Carnegie Mellon University - Team Tartan.jpg
Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Faculty advisor: Alex Rudnicky

Tartan (2020)

Team Tartan is a mix of software engineers, linguistics researchers, product managers and human-computer interaction designers.

Team Tartan from CMU - Carnegie Mellon's students are participating in the Alexa Prize from 2 different continents and multiple time zones. The pandemic has not been able to stop them from putting their best foot forward. Team Tartan is a mix of software engineers, linguistics researchers, product managers and human-computer interaction designers.

Daksh S. - Team leader

Daksh is a Product Manager, and currently a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University. He is curious about understanding Human Behavior and Technology's influence on it. In addition to building products that people love, he hosts a podcast, Dollar Gujarati, where he interviews immigrant entrepreneurs and learns about how they built their businesses. In his free time, Daksh loves reading science fiction, fantasy and business books.

Feng-Guang S.

I am currently a Master’s student at Carnegie Mellon University, focusing on Natural Language Processing. I have done a lot of projects related to Machine Learning and Multi-modal. For this project, I will be responsible for the models.

Vaishakh K.

I am an engineer passionate about building reliable and scalable intelligent systems that can solve real problems.

I have 4 years of work experience as a Software Engineer. This has left me enriched with knowledge of engineering solutions and their effective implementation to make them end-user ready, while not compromising on engineering and operational excellence. I also have research experience in the area of Natural Language Processing.

Being a believer in continuous learning, I would like to build on the technical and conceptual skills to build systems that solve everyday problems by easing the interaction between man and machines.

Yue F.

I'm a first-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer Science at University College London, affiliated with the Web Intelligence Group of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence. I am grateful to be advised by Prof. Emine Yilmaz. I aim to design systems that robustly and efficiently learn to understand human languages and web data to the end of advancing artificial intelligence web service and web information processing. My current research interests lie in natural language processing, information retrieval, machine learning, and data mining.

Chi C.

I’m a UX and product designer currently finishing a Master of HCI at Carnegie Mellon University, School of Computer Science. My prior experiences include art historian, curatorial researcher, and yoga instructor. I’m always passionate about designing solutions at the intersection of art and technology, and believe any meaningful experience starts from where human connection is built.

Li-Wei C.

I’m Li-Wei, a first year Master of Language Technology studying at Carnegie Mellon University. My research interests are in speech processing and natural language processing, especially applying machine learning as a tool.

Clive G.

A graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University pursuing a Masters in Artificial Intelligence and Innovation. Main areas of interest include NLP and Image Processing.

Sujay K.

I am currently in the MIIS program at Language Technologies Institute in CMU. Before this, I was leading the NLP team at an early stage startup based in Silicon Valley (hypersonix.ai) valued at $200 million. We built a natural language interface over Amazon Redshift for our enterprise clients. Previously, I have worked at Citrix and vernacular.ai (another early stage startup working on multi-lingual speech and NLP for Indian languages). I graduated from PESIT, Bangalore in 2017 with an undergrad degree in Computer Science. As you might have already noticed, I have a penchant for early-stage startups, having been employee no. < 5 at 2 seed-stage startups. I am also an avid biker and trekker. Generally an outdoor person.

Dhruv N.

Dhruv is a Master’s student at the Language Technologies Institute, CMU. He aims to build intelligent multimodal systems that can enhance the human experience. Before coming to CMU, he worked as a Machine Learning Engineer, developing Intent and Entity Recognition systems. In his free time, he enjoys gaming and scuba diving.

Karthik G.

I am currently in the MIIS program at Language Technologies Institute in CMU . Before this I was working as a Machine learning Engineer at Vernacular.ai a series A funded conversational AI startup where I built and deployed multi-lingual SLU systems.My research interests include Spoken language understanding,Reading comprehension based QA systems,Emotion recognition and End-to-End SLU systems.

Jiajun B.

Jiajun is a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University. His interest lies in multilingual natural language processing. He did his undergraduate at the University of Michigan, majoring in computer science. In his spare time, he likes watching football games.

Alex Rudnicky - Faculty advisor

Alexander is a Professor Emeritus at Carnegie Mellon University, in the Language Technologies Institute of the School of Computer Science. Dr. Rudnicky's research has spanned many aspects of spoken language, including knowledge-based recognition systems, language modeling, spoken language system architectures, multi-modal interaction, analysis of conversational structure, and design principles for speech interfaces. He has been active in research into spoken dialog, and has made contributions to dialog management, language generation, confidence metrics for recognition and understanding and human-robot interaction. Dr. Rudnicky is interested in the induction of concepts and task structure from speech, and proactively acquire of knowledge through dialog.

Latest news

The latest updates, stories, and more about Alexa Prize.
GB, London
Amazon Advertising is looking for a Data Scientist to join its brand new initiative that powers Amazon’s contextual advertising products. Advertising at Amazon is a fast-growing multi-billion dollar business that spans across desktop, mobile and connected devices; encompasses ads on Amazon and a vast network of hundreds of thousands of third party publishers; and extends across US, EU and an increasing number of international geographies. The Supply Quality organization has the charter to solve optimization problems for ad-programs in Amazon and ensure high-quality ad-impressions. We develop advanced algorithms and infrastructure systems to optimize performance for our advertisers and publishers. We are focused on solving a wide variety of problems in computational advertising like traffic quality prediction (robot and fraud detection), Security forensics and research, Viewability prediction, Brand Safety, Contextual data processing and classification. Our team includes experts in the areas of distributed computing, machine learning, statistics, optimization, text mining, information theory and big data systems. We are looking for a dynamic, innovative and accomplished Data Scientist to work on data science initiatives for contextual data processing and classification that power our contextual advertising solutions. Are you an experienced user of sophisticated analytical techniques that can be applied to answer business questions and chart a sustainable vision? Are you exited by the prospect of communicating insights and recommendations to audiences of varying levels of technical sophistication? Above all, are you an innovator at heart and have a track record of resolving ambiguity to deliver result? As a data scientist, you help our data science team build cutting edge models and measurement solutions to power our contextual classification technology. As this is a new initiative, you will get an opportunity to act as a thought leader, work backwards from the customer needs, dive deep into data to understand the issues, define metrics, conceptualize and build algorithms and collaborate with multiple cross-functional teams. Key job responsibilities * Define a long-term science vision for contextual-classification tech, driven fundamentally from the needs of our advertisers and publishers, translating that direction into specific plans for the science team. Interpret complex and interrelated data points and anecdotes to build and communicate this vision. * Collaborate with software engineering teams to Identify and implement elegant statistical and machine learning solutions * Oversee the design, development, and implementation of production level code that handles billions of ad requests. Own the full development cycle: idea, design, prototype, impact assessment, A/B testing (including interpretation of results) and production deployment. * Promote the culture of experimentation and applied science at Amazon. * Demonstrated ability to meet deadlines while managing multiple projects. * Excellent communication and presentation skills working with multiple peer groups and different levels of management * Influence and continuously improve a sustainable team culture that exemplifies Amazon’s leadership principles. We are open to hiring candidates to work out of one of the following locations: London, GBR
JP, 13, Tokyo
We are seeking a Principal Economist to be the science leader in Amazon's customer growth and engagement. The wide remit covers Prime, delivery experiences, loyalty program (Amazon Points), and marketing. We look forward to partnering with you to advance our innovation on customers’ behalf. Amazon has a trailblazing track record of working with Ph.D. economists in the tech industry and offers a unique environment for economists to thrive. As an economist at Amazon, you will apply the frontier of econometric and economic methods to Amazon’s terabytes of data and intriguing customer problems. Your expertise in building reduced-form or structural causal inference models is exemplary in Amazon. Your strategic thinking in designing mechanisms and products influences how Amazon evolves. In this role, you will build ground-breaking, state-of-the-art econometric models to guide multi-billion-dollar investment decisions around the global Amazon marketplaces. You will own, execute, and expand a research roadmap that connects science, business, and engineering and contributes to Amazon's long term success. As one of the first economists outside North America/EU, you will make an outsized impact to our international marketplaces and pioneer in expanding Amazon’s economist community in Asia. The ideal candidate will be an experienced economist in empirical industrial organization, labour economics, or related structural/reduced-form causal inference fields. You are a self-starter who enjoys ambiguity in a fast-paced and ever-changing environment. You think big on the next game-changing opportunity but also dive deep into every detail that matters. You insist on the highest standards and are consistent in delivering results. Key job responsibilities - Work with Product, Finance, Data Science, and Data Engineering teams across the globe to deliver data-driven insights and products for regional and world-wide launches. - Innovate on how Amazon can leverage data analytics to better serve our customers through selection and pricing. - Contribute to building a strong data science community in Amazon Asia. We are open to hiring candidates to work out of one of the following locations: Tokyo, 13, JPN
DE, BE, Berlin
Ops Integration: Concessions team is looking for a motivated, creative and customer obsessed Snr. Applied Scientist with a strong machine learning background, to develop advanced analytics models (Computer Vision, LLMs, etc.) that improve customer experiences We are the voice of the customer in Amazon’s operations, and we take that role very seriously. If you join this team, you will be a key contributor to delivering the Factory of the Future: leveraging Internet of Things (IoT) and advanced analytics to drive tangible, operational change on the ground. You will collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders (You will partner with Research and Applied Scientists, SDEs, Technical Program Managers, Product Managers and Business Leaders) across the business to develop and refine new ways of assessing challenges within Amazon operations. This role will combine Amazon’s oldest Leadership Principle, with the latest analytical innovations, to deliver business change at scale and efficiently The ideal candidate will have deep and broad experience with theoretical approaches and practical implementations of vision techniques for task automation. They will be a motivated self-starter who can thrive in a fast-paced environment. They will be passionate about staying current with sensing technologies and algorithms in the broader machine vision industry. They will enjoy working in a multi-disciplinary team of engineers, scientists and business leaders. They will seek to understand processes behind data so their recommendations are grounded. Key job responsibilities Your solutions will drive new system capabilities with global impact. You will design highly scalable, large enterprise software solutions involving computer vision. You will develop complex perception algorithms integrating across multiple sensing devices. You will develop metrics to quantify the benefits of a solution and influence project resources. You will validate system performance and use insights from your live models to drive the next generation of model development. Common tasks include: • Research, design, implement and evaluate complex perception and decision making algorithms integrating across multiple disciplines • Work closely with software engineering teams to drive scalable, real-time implementations • Collaborate closely with team members on developing systems from prototyping to production level • Collaborate with teams spread all over the world • Track general business activity and provide clear, compelling management reports on a regular basis We are open to hiring candidates to work out of one of the following locations: Berlin, BE, DEU | Berlin, DEU
DE, BY, Munich
Ops Integration: Concessions team is looking for a motivated, creative and customer obsessed Snr. Applied Scientist with a strong machine learning background, to develop advanced analytics models (Computer Vision, LLMs, etc.) that improve customer experiences We are the voice of the customer in Amazon’s operations, and we take that role very seriously. If you join this team, you will be a key contributor to delivering the Factory of the Future: leveraging Internet of Things (IoT) and advanced analytics to drive tangible, operational change on the ground. You will collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders (You will partner with Research and Applied Scientists, SDEs, Technical Program Managers, Product Managers and Business Leaders) across the business to develop and refine new ways of assessing challenges within Amazon operations. This role will combine Amazon’s oldest Leadership Principle, with the latest analytical innovations, to deliver business change at scale and efficiently The ideal candidate will have deep and broad experience with theoretical approaches and practical implementations of vision techniques for task automation. They will be a motivated self-starter who can thrive in a fast-paced environment. They will be passionate about staying current with sensing technologies and algorithms in the broader machine vision industry. They will enjoy working in a multi-disciplinary team of engineers, scientists and business leaders. They will seek to understand processes behind data so their recommendations are grounded. Key job responsibilities Your solutions will drive new system capabilities with global impact. You will design highly scalable, large enterprise software solutions involving computer vision. You will develop complex perception algorithms integrating across multiple sensing devices. You will develop metrics to quantify the benefits of a solution and influence project resources. You will validate system performance and use insights from your live models to drive the next generation of model development. Common tasks include: • Research, design, implement and evaluate complex perception and decision making algorithms integrating across multiple disciplines • Work closely with software engineering teams to drive scalable, real-time implementations • Collaborate closely with team members on developing systems from prototyping to production level • Collaborate with teams spread all over the world • Track general business activity and provide clear, compelling management reports on a regular basis We are open to hiring candidates to work out of one of the following locations: Munich, BE, DEU | Munich, BY, DEU | Munich, DEU
IT, MI, Milan
Ops Integration: Concessions team is looking for a motivated, creative and customer obsessed Snr. Applied Scientist with a strong machine learning background, to develop advanced analytics models (Computer Vision, LLMs, etc.) that improve customer experiences We are the voice of the customer in Amazon’s operations, and we take that role very seriously. If you join this team, you will be a key contributor to delivering the Factory of the Future: leveraging Internet of Things (IoT) and advanced analytics to drive tangible, operational change on the ground. You will collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders (You will partner with Research and Applied Scientists, SDEs, Technical Program Managers, Product Managers and Business Leaders) across the business to develop and refine new ways of assessing challenges within Amazon operations. This role will combine Amazon’s oldest Leadership Principle, with the latest analytical innovations, to deliver business change at scale and efficiently The ideal candidate will have deep and broad experience with theoretical approaches and practical implementations of vision techniques for task automation. They will be a motivated self-starter who can thrive in a fast-paced environment. They will be passionate about staying current with sensing technologies and algorithms in the broader machine vision industry. They will enjoy working in a multi-disciplinary team of engineers, scientists and business leaders. They will seek to understand processes behind data so their recommendations are grounded. Key job responsibilities Your solutions will drive new system capabilities with global impact. You will design highly scalable, large enterprise software solutions involving computer vision. You will develop complex perception algorithms integrating across multiple sensing devices. You will develop metrics to quantify the benefits of a solution and influence project resources. You will validate system performance and use insights from your live models to drive the next generation of model development. Common tasks include: • Research, design, implement and evaluate complex perception and decision making algorithms integrating across multiple disciplines • Work closely with software engineering teams to drive scalable, real-time implementations • Collaborate closely with team members on developing systems from prototyping to production level • Collaborate with teams spread all over the world • Track general business activity and provide clear, compelling management reports on a regular basis We are open to hiring candidates to work out of one of the following locations: Milan, MI, ITA
ES, M, Madrid
Ops Integration: Concessions team is looking for a motivated, creative and customer obsessed Snr. Applied Scientist with a strong machine learning background, to develop advanced analytics models (Computer Vision, LLMs, etc.) that improve customer experiences We are the voice of the customer in Amazon’s operations, and we take that role very seriously. If you join this team, you will be a key contributor to delivering the Factory of the Future: leveraging Internet of Things (IoT) and advanced analytics to drive tangible, operational change on the ground. You will collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders (You will partner with Research and Applied Scientists, SDEs, Technical Program Managers, Product Managers and Business Leaders) across the business to develop and refine new ways of assessing challenges within Amazon operations. This role will combine Amazon’s oldest Leadership Principle, with the latest analytical innovations, to deliver business change at scale and efficiently The ideal candidate will have deep and broad experience with theoretical approaches and practical implementations of vision techniques for task automation. They will be a motivated self-starter who can thrive in a fast-paced environment. They will be passionate about staying current with sensing technologies and algorithms in the broader machine vision industry. They will enjoy working in a multi-disciplinary team of engineers, scientists and business leaders. They will seek to understand processes behind data so their recommendations are grounded. Key job responsibilities Your solutions will drive new system capabilities with global impact. You will design highly scalable, large enterprise software solutions involving computer vision. You will develop complex perception algorithms integrating across multiple sensing devices. You will develop metrics to quantify the benefits of a solution and influence project resources. You will validate system performance and use insights from your live models to drive the next generation of model development. Common tasks include: • Research, design, implement and evaluate complex perception and decision making algorithms integrating across multiple disciplines • Work closely with software engineering teams to drive scalable, real-time implementations • Collaborate closely with team members on developing systems from prototyping to production level • Collaborate with teams spread all over the world • Track general business activity and provide clear, compelling management reports on a regular basis We are open to hiring candidates to work out of one of the following locations: Madrid, ESP | Madrid, M, ESP
US, TX, Austin
The role is available Arlington, Virginia (may consider New York, NY, Los Angeles, CA, or Toronto, Canada). Calling all inventors to work on exciting new opportunities in Sponsored Products. Amazon is building a world class advertising business and defining and delivering a collection of self-service performance advertising products that drive discovery and sales of merchandise. Our products are strategically important to our Retail and Marketplace businesses, driving long-term growth. Sponsored Products (SP) helps merchants, retail vendors, and brand owners grows incremental sales of their products sold on Amazon through native advertising. SP achieves this by using a combination of machine learning, big data analytics, ultra-low latency high-volume engineering systems, and quantitative product focus. We are a highly motivated, collaborative and fun-loving group with an entrepreneurial spirit and bias for action. You will join a newly-founded team with a broad mandate to experiment and innovate, which gives us the flexibility to explore and apply scientific techniques to novel product problems. You will have the satisfaction of seeing your work improve the experience of millions of Amazon shoppers while driving quantifiable revenue impact. More importantly, you will have the opportunity to broaden your technical skills, work with Generative AI, and be a science leader in an environment that thrives on creativity, experimentation, and product innovation. We are open to hiring candidates to work out of one of the following locations: Austin, TX, USA
US, CA, San Diego
The Private Brands team is looking for an Applied Scientist to join the team in building science solutions at scale. Our team applies Optimization, Machine Learning, Statistics, Causal Inference, and Econometrics/Economics to derive actionable insights. We are an interdisciplinary team of Scientists, Engineers, and Economists and primary focus on building optimization and machine learning solutions in supply chain domain with specific focus on Amazon private brand products. Key job responsibilities You will work with business leaders, scientists, and economists to translate business and functional requirements into concrete deliverables, including the design, development, testing, and deployment of highly scalable optimization solutions and ML models. This is a unique, high visibility opportunity for someone who wants to have business impact, dive deep into large-scale problems, enable measurable actions on the consumer economy, and work closely with scientists and economists. As a scientist, you bring business and industry context to science and technology decisions. You set the standard for scientific excellence and make decisions that affect the way we build and integrate algorithms. Your solutions are exemplary in terms of algorithm design, clarity, model structure, efficiency, and extensibility. You tackle intrinsically hard problems, acquiring expertise as needed. You decompose complex problems into straightforward solutions. We are particularly interested in candidates with experience in predictive and machine learning models and working with distributed systems. Academic and/or practical background in Machine Learning are particularly relevant for this position. Familiarity and experience in applying Operations Research techniques to supply chain problems is a plus. To know more about Amazon science, Please visit https://www.amazon.science We are open to hiring candidates to work out of one of the following locations: San Diego, CA, USA | Seattle, WA, USA
LU, Luxembourg
Ops Integration: Concessions team is looking for a motivated, creative and customer obsessed Snr. Applied Scientist with a strong machine learning background, to develop advanced analytics models (Computer Vision, LLMs, etc.) that improve customer experiences We are the voice of the customer in Amazon’s operations, and we take that role very seriously. If you join this team, you will be a key contributor to delivering the Factory of the Future: leveraging Internet of Things (IoT) and advanced analytics to drive tangible, operational change on the ground. You will collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders (You will partner with Research and Applied Scientists, SDEs, Technical Program Managers, Product Managers and Business Leaders) across the business to develop and refine new ways of assessing challenges within Amazon operations. This role will combine Amazon’s oldest Leadership Principle, with the latest analytical innovations, to deliver business change at scale and efficiently The ideal candidate will have deep and broad experience with theoretical approaches and practical implementations of vision techniques for task automation. They will be a motivated self-starter who can thrive in a fast-paced environment. They will be passionate about staying current with sensing technologies and algorithms in the broader machine vision industry. They will enjoy working in a multi-disciplinary team of engineers, scientists and business leaders. They will seek to understand processes behind data so their recommendations are grounded. Key job responsibilities Your solutions will drive new system capabilities with global impact. You will design highly scalable, large enterprise software solutions involving computer vision. You will develop complex perception algorithms integrating across multiple sensing devices. You will develop metrics to quantify the benefits of a solution and influence project resources. You will validate system performance and use insights from your live models to drive the next generation of model development. Common tasks include: • Research, design, implement and evaluate complex perception and decision making algorithms integrating across multiple disciplines • Work closely with software engineering teams to drive scalable, real-time implementations • Collaborate closely with team members on developing systems from prototyping to production level • Collaborate with teams spread all over the world • Track general business activity and provide clear, compelling management reports on a regular basis We are open to hiring candidates to work out of one of the following locations: Luxembourg, LUX
GB, London
Ops Integration: Concessions team is looking for a motivated, creative and customer obsessed Snr. Applied Scientist with a strong machine learning background, to develop advanced analytics models (Computer Vision, LLMs, etc.) that improve customer experiences We are the voice of the customer in Amazon’s operations, and we take that role very seriously. If you join this team, you will be a key contributor to delivering the Factory of the Future: leveraging Internet of Things (IoT) and advanced analytics to drive tangible, operational change on the ground. You will collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders (You will partner with Research and Applied Scientists, SDEs, Technical Program Managers, Product Managers and Business Leaders) across the business to develop and refine new ways of assessing challenges within Amazon operations. This role will combine Amazon’s oldest Leadership Principle, with the latest analytical innovations, to deliver business change at scale and efficiently The ideal candidate will have deep and broad experience with theoretical approaches and practical implementations of vision techniques for task automation. They will be a motivated self-starter who can thrive in a fast-paced environment. They will be passionate about staying current with sensing technologies and algorithms in the broader machine vision industry. They will enjoy working in a multi-disciplinary team of engineers, scientists and business leaders. They will seek to understand processes behind data so their recommendations are grounded. Key job responsibilities Your solutions will drive new system capabilities with global impact. You will design highly scalable, large enterprise software solutions involving computer vision. You will develop complex perception algorithms integrating across multiple sensing devices. You will develop metrics to quantify the benefits of a solution and influence project resources. You will validate system performance and use insights from your live models to drive the next generation of model development. Common tasks include: • Research, design, implement and evaluate complex perception and decision making algorithms integrating across multiple disciplines • Work closely with software engineering teams to drive scalable, real-time implementations • Collaborate closely with team members on developing systems from prototyping to production level • Collaborate with teams spread all over the world • Track general business activity and provide clear, compelling management reports on a regular basis Basic Qualifications -Masters in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics or equivalent with a focus on Computer Vision. -2+ years of experience of building machine learning models for business application -Broad knowledge of fundamentals and state of the art in computer vision and machine learning -Strong coding skills in two or more programming languages such as Python or C/C++ -Knowledge of fundamentals in optimization, supervised and reinforcement learning -Excellent problem-solving ability Preferred Qualifications -PhD and 4+ years of industry or academic applied research experience applying Computer Vision techniques and developing Computer vision algorithms -Depth and breadth in state-of-the-art computer vision and machine learning technologies and experience designing and building computer vision solutions -Industry experience in sensor systems and the development of production computer vision and machine learning applications built to use them -Experience developing software interfacing to AWS services -Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to present complex technical information in a clear and concise manner to a variety of audiences -Ability to work on a diverse team or with a diverse range of coworkers -Experience in publishing at major Computer Vision, ML or Robotics conferences or Journals (CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, NeurIPS, ICML, IJCV, ICRA, IROS, RSS,...) We are open to hiring candidates to work out of one of the following locations: London, GBR