Data Science Researcher, Writer and Educator based in Biel/Berlin.
In October, I began a two-year postdoc in the Applied Machine Learning for Social Good group at the Berner-Fachhochschule (BFH), led by Prof. Dr. Mascha Kurpicz-Briki. I’m working on a project called BurnoutWords, with the goal of developing a tool to automatically detect indicators for burnout from open-ended text responses.
Since September I’ve been working on a three-year project at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), together with Prof. Dr. Felix Stalder, !Mediengruppe Bitnik, Coco Sollfrank, Shusha Niederberger and Gordon Savatic. Latent Spaces is an artistic research project focusing on ambiguities in Big Data and Data Science. We are funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).
Recently, I contributed chapters to a Deep Learning textbook for the Internationale Hochschule (IU) Master’s in Data Science and AI program. These covered advanced topics such as GANs, Attention, Capsule Networks, Decoupled Network Interfaces etc. I taught the Advanced Mathematics course for the same program in parallel.
In the summer of 2020, I taught an online introductory data science course based on case studies in “data-driven activism” at the School of Machines, Making and Make-believe in Berlin, Germany. Following this, I completed a research project for HIP Consult, exploring methods for applying deep learning and other data science methods to publicly available data (twitter, satellite imagery, wikipedia etc.) to help measure wealth distribution and infrastructure quality in developing countries. I also collaborated with artist Dani Ploeger on his “Middle of Nowhere 2.0” project.
From July 2019-June 2020, I participated in the Summer of Pioneers project in Wittenberge, Germany. In July 2019, twenty “pioneers” were invited to the city. We organized and shared a co-working space in the Alte Ölmühle along the Elbe River in addition to each having our own personal project for the city. I taught Math and Statistics in an Economics Bachelor’s program offered by the Fachhochschule Südwestfalen and BBZ Prignitz. The aim was to provide students from the region with the opportunity to pursue a higher education locally. This is part of the project’s larger goal of promoting and providing lifestyle, education and work alternatives that could counteract the drain of youth and talent from smaller communities into large cities.
Before that I spent four years at ETH Zurich doing a PhD in Algebraic Geometry and Number Theory, a year in Berlin working as a journalist for Sensa Nostra (now defunct 😦 ) and writing fiction, and two years in Paris, where I completed my Master’s (and worked at the Shakespeare and Co. bookshop on the side).
In my free time I love to write, paint, cook, make music, draw, run and go bouldering.
My main interests are AI, art, math, education, physics, nature, dance/movement and exploring ideas around feminism, gender, mental health and sustainability. I’m always on the lookout for interesting ways to combine these and people to collaborate with and learn from.
My CV.
PhD Thesis on arXiv.
Alexandre R. Puttick 