Rayid Ghani is a Distinguished Career Professor in th
Machine Learning Department
(in the School of Computer Science) and the Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

. Previously, he was the Director of th
Center for Data Science and Public Policy
Research Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science, and a Senior Fellow at the

Harris School of Public Policy The University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, also referred to as "Harris Public Policy," is the public policy school of the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is located on the University's main campus in Hy ...

at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

. He was also the co-founder of Edgeflip, an analytics startup that grew out of the Obama 2012 Campaign, focused on

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

products for

non-profits A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

, advocacy groups, and charities. Recently, it was announced that he will be leaving the University of Chicago and joining Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science and Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy. Ghani started and runs the Eric & Wendy Schmid
Data Science for Social Good Summer Fellowship

Education and career

Ghani completed his schooling at the Karachi Grammar School, in

Karachi, Pakistan Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former cap ...

. Ghani completed his graduate studies in the Machine Learning Department at

with

Tom M. Mitchell Tom Michael Mitchell (born August 9, 1951) is an American computer scientist and the Founders University Professor at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). He is a founder and former Chair of the Machine Learning Department at CMU. Mitchell is known ...

on Machine Learning and Text Classification and received his undergraduate degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics from

University of the South The University of the South, familiarly known as Sewanee (), is a private Episcopal liberal arts college in Sewanee, Tennessee. It is owned by 28 southern dioceses of the Episcopal Church, and its School of Theology is an official seminary of ...

. Before his role at the University of Chicago, he was the Chief Scientist of the Obama 2012 Campaign. Before that, he was a Senior Research Scientist and Director of Analytics research at Accenture Labs where he led a technology research team focused on applied R&D in analytics, machine learning, and data mining for large-scale and emerging business problems.

Research Contributions

Ghani's research focuses on developing and applying machine learning, data science, and artificial intelligence methods to large scale social problems in areas such as education, healthcare, economic development, criminal justice, energy, transportation, and public safety. His work has previously focused on text analytics, fundraising, volunteer, and voter mobilization using analytics, social media, and machine learning., and data mining. Rayid's research contributions have been in the areas of text mining,

co-training Co-training is a machine learning algorithm used when there are only small amounts of labeled data and large amounts of unlabeled data. One of its uses is in text mining for search engines. It was introduced by Avrim Blum and Tom Mitchell in 1998. ...

, active learning, consumer behavior modeling, and fraud detection. He has given

keynote speech A keynote in public speaking is a talk that establishes a main underlying theme. In corporate or commercial settings, greater importance is attached to the delivery of a keynote speech or keynote address. The keynote establishes the framework fo ...

es on Analytics and the Presidential Elections (for example at Predictive Analytics World, Digital Leaders Forum,

, and CeBIT Australia), on Business Applications of Data Mining, and Data Science for Social Good.

Selected publications

* Big Data and Social Science: A Practical Guide to Methods and Tools. Editors: Ian Foster, Rayid Ghani, Ron Jarmin, Frauke Kreuter, Julia Lane. CRC Press 2016. * Data Mining for Business Applications. Editors: Carlos Soares, Rayid Ghani. Book. IOS Press 2010. * Mining the Web to Add Semantics to Retail Data Mining. R. Ghani. Invited Paper. Web Mining: From Web to Semantic Web. Springer Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, Vol. 3209. Berendt, B.; Hotho, A.; Mladenic, D.; van Someren, M.; Spiliopoulou, M.; Stumme, G. (Eds.) 2004

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ghani, Rayid Living people American computer scientists Carnegie Mellon University alumni Carnegie Mellon University faculty Artificial intelligence researchers Machine learning researchers Barack Obama 2012 presidential campaign University of Chicago faculty 1977 births Karachi Grammar School alumni Pakistani emigrants to the United States