Lecture: 'Machine learning from complex data with applications in science'

Increasingly large and complex sets of data are becoming available, which pose many challenges to machine learning methods, especially methods for predictive modelling. Data can be large in the sense that (very) many instances are present or in the sense that they are of (very) high dimension. Other types of challenges include the need to learn predictive models for multiple targets simultaneously; the need to use both annotated data (with recorded target values) and unannotated data; and the need to handle instances that are not independent of each other, but are rather placed in (network) context. The lecture will discuss these challenges, some machine learning methods that address these challenges and finally some examples of the use of these methods in different areas of science and engineering, including life sciences and medicine, ecology and environmental sciences, and space operations. 

About Sašo Džeroski

Sašo Džeroski is a scientific councilor (senior researcher) at JSI, full professor at the Jozef Stefan International Postgraduate School, and visiting professor at the European Space Agency. He is a fellow of EurAI, the European Association of AI, in recognition of his "Pioneering Work in the field of AI”.  He is a member of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts and a member of Academia Europea. 

His research covers different facets of Artificial Intelligence, focusing on machine learning and computational scientific discovery. His group has developed machine learning methods that learn explainable models from complex data in the presence of domain knowledge: These include methods for multi-target prediction, semi-supervised and relational learning, and learning from data streams. It has also developed methods for computational scientific discovery, including methods that learn explainable models of dynamical systems. The developed methods, released in open-source software, have been used to solve important problems in science and society, including agriculture and environmental sciences, medicine and life sciences, physics and material sciences, and space operations/Earth observation. 

The work of Professor Džeroski has been extensively published in more than 250 journal papers and more than 300 conference papers. It is highly cited, with over 24000 citations and an h-index of 73 (in the Google Scholar database). Prof.Džeroski is recognized as the best Computer Scientist in Slovenia – according to the ranking by Research.com. He has supervised 30 PhD students that have successfully defended their theses, as well as 15 PostDoc fellows, now active in both academia and industry in many countries across three continents.