Lester Mackey

Last updated
Lester Wayne Mackey II
Born
Long Island, NY, USA
Alma mater University of California, Berkeley
Princeton
Scientific career
Fields Machine learning
Computer science
Statistics
Institutions Microsoft Research
Stanford University
Thesis Matrix Factorization and Matrix Concentration  (2012)
Doctoral advisor Michael I. Jordan
Website https://web.stanford.edu/~lmackey

Lester Mackey is an American computer scientist and statistician. He is a principal researcher at Microsoft Research and an adjunct professor at Stanford University. Mackey develops machine learning methods, models, and theory for large-scale learning tasks driven by applications from climate forecasting, healthcare, and the social good. He was named a 2023 MacArthur Fellow. [1]

Contents

Early life and education

Mackey grew up on Long Island. [2] He has said that, as a teenager, the Ross Mathematics Program in number theory introduced him to proof-based mathematics, where he learned about induction and rigorous proof. [2] He got his first taste of academic research at the Research Science Institute. [2] He joined Princeton University as an undergraduate student, where he earned his BSE in Computer Science. There he conducted research with Maria Klawe and David Walker. [3] Mackey was a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a PhD in Computer Science (2012) and an MA in Statistics (2011). [1] [4] At Berkeley, his dissertation, advised by Michael I. Jordan, included work on sparse principal components analysis (PCA) for gene expression modeling, low-rank matrix completion for recommender systems, robust matrix factorization for video surveillance, and concentration inequalities for matrices. [5] After Berkeley, he joined Stanford University, first as a postdoctoral fellow working with Emmanuel Candès and then as an assistant professor of statistics and, by courtesy, computer science. At Stanford, he created the Statistics for Social Good working group. [1]

Research and career

In 2016, Mackey joined Microsoft Research as a researcher and was appointed as an adjunct professor at Stanford University. He was made a principal researcher in 2019. [1]

Mackey's early work developed a method to predict progression rates of people with ALS. He used the PRO-ACT database of clinical trial data and Bayesian inference to predict disease prognosis. [1] He has also developed machine learning models for subseasonal climate and weather forecasting, to more accurately predict temperature and precipitation 2-6 weeks in advance. [1] His models outperform the operational, physics-based dynamical models used by the United States Bureau of Reclamation. [1]

Awards and honors

Selected publications

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Lester Mackey". www.macfound.org. Retrieved 2023-10-11.
  2. 1 2 3 "| Lester Mackey" . Retrieved 2023-10-11.
  3. ↑ Li, Wendy (2019-10-09). "Conversations with Maya: Lester Mackey". Society for Science. Retrieved 2023-10-11.
  4. ↑ "Lester Mackey, Principal Researcher". microsoft.com.
  5. ↑ Mackey, Lester (2012). Matrix Factorization and Matrix Concentration (Thesis). UC Berkeley.
  6. ↑ "Top Teen Scientists Honored At Intel Science Talent Search". Intel. 2003-03-11. Retrieved 2023-10-13.
  7. ↑ "(15093) Lestermackey". IAU Minor Planet Center. Retrieved 2023-10-14.
  8. ↑ "2006 Goldwater Scholars". Goldwater Scholarship. Retrieved 2023-10-13.
  9. ↑ "2007 Outstanding Undergraduate Award Winners". CRA. Retrieved 2023-10-13.
  10. ↑ Stevens, Ruth (2007-02-24). "Princeton gives highest awards to top students". Princeton. Retrieved 2023-10-12.
  11. ↑ Jackson, Dan (2017-07-07). "The Netflix Prize: How a $1 Million Contest Changed Binge-Watching Forever". Thrillist. Retrieved 2023-10-11.
  12. ↑ Crowley, Magdalene L. (2017-07-10). "The tale of Lester Mackey's pursuit of the Netflix Prize". EECS at UC Berkeley. Retrieved 2023-10-11.
  13. ↑ "ICML 2010 - Awards". ICML. Retrieved 2023-10-13.
  14. ↑ Zakaib, Gwyneth (2012-11-15). "Contest Winners Offer Solutions for Tracking ALS". ALZ Forum. Retrieved 2023-10-13.
  15. ↑ "Teams complete Bureau of Reclamation's Sub-Seasonal Climate Forecast Rodeo — outperforming the baseline forecasts". USBR. 2019-03-07. Archived from the original on 2019-09-29. Retrieved 2023-10-13.
  16. ↑ "ASA Community". community.amstat.org. Retrieved 2023-10-11.
  17. ↑ Chairs 2023, Communications (2022-11-21). "Announcing the NeurIPS 2022 Awards – NeurIPS Blog" . Retrieved 2023-10-11.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  18. ↑ "Bernoulli Society News". www.bernoullisociety.org. Retrieved 2023-10-11.
  19. ↑ "Institute of Mathematical Statistics | 2023 IMS Fellows Announced" . Retrieved 2023-10-11.
  20. ↑ "ASA Fellows 2024" (PDF). American Statistical Association . Retrieved May 31, 2024.
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