DDPS | “Machine Learning for Molecules and Materials”
DDPS Talk date: January 24th, 2024
Speaker: Max Welling (University of Amsterdam, https://staff.fnwi.uva.nl/m.welling/)
Description: For a long time the most prominent application area of AI and ML was text and image data. However, recently we have witnessed the rise of a new application domain for AI: the natural sciences. With two recent Nobel Prizes for AI in Physics and Chemistry we can confidently state that the field has established itself. In this talk I will review some of the applications in science where AI has made a big impact. In some detail I will discuss progress in ML Force Fields, Classical DFT and PDE modeling. I will also argue that mathematics, physics and neuroscience continue to deliver inspiration for improving ML algorithms. I will end by arguing that the field is not only intellectually interesting but we may indeed need this revolution to help us avert some of humanity's greatest challenges such as climate change.
Bio: Prof. Dr. Max Welling is a full professor and research chair in machine learning at the University of Amsterdam and a Merkin distinguished visiting professor at Caltech. He is co-founder and CAIO of the startup CuspAI in Materials Design. He is a fellow at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) and the European Lab for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS) where he served on the founding board. His previous appointments include Partner and VP at Microsoft Research, VP at Qualcomm Technologies, professor at UC Irvine.
He finished his PhD in theoretical high energy physics under supervision of Nobel laureate prof. Gerard ‘t Hooft. He then switched fields to focus on machine learning, first as a postdoc at Caltech under supervision of prof. Pietro Perona and then as postdoc under supervision of Nobel laureate prof. Geoffrey Hinton at UCL & U. Toronto.
Max Welling has served as associate editor in chief of IEEE TPAMI from 2011-2015, he serves on the advisory board of the Neurips foundation since 2015, he is co-founder of the European Lab for Learning and Intelligence Systems (ELLIS) and served on its board until 2021, he has been program chair and general chair of Neurips in 2013 and 2014 respectively. He was also program chair of AISTATS in 2009 and ECCV in 2016 and general chair and co-founder of MIDL 2018. Max Welling is recipient of the ECCV Koenderink Prize in 2010, and the 10 year Test of Time awards at ICML in 2021 and ICLR in 2024.
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IM release number is: LLNL-VIDEO-872239