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Burr Settles

Postdoctoral Researcher
Machine Learning Department
Carnegie Mellon University

| 608-332-3456 | 8133 GHC

I am a postdoc at working on CMU's Never-Ending Language Learning project. My interests lie in large-scale machine learning that uses real human interaction, with applications in natural language, biology, and social computing. Details on my research and publications pages.

2012 is my "Year of Games." I'm playing a game every day of the year, with at least one social/group game per week. That is tougher than it sounds, and I predict that it will influence my research and teaching in some way. Follow my progress here.

Here is my resume/CV.

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News and Whereabouts

• Apr 2 2012: Talk at CMU's Machine Learning Lunch on computer-assisted creativity
• Mar 1 2012: My FAWM.ORG project mentioned on MediaShift (PBS)
• Feb 23 2012: DUALIST got a writeup on the LingPipe Research Blog
• Feb 22 2012: Invited talk at University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Feb 20 2012: Invited talk at University of Illinois-Chicago
• Feb 13 2012: Invited talk at Johns Hopkins University
• Feb 8 2012: Profiled in this week's Pittsburgh CityPaper
• Feb 6 2012: Invited talk at the University of Pittsburgh
• Jan 15 2012: FAWM.ORG, my creative social network project, has launched for 2012
• Nov 03 2011: Invited talk in a special joint ML/HCI seminar at CMU
• Sep 23 2011: Invited talk at the IBM T.J. Watson Reseach Center on "interactive machine learning"
• Jul 31 2011: Invited talk at the EMNLP Workshop on Modeling Dialects in Edinburgh, Scotland
• Jul 02 2011: Co-organizing the ICML Workshop on Combining Learning Strategies in Seattle, WA
• Jun 19 2011: My EMNLP 2011 paper on semi-supervised active dual supervision [paper]
• Mar 15 2011: Our C&T 2011 paper on social motivators in goal-setting groups [paper]
• Feb 18 2011: Our ACS Chemical Biology paper on machine learning for peptide screens is the cover article [paper]

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Some Press Coverage

• Never-Ending Language Learning: Universe, The New York Times
• Computational Creativity Tools: The Associated Press, Marketplace, American Songwriter
• February Album Writing Month (FAWM.ORG): PBS.org, Pittsburgh CityPaper, All Things Considered

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Professional Activities

• Senior PC: IJCAI 2011
• Program Committees: CSCW 2013, AAAI 2012, ICML 2012, NAACL-HLT 2012, EMNLP-CoNLL 2012
• Invited Speaker:
  • EMNLP 2011 Workshop on Algorithms and Resources for Modelling of Dialects and Language Varieties
  • AISTATS 2010 Workshop on Active Learning and Experimental Design
  • SXSW Interactive 2010 [slides]
• Co-Organizer:
  • ICML 2011 Workshop on Combining Learning Strategies to Reduce Label Cost
  • NAACL-HLT 2010 Workshop on Active Learning for NLP
  • Machine Learning/Google Distinguished Lecture Series

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Short Bio: Burr Settles is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Machine Learning Department at Carnegie Mellon University. He received a PhD in Computer Sciences from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2008, with additional studies in Linguistics and Biology. His current research focuses on interactive machine learning that resembles a "dialogue" of decision making and knowledge acquisition between computers and humans, with applications in natural language processing, biology, and social computing. He recently organized workshops at the ICML and NAACL conferences on such learning strategies. He also runs the website FAWM.ORG, prefers sandals to shoes, and plays guitar in the Pittsburgh pop band Delicious Pastries.