Subscribe
Follow Us
ucd-gunrock-team-650px.jpg
Location: Davis, CA, USA
Faculty advisor: Zhou Yu

Gunrock (2018)

Named for our university's mascot, Gunrock, our team is a group of students who all share a passion for improving everyday human experiences through artificial intelligence.

By University of California, Davis
Share

Our team consists of 14 graduate and undergraduate computer science and electrical and computer engineering students with diverse, international perspectives. Our fearless leader is Zhou Yu, an assistant professor of computer science who was recently recognized in Forbes' 2018 30 Under 30 in Science list for her research in developing algorithms that enable software to adapt to users. Using our combined knowledge and expertise in developing large-scale distributed computing platforms, sub-systems, machine learning and application software, our team can't wait to use Amazon's platform and user pool to tackle the real-world needs of the general public.

Chun-Yen C. - Team leader

Chun-Yen was a senior software engineer with 5 years hands-on experience specializing on developing a large-scale distributed platform and scalable machine learning systems, in telecommunication company HTC. He received his master's degree in Communication Engineering from National Taiwan University in 2012.

Chun-Yen is currently a first-year master student and a Graduate Student Researcher in computer science department at the University of California, Davis. His main focus is to build a data management framework for the general usage of visualization systems and architect a robust framework for the chatbot system.

Ashwin B.

I am a Masters in Computer Science student studying at the University of California, Davis. I am a passionate programmer having a strong Data Structures and Algorithms knowledge base. In this information age, my research interest lies in Data Science/ Data Analytics. Previously, I have worked with Dell-EMC where I applied the concept of Software Defined Networking to WAN to implement an SD-WAN solution which reduced the network reconfiguration speed by 60%. My hobbies include but are not limited to sketching, writing, reading, hiking, adventure sports and exploring the unknown. I love trying out new things and having new experiences.

Austin C.

I earned my Neuroscience B.S. at University of California, Los Angeles, with a focus on psychology and cognitive science. During my undergraduate, I started learning programming and mobile app development and switched my pursuit to computer science. I have also taken coursework in machine learning and neural networks on top of my major. I am pursuing my masters in computer science at UC Davis focusing on NLP, HCI and dialogue systems and researching under Prof. Zhou Yu. My current project is a dialogue-based movie recommendation system that generates recommendation using matrix factorization and collaborative filtering.

Weiming W.

N/A

Dian Y.

I am a first year PhD student working with Prof. Kenji Sagae on dialogue systems and machine translation at University of California, Davis. We are currently working on dialogue state tracking and parsing. Besides NLP, I am also interested in computer vision. Before this, I earned a B.S. in Computer Science and a B.S. in Finance at New York University. I was advised by Prof. Keith Ross working on reinforcement learning with a focus on natural language processing, as well as researching on computer networking.

Giritheja S.

I am a first year graduate student majoring in Computer Science. I graduated from the National Institute of Technology, Karnataka, India in 2017 with a major in Electrical and Electronics engineering. I have previously worked as a Summer Intern in the Cloud team of Fidelity Investments. I contribute to Open Source organizations involving Software Development. My recent course project involved exploring Deep Learning techniques to recover variable names from minified javascript files, I was intrigued by applications of Deep Learning and AI. I look forward to exploring it.

Kevin J.

I earned my Computer Science B.S and Computer Engineering B.S at the University of California, Santa Cruz. At the University of California, Davis I am currently working with Professor Yu Zhou for a Ph.D. in NLP and dialogue systems. My work in dialogue systems has led me to create a movie recommendation dialogue bot using collaborative filtering and matrix factorization.

Mingyang Z.

Previously, I worked with Professor Jason Corso on video activity segmentation and video classification research problem where I have experience of using sparse coding, CNN and RNN. I also did a humor classification project with Professor Rada Mihalcea to classify whether an image can pair with a humorous punchline to make good memes. Currently, I am working with Professor Yu Zhou at UC Davis for Ph.D, where I worked on the research problem of multimodality machine translation research. I implemented a sequence to sequence model and a visual semantic meaning embedding algorithm as the starting baseline model for this research.

Shreenath I.

I'm a first year Master's student at UC Davis with my areas of research being Software Engineering, Distributed Operating Systems and Machine Learning. I received my Bachelor's in Computer Science in 2015 from the University of Pune and I've worked with Fidelity National Information Services for two years as a Product Development Engineer. I have primarily worked on Python, Django, and Buildbots in a Continuous Integration environment to facilitate the build and release process. I have worked with recommendation systems and language processing before and I look forward to using my experience and building on it through this project.

Yi Mang (Terry) Y.

I am an undergraduate Computer Science major interested in artificial intelligence. Conversational artificial intelligence is enabling a natural and engaging way for people to interact with machines. It is an exciting time but creating a smart socialbot presents many challenges. For our team, I bring my experience in building full-stack software systems that integrate machine learning models. I also have research experience in applying deep learning to computer vision problems.

Antara B.

I'm a first year Master's student at UC Davis in computer science and my research interests lie in machine learning and natural language processing. I completed my undergraduate degree in computer science in 2017 from SRM University and I've worked on computer vision and NLP problems as part of my internship at Medyug Technologies.

Zhou Yu - Faculty advisor

Education: Ph.D in Language Technology Institute, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, 2017

B.S. in Computer Science Department & B.A. in the Foreign Language Department with a linguistics focus in Zhejiang University, 2011

Professional Experience: Assistant Professor, University of California, Davis, 2017-present

About the Author
University of California, Davis

Latest news

The latest updates, stories, and more about Alexa Prize.
Load more

Work with us

See more jobs See more jobs
Research Scientist, Sales Insights, Analytics, & Data Science (SIADS)
US, WA, Seattle
Amazon is seeking an experienced, self-directed data scientist to support the research and analytical needs of Amazon Web Services' Sales teams. This is a unique opportunity to invent new ways of leveraging our large, complex data streams to automate sales efforts and to accelerate our customers' journey to the cloud. This is a high-visibility role with significant impact potential. You, as the right candidate, are adept at executing every stage of the machine learning development life cycle in a business setting; from initial requirements gathering to through final model deployment, including adoption measurement and improvement. You will be working with large volumes of structured and unstructured data spread across multiple databases and can design and implement data pipelines to clean and merge these data for research and modeling. Beyond mathematical understanding, you have a deep intuition for machine learning algorithms that allows you to translate business problems into the right machine learning, data science, and/or statistical solutions. You’re able to pick up and grasp new research and identify applications or extensions within the team. You’re talented at communicating your results clearly to business owners in concise, non-technical language. Key job responsibilities • Work with a team of analytics & insights leads, data scientists and engineers to define business problems. • Research, develop, and deliver machine learning & statistical solutions in close partnership with end users, other science and engineering teams, and business stakeholders. • Use AWS services like SageMaker to deploy scalable ML models in the cloud. • Examples of projects include modeling usage of AWS services to optimize sales planning, recommending sales plays based on historical patterns, and building a sales-facing alert system using anomaly detection.
Senior Applied Science Manager, Special Projects
US, WA, Seattle
We are a team of doers working passionately to apply cutting-edge advances in deep learning in the life sciences to solve real-world problems. As a Senior Applied Science Manager you will participate in developing exciting products for customers. Our team rewards curiosity while maintaining a laser-focus in bringing products to market. Competitive candidates are responsive, flexible, and able to succeed within an open, collaborative, entrepreneurial, startup-like environment. At the leading edge of both academic and applied research in this product area, you have the opportunity to work together with a diverse and talented team of scientists, engineers, and product managers and collaborate with others teams. Location is in Seattle, US Embrace Diversity Here at Amazon, we embrace our differences. We are committed to furthering our culture of inclusion. We have ten employee-led affinity groups, reaching 40,000 employees in over 190 chapters globally. We have innovative benefit offerings, and host annual and ongoing learning experiences, including our Conversations on Race and Ethnicity (CORE) and AmazeCon (gender diversity) conferences. Amazon’s culture of inclusion is reinforced within our 14 Leadership Principles, which remind team members to seek diverse perspectives, learn and be curious, and earn trust Balance Work and Life Our team puts a high value on work-life balance. It isn’t about how many hours you spend at home or at work; it’s about the flow you establish that brings energy to both parts of your life. We believe striking the right balance between your personal and professional life is critical to life-long happiness and fulfillment. We offer flexibility in working hours and encourage you to find your own balance between your work and personal lives Mentor & Grow Careers Our team is dedicated to supporting new members. We have a broad mix of experience levels and tenures, and we’re building an environment that celebrates knowledge sharing and mentorship. Our senior members enjoy one-on-one mentoring and thorough, but kind, code reviews. We care about your career growth and strive to assign projects based on what will help each team member develop into a better-rounded engineer and enable them to take on more complex tasks in the future. Key job responsibilities • Manage high performing engineering and science teams • Hire and develop top-performing engineers, scientists, and other managers • Develop and execute on project plans and delivery commitments • Work with business, data science, software engineer, biological, and product leaders to help define product requirements and with managers, scientists, and engineers to execute on them • Build and maintain world-class customer experience and operational excellence for your deliverables
Intern - Economics, Amazon's Choice
US, Virtual
The Amazon Economics Team is hiring Interns in Economics. We are looking for detail-oriented, organized, and responsible individuals who are eager to learn how to work with large and complicated data sets. Some knowledge of econometrics, as well as basic familiarity with Stata, R, or Python is necessary. Experience with SQL, UNIX, Sawtooth, and Spark would be a plus. These are full-time positions at 40 hours per week, with compensation being awarded on an hourly basis. You will learn how to build data sets and perform applied econometric analysis at Internet speed collaborating with economists, data scientists and MBAʼs. These skills will translate well into writing applied chapters in your dissertation and provide you with work experience that may help you with placement. Roughly 85% of interns from previous cohorts have converted to full time economics employment at Amazon. If you are interested, please send your CV to our mailing list at econ-internship@amazon.com.
Applied Science Intern, Corporate Projects
US, WA, Seattle
Amazon internships are full-time (40 hours/week) for 12 consecutive weeks with start dates in May - July 2023. Our internship program provides hands-on learning and building experiences for students who are interested in a career in hardware engineering. This role will be based in Seattle, and candidates must be willing to work in-person. Corporate Projects (CPT) is a team that sits within the broader Corporate Development organization at Amazon. We seek to bring net-new, strategic projects to life by working together with customers and evolving projects from ZERO-to-ONE. To do so, we deploy our resources towards proofs-of-concept (POCs) and pilot programs and develop them from high-level ideas (the ZERO) to tangible short-term results that provide validating signal and a path to scale (the ONE). We work with our customers to develop and create net-new opportunities by relentlessly scouring all of Amazon and finding new and innovative ways to strengthen and/or accelerate the Amazon Flywheel. CPT seeks an Applied Science intern to work with a diverse, cross-functional team to build new, innovative customer experiences. Within CPT, you will apply both traditional and novel scientific approaches to solve and scale problems and solutions. We are a team where science meets application. A successful candidate will be a self-starter comfortable with ambiguity, strong attention to detail, and the ability to work in a fast-paced, ever-changing environment. As an Applied Science Intern, you will own the design and development of end-to-end systems. You’ll have the opportunity to create technical roadmaps, and drive production level projects that will support Amazon Science. You will work closely with Amazon scientists, and other science interns to develop solutions and deploy them into production. The ideal scientist must have the ability to work with diverse groups of people and cross-functional teams to solve complex business problems.
Applied Science Intern, Corporate Projects
US, WA, Seattle
Amazon internships are full-time (40 hours/week) for 12 consecutive weeks with start dates in May - July 2023. Our internship program provides hands-on learning and building experiences for students who are interested in a career in hardware engineering. This role will be based in Seattle, and candidates must be willing to work in-person. Corporate Projects (CPT) is a team that sits within the broader Corporate Development organization at Amazon. We seek to bring net-new, strategic projects to life by working together with customers and evolving projects from ZERO-to-ONE. To do so, we deploy our resources towards proofs-of-concept (POCs) and pilot programs and develop them from high-level ideas (the ZERO) to tangible short-term results that provide validating signal and a path to scale (the ONE). We work with our customers to develop and create net-new opportunities by relentlessly scouring all of Amazon and finding new and innovative ways to strengthen and/or accelerate the Amazon Flywheel. CPT seeks an Applied Science intern to work with a diverse, cross-functional team to build new, innovative customer experiences. Within CPT, you will apply both traditional and novel scientific approaches to solve and scale problems and solutions. We are a team where science meets application. A successful candidate will be a self-starter comfortable with ambiguity, strong attention to detail, and the ability to work in a fast-paced, ever-changing environment. As an Applied Science Intern, you will own the design and development of end-to-end systems. You’ll have the opportunity to create technical roadmaps, and drive production level projects that will support Amazon Science. You will work closely with Amazon scientists, and other science interns to develop solutions and deploy them into production. The ideal scientist must have the ability to work with diverse groups of people and cross-functional teams to solve complex business problems.
Senior Principal Applied Scientist, Search and Science, AI
US, CA, Palo Alto
The Amazon Search team creates powerful, customer-focused search solutions and technologies. Whenever a customer visits an Amazon site worldwide and types in a query or browses through product categories, Amazon Search services go to work. We design, develop, and deploy high performance, fault-tolerant distributed search systems used by millions of Amazon customers every day. We’re seeking a Principal Scientist with a deep expertise in Search Science. Your responsibilities will include everything from developing and prototyping innovative machine learning, and deep learning algorithms to implementing, testing, and supporting full solutions in a production environment. We are looking for innovators who can contribute to advancing search technology on what’s scientifically possible while remaining committed to creating world-class products. Joining this team, you’ll experience the benefits of working in a dynamic, entrepreneurial environment, while leveraging the resources of Amazon.com (AMZN), Earth's most customer-centric company one of the world's leading internet companies. We provide a highly customer-centric, team-oriented environment in our offices located in Palo Alto, California. Key job responsibilities As a hands-on leader of this team, you’ll be responsible for defining key research questions, identifying relevant data, adopting or proposing innovative machine learning solutions conducting rigorous experiments, publishing results and working with the engineering team to deploy these solutions. As a strategic leader, you will identify investment opportunities, develop long term strategies, and propose, prioritize and deliver on goals. You’ll also participate in organizational planning, hiring, mentorship and leadership development. You will be technically fearless and with a passion for building scalable science and engineering solutions. You will serve as a key scientific resource in full-cycle development (conception, design, implementation, testing to documentation, delivery, and maintenance). About the team Starting in 2009, the Visual Search & Augmented Reality team has thus far launched many visual search solutions on the Amazon App that use computer vision and machine learning/deep learning to help customers complete their shopping missions more easily; multiple internal teams at Amazon (devices, Kindle, Seller services, etc.) also use our libraries and APIs to deliver solutions to their own customers. We are a full stack shop, and our team capabilities cover the whole solution spectrum, ranging across applied science, large scale engineering services, product management, UX design, and mobile app development for iOS and Android.
Data Scientist, Mid-Term Network
LU, Luxembourg
&ltHire Relocation Requisition - not for posting> Provides insights to leadership on improving Supply Chain cost and Speed by using Data Science and Analytics techniques. Build Dashboards and models to industrialize these findings at scale.
Economist - II, PXT Central Science
US, VA, Arlington
The People eXperience and Technology Central Science Team (PXTCS) uses economics, behavioral science, statistics, and machine learning to proactively identify mechanisms and process improvements which simultaneously improve Amazon and the lives, wellbeing, and the value of work to Amazonians. We are an interdisciplinary team that combines the talents of science and engineering to develop and deliver solutions that measurably achieve this goal. We are looking for economists who are able to work with business partners to hone complex problems into specific, scientific questions, and test those questions to generate insights. The ideal candidate will work with engineers and computer scientists to estimate models and algorithms on large scale data, design pilots and measure their impact, and transform successful prototypes into improved policies and programs at scale. We are looking for creative thinkers who can combine a strong technical economic toolbox with a desire to learn from other disciplines, and who know how to execute and deliver on big ideas as part of an interdisciplinary technical team. Ideal candidates will work closely with business partners to develop science that solves the most important business challenges. They will work in a team setting with individuals from diverse disciplines and backgrounds. They will serve as an ambassador for science and a scientific resource for business teams, so that scientific processes permeate throughout the HR organization to the benefit of Amazonians and Amazon. Ideal candidates will own the data analysis, modeling, and experimentation that is necessary for estimating and validating models. They will work closely with engineering teams to develop scalable data resources to support rapid insights, and take successful models and findings into production as new products and services. They will be customer-centric and will communicate scientific approaches and findings to business leaders, listening to and incorporate their feedback, and delivering successful scientific solutions. Key job responsibilities Use causal inference methods to evaluate the impact of policies on employee outcomes. Examine how external labor market and economic conditions impact Amazon's ability to hire and retain talent. Use scientifically rigorous methods to develop and recommend career paths for employees. A day in the life Work with teammates to apply economic methods to business problems. This might include identifying the appropriate research questions, writing code to implement a DID analysis or estimate a structural model, or writing and presenting a document with findings to business leaders. Our economists also collaborate with partner teams throughout the process, from understanding their challenges, to developing a research agenda that will address those challenges, to help them implement solutions. About the team We are a multidisciplinary team that combines the talents of science and engineering to develop innovative solutions to make Amazon Earth's Best Employer.
Economist, PXT Central Science
US, WA, Seattle
The People eXperience and Technology Central Science Team (PXTCS) uses economics, behavioral science, statistics, and machine learning to proactively identify mechanisms and process improvements which simultaneously improve Amazon and the lives, wellbeing, and the value of work to Amazonians. We are an interdisciplinary team that combines the talents of science and engineering to develop and deliver solutions that measurably achieve this goal. We are looking for economists who are able to apply economic methods to address business problems. The ideal candidate will work with engineers and computer scientists to estimate models and algorithms on large scale data, design pilots and measure their impact, and transform successful prototypes into improved policies and programs at scale. We are looking for creative thinkers who can combine a strong technical economic toolbox with a desire to learn from other disciplines, and who know how to execute and deliver on big ideas as part of an interdisciplinary technical team. Ideal candidates will work in a team setting with individuals from diverse disciplines and backgrounds. They will work with teammates to develop scientific models and conduct the data analysis, modeling, and experimentation that is necessary for estimating and validating models. They will work closely with engineering teams to develop scalable data resources to support rapid insights, and take successful models and findings into production as new products and services. They will be customer-centric and will communicate scientific approaches and findings to business leaders, listening to and incorporate their feedback, and delivering successful scientific solutions. Key job responsibilities Use causal inference methods to evaluate the impact of policies on employee outcomes. Examine how external labor market and economic conditions impact Amazon's ability to hire and retain talent. Use scientifically rigorous methods to develop and recommend career paths for employees. A day in the life Work with teammates to apply economic methods to business problems. This might include identifying the appropriate research questions, writing code to implement a DID analysis or estimate a structural model, or writing and presenting a document with findings to business leaders. Our economists also collaborate with partner teams throughout the process, from understanding their challenges, to developing a research agenda that will address those challenges, to help them implement solutions. About the team We are a multidisciplinary team that combines the talents of science and engineering to develop innovative solutions to make Amazon Earth's Best Employer.
Postdoctoral Scientist - Machine Learning
US, WA, Seattle
Amazon is looking for talented Postdoctoral Scientists to join our global Science teams for a one-year, full-time research position. Postdoctoral Scientists will innovate as members of Amazon’s key global Science teams, including: AWS, Alexa AI, Alexa Shopping, Amazon Style, CoreAI, Last Mile, and Supply Chain Optimization Technologies. Postdoctoral Scientists will join one of may central, global science teams focused on solving research-intense business problems by leveraging Machine Learning, Econometrics, Statistics, and Data Science. Postdoctoral Scientists will work at the intersection of ML and systems to solve practical data driven optimization problems at Amazon scale. Postdocs will raise the scientific bar across Amazon by diving deep into exploratory areas of research to enhance the customer experience and improve efficiencies. Please note: This posting is one of several Amazon Postdoctoral Scientist postings. Please only apply to a maximum of 2 Amazon Postdoctoral Scientist postings that are relevant to your technical field and subject matter expertise. Key job responsibilities * Work closely with a senior science advisor, collaborate with other scientists and engineers, and be part of Amazon’s vibrant and diverse global science community. * Publish your innovation in top-tier academic venues and hone your presentation skills. * Be inspired by challenges and opportunities to invent cutting-edge techniques in your area(s) of expertise.
View from space of a connected network around planet Earth representing the Internet of Things.
Get more from Amazon Science
Sign up for our newsletter
Subscribe
Amazon.com | Conditions of Use | Privacy | © 1996-2023 Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates
Follow Us