{"68854":{"#nid":"68854","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Balcan Named 2011 Microsoft Research Faculty Fellow","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAssistant Professor Nina Balcan of the School of Computer Science has been awarded a 2011 Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship to pursue her work addressing foundational questions in machine learning, algorithmic game theory and optimization.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/research.microsoft.com\/en-us\/collaboration\/awards\/msrff.aspx\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EMicrosoft Faculty Fellowship\u003C\/a\u003E program is intended to identify early in their careers future research and thought leaders\u2014those who \u201care exploring breakthrough, high-impact research that has the potential to help solve some of today\u2019s most challenging societal problems,\u201d according to Microsoft. Balcan is \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/research.microsoft.com\/en-us\/collaboration\/awards\/msrff_all.aspx\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003Eone of just eight fellows worldwide for 2011\u003C\/a\u003E; she and her fellow recipients were formally announced at the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/research.microsoft.com\/en-us\/events\/fs2011\/\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003E12th annual Microsoft Faculty Research Summit\u003C\/a\u003E, being held July 18-20 in Redmond, Wash. \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EEach chosen fellow receives a cash gift as well as software, invitations to academic and professional conferences, and the opportunity to engage with leading researchers from Microsoft Research. Fellows have the freedom to plan their research agenda, hire grad students, build labs and purchase equipment. \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cOne direction I am very excited about is developing algorithms and basic principles for interactive machine learning methods,\u201d Balcan said of \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/features\/active-learning\u0022 target=\u0022_self\u0022\u003Ethe research her fellowship will support\u003C\/a\u003E. \u201cMost of machine learning methods so far have been based on passive learning: a human expert provides labeled examples (e.g., for spam detection, this would be email messages and whether they are spam or not) and then the algorithm aims to find the best rule it can from this data, but this can require the human expert to label a lot of data if the rule being learned is at all complicated.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIn my work we show how an interactive approach where the algorithm and human expert interact on which examples to be labeled can dramatically cut down on the work the human expert has to do,\u201d she continued. \u201cThis can potentially allow machine learning to be used in many more areas. This Microsoft fellowship will allow me to more deeply investigate these core problems, by providing funds for student support, collaborative visitors and postdocs.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAssistant Professor Nina Balcan (\u003Cem\u003EComputer Science\u003C\/em\u003E) has been awarded a \n2011 Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship to pursue her work addressing\n foundational questions in machine learning, algorithmic game theory and\n optimization. \u003Cem\u003ESource: Office of Communications\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27174","created_gmt":"2011-07-18 10:47:10","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:09:44","author":"Mike Terrazas","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2011-07-18T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2011-07-18T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"50274":{"id":"50274","type":"image","title":"Maria Balcan","body":null,"created":"1449175392","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 20:43:12","changed":"1475894458","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:40:58","alt":"Maria Balcan","file":{"fid":"128657","name":"mbalcan.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/mbalcan_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/mbalcan_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":7546,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/mbalcan_0.jpg?itok=9udMX-SW"}}},"media_ids":["50274"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"4970","name":"aco"},{"id":"5660","name":"algorithms"},{"id":"9167","name":"machine learning"},{"id":"335","name":"Microsoft"},{"id":"11633","name":"nina balcan"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}