ESP Biography



MADHU ADVANI, Stanford PhD in Applied Physics



Major: Applied Physics

College/Employer: Stanford

Year of Graduation: 2015

Picture of Madhu Advani

Brief Biographical Sketch:

My current research uses methods from physics to understand the performance of inference algorithms trying to learn hidden variables in high dimensional spaces.

My primary interests are in applications of statistical physics (both equilibrium and non-equilibrium) to interesting real-world problems.

My lab generally works on theoretical neuroscience - using math to help us understand the brain.



Past Classes

  (Clicking a class title will bring you to the course's section of the corresponding course catalog)

M3665: The Mathematics of Gambling in Splash! Spring 2014 (Apr. 12 - 13, 2014)
The inventor of Information Theory (Claude Shannon) made a personal fortune by applying Gambling theory both to Vegas and the Stock Market. I'll talk about the math he used and a little about the mathematicians and physicists who became rich in the process.


M3145: Paradoxes of High Dimensional Statistics in Splash! Fall 2013 (Nov. 02 - 03, 2013)
We will discuss what has come to be known as "the curse of dimensionality" - - a major challenge of modern data analysis important for making predictions in health care, biology, economics, and even presidential elections. Paradoxically, sometimes more data can lead to illusions of structure, and erroneous not-so-scientific findings. We will discuss some of these paradoxes and how mathematicians and scientists solve high-dimensional problems.