Getting Help¶
If you have a general question that other students could potentially benefit from, considering posting on Ed or Discord. On Ed, you can also set your questions to private or anonymous as you see appropriate.
For logistical questions (such as extenuating circumstances and DRS accomodations), we ask that you post privately on Ed so the whole staff can respond. For sensitive situations, you can also email the instructor directly if you would feel more comfortable. We are often available at other times by appointment, and we encourage you to schedule 1:1 appointments whenever you want to talk about concepts, grades, internships, or anything else.
To see when our office hours are and for instructions on how to join them, see Office Hours.
Instructor¶
Hi everyone. My name is Pemi, and I’m very excited to be your lecturer this quarter. To describe myself, I had a quite non-traditional academic journey. I took years off traveling and engaging in initiatives by various international organizations in youth development and disability advocacy. I was fortunate to be part of the UW CSE department for the past 2 years where I worked as a Teaching Assistant and Content Development Contributor for CSE 311, CSE 312 and CSE 446/546 (the math-intensive Machine Learning course) and a NLP researcher studying misinformation detection. I’m officially starting my full-time job at Facebook / Meta as a Software Engineer in June, but for the time being, I will fully dedicate my next 2.5 months to you.
As someone very passionate about teaching and inspiring more people to embark on a career in tech, especially people from marginalized or underrepresented communities, being a lecturer for this class is a precious opportunity for me to provide a supportive and inclusive academic environment for everyone. This Intro to Machine Learning class is catered towards a broader audience who don’t necessarily have a deep technical background. Feel free to email me, come to my office hours if you have any questions or concerns, or just leave an anonymous feedback so that I know how I can accommodate your needs in this class. I also have an amazing team of TAs this quarter who will definitely assist me in providing an awesome academic experience for you.
Head Teaching Assistant¶
Hi folks 🙋♂️ ! My name is Amal, and I’m a third-year PhD student doing research in human-robot interactions. Specifically, my research involves developing a robotic arm that attaches to a wheelchair to feed people with mobility impairments. I really enjoy teaching computer science, and used to lead after-school middle school and high school introductory CS programs in Pittsburgh. I’m also particularly passionate about using my work (whether research or teaching) to benefit marginalized communities. Finally, I enjoy thinking about the (sometimes unexpected) negative consequences of AI and ML systems, and am more than happy to have discussions about that!
Outside of work, I enjoy biking, hiking, playing board games, and playing violin. If the sun is out, I can often be found walking around Ravenna Park or Greenlake🚶🏽♂️🏞 . I am also an elected representative for UAW4121, the union for TAs, RAs, readers, graders, and postdocs on UW campus, so am happy to answer any questions or concerns you might have about workplace environment and rights. I look forward to getting to know you this quarter!
Teaching Assistants¶
Hello! My name is Aric Prieve and I am a junior studying computer science. I grew up in Seattle and enjoy backpacking and open water swimming in the summer and try to ski as much as I can during the winter. Currently, I am working in a lab in the Department of Biological Structure where I help analyze the large amount of single cell sequence data generated while studying development and regeneration of the neural retina.
Hello everyone! My name is Jerry. I’m a third year Ph.D student in Statistics. My research focuses on Geometric Data Analysis, which tries to extract and utilize the intrinsic geometric structure of the data. My research has lots of relation with Machine learning methods and I am really excited to work in this class. Outside of work I play badminton and tennis and enjoy various video games.
Hello everyone! My name is Pranav. I’m a Master’s student in Electronics. My research is in the field of Artificial Intelligence, mainly Computer Vision. I’ve also worked as a Machine Learning Engineer in the industry and have a lot of practical experience in this field. This is my first time teaching CSE 416. Outside of work, I love to play squash, cricket and pool. I also love playing video games.
Hello everyone! My name is Rahul. I’m almost finishing my PhD in Statistics. My research belongs in the interface of causal learning and neuroscience. Outside of work I enjoy volunteering, meditating, cooking, hiking occasionally, and more. I have been a TA for 416 a few times before and looking forward to it this quarter.
Hola folks! I am Sahil, a third year Phd student in CSE. My research is in the area of fairness and explainability in ML, and broadly in the area of trustworthy ML. Very interested in having discussions about them. Outside of work, I love hanging out and catching up with old friends, watching movies together, hiking, and dancing.
Hi all! I’m Sasha - a Senior studying Computer Science. I was born in the States but have spent my whole life growing up in Europe and Asia, mostly in the Netherlands. I absolutely love machine learning, especially computer vision 👀, and am currently focused on learning more about object detection and segmentation algorithms. Outside of working I love to climb, play soccer, go hiking, or relax with a book and some good tea. I’m really looking forward to meeting y’all this quarter so feel free to drop into my office hours to ask any questions or just to talk!
Hello Everyone! I am Tanmay, a senior in Computer Science major: Data science option. My research is currently in the field of weak supervision. Outside of academics, I am a musician (percussionist), an armchair historian, and a FOSS enthusiast. I like to watch movies and wildlife documentaries, and play badminton. Looking forward to meeting you all!
Hello everyone! My name is Wuwei. I am a junior studying computer science. I am interested in using NLP and ML techniques in computational biology. Outside of schoolwork, I love watching TV dramas and movies. I look forward to meeting everyone. Please feel free to reach out!
Hi CSE416! My name is Zeynep and I am a third year undergraduate student studying computer science and minoring in DXARTS as well as Neurotechnology. Currently, I am researching self-supervised machine learning methods to decode human brain activity. My passion lies in the intersection of AI and the brain. Machine Learning was a subject that I felt was challenging, but extremely rewarding and thought-provoking, and I would say it is now one of my favorite fields of computer science. When I am not studying or researching, I love to digitally paint on my iPad and make animations! I am excited to get to know the students this quarter so feel free to come to my office hours for questions or to just introduce yourself!