machine learning.

AI Institute: Tell me about your position as an Assistant Professor of the Department of Computer Science.

Professor Sun: I am currently working on several interesting projects in continuous optimization, as well as some collaborations with other CS faculty, in particular in natural language processing. I am also teaching the current Machine Learning class (CSE 512). So far it’s been great working with the students and faculty at Stony Brook!

PhD student Huy Vu has found a creative way to explain his thesis — by writing, directing, producing and dancing in a video.

The third-year PhD candidate in the Department of Computer Science at Stony Brook University, created the video for the 13th annual worldwide “Dance Your PhD” competition run by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and its research journal, Science. The contest requires students to explain their PhD thesis through dance and body movements.

The AI Institute Stony Brook University’s Institute for AI-Driven Discovery and Innovation and its faculty have been expanding their research in the field of computer vision, presenting revolutionary findings on an international scale. Three pieces of this inventive and pioneering research have landed at the chief international venue for computer vision: Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR)

Postdoctoral researchers play a special role in academic research, bringing in new ideas and energy while they advance their careers into independent scholars. Stony Brook’s Institute for AI-Driven Discovery and Innovation is benefiting from two new postdoctoral associates, Baojian Zhou and Naoya Inoue, both of whom were welcomed to the team this past year. They are spearheading new research which will advance our understanding of online optimization, explainable AI, natural language processing, and machine learning. By working with diverse faculty and graduate students across many research groups, their presence amplifies activities across the Institute.

Given the challenges of 2020, society has encountered distinguished heroes in many new and sometimes unexpected places. Professor Carlos Simmerling, Stony Brook University’s Marsha Laufer Professor of Physical and Quantitative Biology, worked with a team to develop a groundbreaking AI-driven simulation of the COVID-19 virus, analyzing its infectious effect on host cells. The research has gained significant traction, earning their paper “AI-Driven Multiscale Simulations Illuminate Mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 Spike Dynamics” the prestigious Gordon Bell Prize.

Part five of our AI Researcher Profile series invites Distinguished Professor Arie Kaufman of the Department of Computer Science, and CEWIT Chief Scientist, to discuss his innovative techniques for 3D virtual pancreatography, its applications to AI, machine learning, and ultimately, human life.

AI Institute: You have developed techniques for 3D virtual pancreatography. Can describe what that is and why it is exciting?

Part Four of our AI Researcher Profile series welcomes Professor H. Andrew Schwartz of the Department of Computer Science. Through his research, Professor Schwartz has bridged the worlds of psychology and artificial intelligence together in order to predict and diagnose the health of others.