Praveen Nair‍

(Nair rhymes with 🔥)

prnair@ucsd.edu • CV • Google Scholar • GitHub • LinkedIn

I was advised by Professor David Danks of the Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute (HDSI) and Department of Philosophy at UCSD, with whom I have continued to work on a couple projects. My thesis research deals with using causal inference and active learning in fairness-sensitive decisions where outcomes are not always observed, establishing how even without active bias or flawed models, imbalances in group size can lead to differences in uncertainty. I was also a teaching assistant in HDSI, supervising the senior capstone course and DSC 80.

Prior to my graduate study, I was a data science major at UC San Diego 🔱, graduating with minors in history and liguistics, and a concentration in political science. (They wouldn’t let me triple minor.)

Outside the classroom, I was the sports editor of The UCSD Guardian, was in UCSD’s quizbowl club, and spent a summer making a documentary about UCSD’s history. In my free time, I’m watching as many sports as I can, reading Wikipedia pages, and watching movies.

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🧑‍💻 Research Interests

• Responsible ML: How do we build decisionmaking systems around algorithms that uphold our values and lead to the outcomes we want? How can researchers and regulators detect unfairness in the wild?

• Causal inference: How can we use statistical methods to develop causal notions for discovery? Can the abstractions of causation give us the tools to develop more responsible ML systems?

• Interpretability: Can humans gain a working understanding of complex models? Do we need to in order to use them?

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