News

Faculty members have expertise on machine learning, AI, and data

July 25, 2024

HTML0 Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) is welcoming four new researchers from the fields of machine-learning artificial intelligence, data management to the ranks of its faculty. Four of the new faculty members will also serve as investigators at the Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence located at Harvard University , which is located in the Science and Engineering Complex.

“We’re at a transformational moment for artificial intelligence and I couldn’t be more excited to recruit outstanding new faculty to SEAS,” said David C. Parkes, the John A. Paulson Dean. “Our new faculty colleagues are bringing a wealth of talent and expertise on the cutting edge of machine learning and AI, driving foundational research that will make sure that we continue to understand and embrace AI and have it work to the benefit of everyone.”

This new Faculty comprises:

Juncheng Yang

Juncheng Yang will join SEAS in 2025, as the Assistant Professor in Computer Science. Yang’s research is focused on the quality durability, longevity and reliability of systems for data. He makes use of in-depth measurements to develop new algorithms and systems to improve the performance of tomorrow’s storage and compute systems. Yang is especially keen on developing durable reliable, sustainable and long-lasting storage and cache management methods and developing new strategies to enable machine learning to be more effective for storage systems.

Yang is joining SEAS after his departure from Carnegie Mellon University, where the doctor earned his Ph.D. in HTML1. Ph.D.

Kiante Brantley

Kiante Brantley was hired by SEAS on July 1 2024 as Assistant Professor in Computer Science and Investigator with the Kempner Institute. Brantley’s studies focus on tackling the issues of misalignment which machine-learning systems built on foundation models commonly face. He is aiming to address the problem by examining algorithms that learn from feedback information obtained from outside sources. His research areas are imitation and reinforcement learning and natural processing of language.

Brantley has joined SEAS along with The Kempner Institute from University of Maryland in which he obtained his Ph.D.

Yilun Du

Yilun Du joins SEAS in July 2025, as the Assistant Professor in Computer Science and Kempner Investigator. Du’s work focuses on the use of the generative AI to build intelligent robots that effectively expand on unimagined situations and perform tasks. His work has been centered on generative compositional modeling, where models that are already generative can be combined and used to tackle new tasks, which allows systems to expand areas that aren’t covered in the distribution of data. His research has shown how these systems could be used to create settings for robotics, vision, and languages, as well as general scientific applications like protein design or material synthesizing.

Du is joining SEAS as well as The Kempner Institute from MIT, where he received his Ph.D.

Michael Albergo

Michael Albergo will join SEAS in July 2026. He will be an Assistant Professor of Applied Mathematics as well as a Kempner Investigator. Albergo is interested in methods of numerical analysis and machine learning to help accelerate the discovery process for physical scientists as well as studying complex systems. Albergo also aims to apply the perspectives of statistical physics to increase our knowledge about the processes behind the rapidly expanding area of modeling generative and also to develop statistically strong methods of machine learning that can be specific to the problems they solve.

Prior to his appointment in SEAS along with SEAS and the Kempner Institute, Albergo will be a junior fellow in the Society of Fellows here at Harvard. He earned the Ph.D. in Physics from New York University in Physics.

Topics: Applied Mathematics , Computer Science