The Machine Learning Research at Penn (MLR @ Penn) group is designed for undergraduate students to cultivate their passion in Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) research. We facilitate conversations about recent works in topics of interest through reading groups, and encourage students to collaborate and engage in developing novel research, with possible opportunities for publication.
- Reading Groups: Reading groups provide a great avenue for all interested in learning more in the field, particularly underclassmen and those from various disciplines looking to understand the cutting-edge work being developed in academia and industry research labs. We look to invite knowledgeable speakers to discuss advances in their field, and inspire students to dive deeper into particular topics. Some reading group topics include: Foundation Models / Large Language Models, Reinforcement Learning, Machine Learning Theory, and Computer Vision. While we encourage some machine learning background, our reading groups are open to all undergraduate students to attend and participate, or even to simply listen in.
- Research Group: Our research group is intended for students with more experience (e.g. at the level of CIS 5200, or equivalent background), and requires an application. We look to foster a collaborative environment for undergraduates to brainstorm, develop, and share novel findings. One aim for this group is to submit some works for publication at premier ML conferences (e.g. NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, etc.). We welcome students with diverse backgrounds and research interests to inspire some great research ideas. We believe that such an atmosphere will be conducive to advancing students’ understanding of state-of-the-art works, while actively working at the cutting edge of AI/ML research.
- Business Development and Marketing: In Fall 2023, we are forming a new committee for business development, to aim to arrange collaborations and partnerships with AI/ML research institutions and open-source communities. Applications will be released soon, via the group Slack and mailing list.
Mentorship Opportunities: We hope that through both the reading groups and the research group, underclassmen can find mentors and receive advice from upperclassmen and invited speakers / faculty. MLR @ Penn also looks to connect students to companies for recruiting opportunities as AI/ML research engineers / software engineers.