Research summary
Data scientists study data to extract meaningful insights that can help us understand the world around us and enable organizations to make better decisions. As Canada Research Chair in Mathematical Foundations of Data Science, Dr. Aukosh Jagannath’s goal is to overcome some of the challenges facing data scientists. In particular, he seeks to understand the statistical and computational limits of high-dimensional inference (drawing conclusions based on data with many variables), optimization and sampling problems in the field.
He and his research team are developing a strategy for managing large, complex datasets. They want to understand the performance of stochastic gradient descent (which helps machines learn more effectively from big data) in high-dimensional learning. They’re also exploring multilayered data structures called neural networks. They hope to come up with a new way to understand the difficulty of solving typical optimization problems that are random in nature.