Erik B. Sudderth, Statistical Computation & Perception

I am a Professor of Computer Science and Statistics, and Chancellor's Fellow, at the University of California, Irvine. My Learning, Inference, & Vision Group develops statistical methods for scalable machine learning, with applications in artificial intelligence, computer vision, and the natural and social sciences. My research affiliations at UC Irvine include:

• Director of the UCI Center for Machine Learning and Intelligent Systems. See our seminar series.
• Director of the HPI Research Center in Machine Learning and Data Science at UC Irvine.
• UCI Computational Vision Group.
• UCI Algorithms, Combinatorics, and Optimization Center. See their seminar series.
• UCI Steckler Center for Responsible, Ethical, and Accessible Technology (CREATE).
• UC Irvine Initiative in AI, Law, & Society.
• UCI Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences.
• UCI Data Science Initiative. Also see the statistics seminar series.

For a tutorial introduction to probabilistic modeling and approximate inference, see the background chapter of my doctoral thesis, advised by Professors Alan Willsky and William Freeman at MIT EECS. My postdoctoral research at Berkeley EECS, advised by Professors Michael Jordan and Stuart Russell, focused on Bayesian nonparametric models (see my CVPR tutorial).

For more information: bio · curriculum vitæ · research projects & code · publications & lectures

Research Highlights

• At NeurIPS 2023, we present work incorporating graphical models in deep generative models to learn discrete representations, and advancing differentiable training of discriminative particle filters.
• A large NSF grant funds research making collaboration accessible for visually impaired workers.
• A new model for sparse graphs with overlapping communities appears at NeurIPS 2022. Related work was presented at the 13th International Conference on Bayesian Nonparametrics.
• Work on inference for soil biogeochemical models, an important framework for quantifying the impact of rising global surface temperatures, appears at the ICML 2022 AI for Science Workshop.
• We advance the scalability and stability of fair machine learning methods in work at NeurIPS 2021.
• The ICML 2021 Time Series Workshop best poster award goes to our work on prediction constraints for semi-supervised classification with Hidden Markov models.
• Work on better black-box variational inference for probabilistic programs appears at ICML 2021. This work supported in part by a Facebook Probability and Programming research award.
• Our work on 3D scene reconstruction with multi-layer depth and epipolar transformers appears at ICCV 2019. Previously at the CVPR 3D Scene Understanding and SUMO Challenge workshops.
• Our cascaded 3D detection framework, which integrates geometric and contextual cues for robust scene understanding from RGB-D images, is summarized by a 2020 paper appearing in IEEE PAMI.
• An NSF Robust Intelligence Award with Alex Ihler supports work on new particle-based algorithms for inference and learning with continuous graphical models. I gave a talk at the 2017 SoCal Machine Learning Symposium about our earlier diverse particle max-product algorithm, which gives state-of-the-art predictions of continuous protein side-chain conformations. Code available.
• At AISTATS 2018, our framework for prediction-constrained training of probabilistic models leads to improved semi-supervised learning of topic models, with applications to the analysis of documents and electronic health records. This work received the SoCal NLP Symposium best paper award.
• An NSF CAREER Award supports our open source toolbox BNPy: Bayesian Nonparametric clustering for Python. BNPy implements scalable, stochastic and memoized variational inference algorithms for a diverse range of Bayesian nonparametric models.
• Work with BrainGate on multiscale semi-Markov dynamics for improved brain-computer interfaces appeared at NIPS 2017. A supplemental video demonstrates accurate, interactive control of a computer cursor by a clinical trial participant with tetraplegia.
• The 2014 ISBA Mitchell Prize for Bayesian analysis of an important applied problem goes to our NET-VISA system for global seismic monitoring, learned from data provided by the comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaty organization (CTBTO). For details see the Brown University news article.
• Weiss & Pearl introduce our review article on Nonparametric Belief Propagation for the CACM.

Editorial Highlights

• Action editor for the Journal of Machine Learning Research.
• Associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence.
• Senior area chair for AISTATS 2024.
• Scientific committee for the 12th International Conference on Bayesian Nonparametrics.
• Area chair for NeurIPS 2023 & 2021 & 2019 & 2016, CVPR 2019 & 2015, ICML 2017 & 2015, ICCV 2015.
• Sponsor chair for the 2018 & 2019 International Conference on Machine Learning.
• Editor, IEEE PAMI Special Issue on Bayesian Nonparametrics, Feb. 2015. (editorial)
• Organizer, ICERM Workshop & Tutorials on Bayesian Nonparametrics, Sept. 2012. (group photo)
• Editor, IEEE Signal Processing Magazine special issue on Recent Advances & Emerging Developments of Graphical Models, Nov. 2010. (editorial)
• Editor, IEEE PAMI Special Issue on Probabilistic Graphical Models in Computer Vision, Oct. 2009. (editorial)

Erik B. Sudderth
E: lastname@uci.edu
P: (949) 824-8169

Office: Donald Bren Hall 4206
Mailing Address:
University of California, Irvine
School of Information & Computer Sciences
Irvine, CA 92697-3435