Michael Fink

Name          Michael Fink

Date of birth            Dec. 22, 1974

Nationality   USA and Israel

Marital Status          Married to Idit and Father of Erel

Address     Center for Neural Computation

            The Hebrew University of Jerusalem,

            Israel, 91904

Telephone   ++972 26584875 Lab / ++972 25632890 Home

 

 

Education

 

1996               Mathematical studies in the Open University of Israel

1997 - 1999   B.Sc. in Computer Science and Psychology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

2000 - 2001   M.A. studies in the Interdisciplinary Center for Neural Computation, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

2003               Graduate studies at the California Institute of Technology (CalTech), supervised by Prof. Pietro Perona.

2002 - 2004   Ph.D. studies in the Interdisciplinary Center for Neural Computation, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Thesis titled: “Feature Creation Processes in Multiclass Perceptual Learning” advised by Prof. David Horn (Tel Aviv University) and Prof. Gershon Ben-Shakhar (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

 

 

Professional Experience

 

1993 - 1996   Military Intelligence, Israel Defense Force

1997 - 1999   Research Assistant and Programmer in the Electrophysiology Laboratory at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

1998               Research project at BioMediCom Ltd. implementing Support Vector Machines for image segmentation enabling 3D ultrasound imagery

1999               fMRI Research Assistant to Prof. Dr. Axel Mecklinger at the Max Planck Institute for Neuropsychological Research, Leipzig Germany

2000               Algorithmic consultant, Adante LTD, Israel. Presymptomatic diagnosis of Alzheimer disease using machine learning tools on immunological response profiles.

2001               ZUMO Ltd. developing an adaptive marketing platform based on automated learning of consumer preferences and propagating product recommendations in peer to peer networks (P2P)

 

Teaching Experience

 

2001-2003     TA Introduction to Information Processing and Machine Learning

2003               Mentor in the CalTech Freshman Summer Institute (FSI) project. Leading an undergraduate research project aimed at real time Multiclass Object Classification.

2004               TA Human Vision a Computational Approach

2004               TA Computation and Cognition

 

Grants, Awards and Scholarships

 

1997               Full tuition merit based scholarship

1998               ‘Flower’ Project Scholarship for guiding challenged school students

1999               Max Planck Institute Stipend

2000 - 2002   Interdisciplinary Center for Neural Computation full scholarship and stipend

2002 - 2004   Young Scientist Research Grant from the Israeli Foundation Trustees

2003 - 2004   Horowitz Foundation scholarship for outstanding Ph.D. students

 

Fields of Interest

 

As a student in the Center for Neural Computation my research focuses on examining methods for learning hierarchical multiclass classification tasks in humans and machines. My first stage of doctoral research emphasized utilizing cognitive and brain imaging techniques (mostly fMRI and EEG) to examine the internal representations and methods humans apply when confronted with multiclass learning tasks in novel environments. Mechanisms like contextual inference and learning to learn processes are often deployed by human subjects in multiclass perceptual problems but are rarely incorporated in machine learning and computer vision approaches. I therefore devote my second doctoral stage to attempt and implement human inspired techniques (like visual context) for multiclass classification. The domain of machine learning and computational modeling offers new insights on the mechanisms and computations characterizing the human perceptual system. With this the two disciplines: brain research and machine learning constantly interact and mutually enrich each other. I believe that the theoretical and applicative machine learning topics provided at MLSS will provide a deeper and more general perspective on these interactions. In addition I look forward meeting other young researchers with similar interests to my own, possibly leading to future collaboration.

 

Hobbies        Scuba-diving, Sculpture, Trekking (Laos, Thailand, Nepal, India), making icecream and Ultimate Frisbee