Padhraic Smyth Professor: Department of Computer Science Director: Center for Machine Learning and Intelligent Systems University of California, Irvine CA 92697-3435 e-mail: smyth at ics dot uci dot edu (additional contact information)

Quick Pointers

• Publications from the Smyth research group
• People in our research group
• Center for Machine Learning and Intelligent Systems
• The DataLab at UCI
• Courses and Teaching
• Joint faculty appointments, center affiliations, etc
• Books
  • Modeling the Internet and the Web: Probabilistic Methods and Algorithms
    Pierre Baldi, Paolo Frasconi, and Padhraic Smyth; John Wiley and Sons, June 2003. [Available on Amazon]
  • Principles of Data Mining , David Hand, Heikki Mannila, and Padhraic Smyth, MIT Press, August 2001. [Chinese language edition]
  • Advances in Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining AAAI Press, 1996.
• Topic models: pointers to software, papers, etc.
• The name Padhraic
• Short biography and a rather long-winded full CV (in PDF)
• Slides from Various Talks
• Pictures from Ireland, June 2004.
• The Artistic Smyths (some fun non-technical stuff)

Teaching: Courses Offered

• CS 274A: Probabilistic Learning: Theory and Algorithms. Currently being offered in Winter 2009.
  
  
• CS 175: Project in Artificial Intelligence.
  
  
• Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
  • CS Undergraduate Course, CS 171 (regularly taught by CS faculty)
  • CS Graduate Course, CS 271.
    
    
• CS 177: Applications of Probability in Computer Science. Upper-division mathematics course for ICS students. Most recent class was in Winter 2007.
  
  
• CS 278: Data Mining Most recent class was in Spring 2006.
  
  
• ICS 280: Probabilistic Models for Time Series and Sequences
  
  

General Research Information

• The DataLab at UCI and current projects. The DataLab is the hub of our research group here at UCI. The common theme is modeling and identifying structure in relatively large and complex data sets (such as time series and images) using probabilistic models.
• Information for students interested in joining our research group . Interested in doing a PhD in my research group? Our department typically has multiple research fellowships to award annually to new PhD applicants, as well as many teaching assistantships. We are always interested in hearing from bright and enthusiastic students interested in graduate research. [Graduate Application Information]

Overview of Research Interests

Data sets with millions of records and thousands of fields are increasingly common in business, medicine, engineering, and the sciences. The problem of extracting useful information from such data sets is an important practical problem. Research on this topic focuses on key questions such as how can one build useful models which both allow us to make predictions and also help us to understand the processes generating the data. The fields of applied statistics, pattern recognition, machine learning, information theory, and artificial intelligence, are all of relevance to this endeavor. Probabilistic and statistical methods, in particular, are central to our research, providing both a sound theoretical basis and a practical framework for developing useful data analysis algorithms.

Last modified: July 2008