Meet the Fellow: Berfin Şimşek
This entree is a part of our “Meet the Fellow” blog series, which introduces and highlights incoming faculty fellows at CDS.
Meet Berfin Şimşek, who will join CDS this fall as a faculty fellow.
Berfin is a fifth-year doctoral researcher at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Computer and Communication Sciences. She brings a robust background in mathematics and physics, and her research focuses on neural network theory and other related areas such as random features and out-of-distribution generalization. Prior to joining CDS, Berfin interned at Meta AI where she worked on large-scale experiments. Before her PhD, she double-majored in Electrical-Electronics Engineering and Mathematics at Koç University.
In winter 2023, Berfin attended the Theoretical Physics for Machine Learning Conference in Aspen Center for Physics. In fall 2022, Berfin presented a poster at the Spin Glass Workshop, a seminar which brings together researchers interested in spin glasses and related topics. In summer 2022, she gave a talk at a MetaAI group seminar on out-of-distribution generalization. Berfin was also an organizer of the online workshop on Loss Landscapes of Neural Networks in 2022 with a stellar list of speakers. She also has previously earned two bronze medals at the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO).
Some of Berfin’s recent works include “Geometry of the Loss Landscape in Overparameterized Neural Networks: Symmetries and Invariances”, “Deep Linear Networks Dynamics: Low-Rank Biases Induced by Initialization Scale and L2 Regularization”, and “Implicit Regularization of Random Feature Models”. In addition to research, Berfin has also supervised several master students.
“It is truly an exciting time for deep learning,” emphasized Berfin. “On the theory side, there are many intriguing problems that can be studied using and developing cutting edge mathematics and physics tools. CDS is an exciting environment with lots of brilliant researchers working on theory and practice of deep learning. I am thrilled to be taking part!”
To view all our current faculty fellows, please visit the CDS Faculty Fellows page on our website.
By Ashley C. McDonald
