My research focuses on machine learning, optimization, and big data, with applications in computer audition and music information retrieval, multimedia information retrieval, and personalized, mobile health. Previously, I have worked on applications in bioinformatics and financial engineering.

Click here for a short Benefunder video on some of my work in music search and recommendation.

I am also working on an innovative and new funding model for research. Benefunder is reviving the patron funding model by connecting a large, exclusive network of high net worth donors with top researchers, providing lasting funding relationships that are both sizeable and sustainable. Benefunder works with wealth management firms, family offices and private foundations, which represent the highest concentrations of wealth and philanthropy (over $100B per year).

I did my Ph.D. in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at U. C. Berkeley, working with Professor Laurent El Ghaoui and Professor Michael Jordan, and my undergraduate studies in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the K.U.Leuven in Belgium.

QUICK BITS

Year 1 of the Million Song Data Set Challenge has concluded. For more information, click here!

A short video on Herd It and CALab's music search engine.

A 5-minute talk on what I do, at MIT's Emerging Technology Conference.

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