Daniel Acuna - Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota

News

Visit my blog. Now it's just to test whether mathematical expressions and syntax highlighting work.
Thesis draft (currently being edited)

I will start a postdoct at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and Northwestern University with Konrad Körding and other amazing and stimulating people and labs. My "humble" goal is to finally train myself on Neuroscience and apply start-of-the-art computational modeling to code and decode (!) brain signals—and not just observing blood moving around.

Research interests

I study human sequential decision-making under uncertainty, from perceptual to high-level cognitive tasks. In particular, I develop rational models based on Bayesian Reinforcement Learning to investigate how people integrate structure learning, transfer learning, spatiotemporal abstraction and state factorization into exploration and exploitation. Additionally, I am interested in understanding how humans can solve real-world instantiations of computationally hard problems in a near-optimal fashion. I use statistical physics and computational complexity to uncover statistical regularities of problems and study whether humans exploit these regularities to structurally bias their search schedules.

Keywords: Sequential decision-making under uncertainty, Bayesian reinforcement learning, structure learning, human problem-solving, rational and bounded-rational analyses of behavior

[Curriculum vitae]

Advisor: Paul Schrater

Fellowships

May 2008–May 2010: NIH Neuro-physical-computational Sciences (NPCS) Graduate Training Fellowship
2006–2010: International Graduate Student Fellowship of the Chilean Council of Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT)
2002–2003: Master Student Fellowship for Outstanding Performance 2002-2003 (University of Santiago, Chile)

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Acuña, D. & Schrater, P. (2010). Structure Learning in Human Sequential Decision-Making, PLoS Computational Biology 6(12) [Details]
Acuña, D. & Parada, V. (2010). People Efficiently Explore the Solution Space of the Computationally Intractable Traveling Salesman Problem to Find Near-Optimal Tours, PLoS ONE 5(7) [Details]
Acuña, D. & Schrater, P. (2009). Improving Bayesian Reinforcement Learning using Transition Abstraction. ICML/UAI/CLT Workshop on Abstraction in Reinforcement Learning 2009 [Details]
Acuña, D. & Schrater, P. (2009). Structure Learning in Human Sequential Decision-Making. NIPS 2009 [Details]
Acuña, D. & Schrater, P. (2008). Bayesian Modeling of Human Sequential Decision-Making on the Multi-Armed Bandit Problem. In V. Sloutsky, B. Love, & K. McRae (Eds.), Proceedings of the 30th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Washington, DC: Cognitive Science Society. [Details]

Education

2010 (expected) – Ph.D. Candidate in Computer Science, University of Minnesota
- Fall 2008 – Programming Languages; Machine Learning and Human Learning; Computer Science Colloquium; Introduction to Neuroscience I
- Spring 2008 – Mathematical Logic II; Research Laboratory in Psychology
- Fall 2007 – Advanced Topics in Graphical Models; Mathematical Logic I
- Spring 2007 – Artificial Intelligence II; Mathematical Models of Human Behavior; Introduction to Research in Computer Science II; Teaching for non-Native Speakers II
- Fall 2006 – Artificial Intelligence I; Machine Learning; Introduction to Research in Computer Science I
2004 – Master Degree in Sciences of Engineering (Magíster en Ciencias de la Ingeniería), Diploma in Informatics, Bachelor Degree in Sciences University of Santiago, Chile

Others

Full pre-doctoral member of the Center for Cognitive Sciences, University of Minnesota
Member of Cognitive Science Society

Work

Fall 2010 – Teaching Assistant. Software Engineering I, Master of Science in Software Engineering, UMN
Summer 2009 – Summer Research Assistant. Project title: "Corporate board's decisions on CEO hiring: matching and learning", PI: Rajesh K. Aggarwal, Carlson School of Management
Summer 2008 – Summer Research Assistant. Project title: "Indoor Magnetic Wayfinding for the Visually Impaired", PI: Paul Schrater, Department of Psychology
Spring 2008 – Teaching Assistant, MSSE Program (Software Testing and Verification, Quality Assurance and Process Improvement, and Exploring Dynamic Languages)
Fall 2007 – Teaching Assistant, CS 5521: Statistical Pattern Recognition
Summer 2007 – Summer Research Assistant, Computational Perception and Action Lab, Department of Psychology
Spring 2007 – Teaching Assistant, Software Engineering II and Software Testing and Process Improvement
2004-2006 – Undergraduate level instructor: "Distributed Systems" (4 terms), "Computer Game Development" (1 term), and "Operations Research for Engineering" (1 term), University of Santiago, Chile

Daniel E. Acuna