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PROFILE

My background is in computer science and computational neuroscience with a focus on machine learning, signal processing and applied math modeling. I currently work in a multi-disciplinary corporate research environment and some of the projects I'm involved with include large scale data-mining of retail/business data, and projects in advertising, marketing and media effectiveness.

My research interests are varied and the fields I've worked on include Machine Learning and Data Mining, Signal Processing, Psychophysics, Cryptography (Secure Multiparty Computation), Wireless and Network Algorithms, Graph Theory and other areas of Computer Science.

EDUCATION

• 2003 - 2007
  • Boston University, Boston, MA - 3.96/4.00
  • PhD, Cognitive and Neural Systems (CNS)
  • Thesis Title: Latent Variable Framework for Modeling and Separating Single Channel Acoustic Sources.
  • Advisor: Prof. Barbara Shinn-Cunningham
    
    
• 1999 - 2003
  • Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India - 9.39/10.00
  • BE (Honors) in Computer Science

PUBLICATIONS

• Journal Papers
  
  
  • Probabilistic Latent Variable Models as Non-Negative Factorizations.
    MVS Shashanka, B Raj, P Smaragdis.
    Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience, Special Issue on Advances in Non-Negative Matrix and Tensor Factorizations, May 2008.
    
    
  • A Framework for Secure Speech Recognition.
    P Smaragdis, MVS Shashanka.
    IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language Processing, Vol 15, No. 4, May 2007, p1404-1413.
    
    
  • Optimal Skewed Data Allocation on Multiple Channels with Flat Broadcast per Channel.^*
    E Ardizzoni, AA Bertossi, MC Pinotti, S Ramaprasad, R Rizzi, MVS Shashanka.
    IEEE Transaction on Computers, Vol 54, No. 5, May 2005, p558-572.
    ^*Authors listed in alphabetical order.
    
    
  • A Characterisation of Optimal Channel Assignments for Wireless Networks Modelled as Cellular and Square Grids.
    MVS Shashanka, A Pati, AM Shende.
    Mobile Networks and Applications, Vol 10, Issue 1-2, Feb-Apr 2005, p89-98.
    
  
  
• Conference Proceedings
  
  
  • Topic Models for Audio Mixture Analysis.
    P Smaragdis, MVS Shashanka, B Raj.
    NIPS Workshop on Applications for Topic Models: Text and Beyond, Vancouver, Canada, Dec 2009.
    
    
  • A Sparse Non-parametric Approach for Single Channel Separation of Known Sounds.
    P Smaragdis, MVS Shashanka, B Raj.
    Neural Information Processing Systems Conference (NIPS), Vancouver, Canada, Dec 2009.
    
    
  • Simplex Decompositions for Real-Valued Datasets.
    MVS Shashanka.
    IEEE Intl Workshop on Machine Learning and Signal Processing, Grenoble, France, Sep 2009.
    
    
  • Missing Data Imputation for Spectral Audio Signals.
    P Smaragdis, B Raj, MVS Shashanka.
    IEEE Intl Workshop on Machine Learning and Signal Processing, Grenoble, France, Sep 2009.
    
    
  • Mining Retail Transaction Data for Targeting Customers with Headroom - A Case Study.
    MVS Shashanka, M Giering.
    Artificial Intelligence Applications and Innovations, Greece, April 2009.
    
    
  • Probabilistic Factorization of Non-Negative Data with Entropic Co-occurrence Constraints.
    P Smaragdis, MVS Shashanka, B Raj, GJ Mysore.
    Intl Conf on Independent Component Analysis, Brazil, March 2009.
    
    
  • Sparse and Shift-Invariant Feature Extraction from Non-Negative Data.
    P Smaragdis, B Raj, MVS Shashanka.
    IEEE Intl Conf on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, Las Vegas, Nevada, Apr 2008.
    
    
  • Sparse Overcomplete Latent Variable Decomposition of Counts Data.
    MVS Shashanka, B Raj, P Smaragdis.
    Neural Information Processing Systems Conference (NIPS), Vancouver, Canada, Dec 2007.
    
    
  • Privacy-Preserving Musical Database Matching.
    MVS Shashanka, P Smaragdis.
    IEEE Workshop on Applications of Signal Processing to Audio and Acoustics, New Paltz, New York, Oct 2007.
    
    
  • Supervised and Semi-Supervised Separation of Sounds from Single-Channel Mixtures.
    P Smaragdis, B Raj, MVS Shashanka.
    Intl Conf on Independent Component Analysis, London, UK, Sep 2007.
    
    
  • Sparse Overcomplete Decomposition for Single Channel Speaker Separation.
    MVS Shashanka, B Raj, P Smaragdis.
    IEEE Intl Conf on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, Honolulu, Hawaii, April 2007.
    
    
  • A Framework for Secure Speech Recognition.
    P Smaragdis, MVS Shashanka.
    IEEE Intl Conf on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, Honolulu, Hawaii, April 2007.
    
    
  • Bandwidth Expansion with a Polya Urn Model.
    B Raj, R Singh, MVS Shashanka, P Smaragdis.
    IEEE Intl Conf on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, Honolulu, Hawaii, April 2007.
    
    
  • Separating a Foreground Singer from Background Music.
    B Raj, P Smaragdis, MVS Shashanka, R Singh.
    Intl Symposium on Frontiers of Research on Speech and Music (FRSM), Mysore, India, Jan 2007.
    
    
  • A Probabilistic Latent Variable Model for Acoustic Modeling.
    P Smaragdis, B Raj, MVS Shashanka.
    Workshop on Advances in Models for Acoustic Processing, NIPS 2006.
    
    
  • Secure Sound Classification: Gaussian Mixture Models.^*
    MVS Shashanka, P Smaragdis.
    IEEE Intl. Conf. on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, Toulouse, France, May 2006.
    ^* Finalist in the Student Paper Contest.
    
    
  • Latent Dirichlet Decomposition for Single Channel Speaker Separation.
    B Raj, MVS Shashanka, P Smaragdis.
    IEEE Intl. Conf. on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, Toulouse, France, May 2006.
    
    
  • Optimal Multi-Channel Data Allocation with Flat Broadcast per Channel.^*
    AA Bertossi, MC Pinotti, S Ramaprasad, R Rizzi, MVS Shashanka.
    Intl. Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium, Santa Fe, USA, Apr 2004.
    ^*Authors listed in alphabetical order.
    
    
  • A Characterisation of Optimal Channel Assignments for Wireless Networks Modelled as Cellular and Square Grids.
    MVS Shashanka, A Pati, AM Shende.
    Intl. Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium, Nice, France, Apr 2003.
    
    
  • Channel Assignment for Wireless Networks Modelled as d-Dimensional Square Grids.
    A Dubhashi, MVS Shashanka, A Pati, S Ramaprasad, AM Shende.
    Intl. Workshop on Distributed Computing, Kolkata, India, Dec 2002.
  
  
• Posters / Abstracts
  
  
  • Mining Retail Data for Targeting Customers with Headroom.
    Madhu Shashanka, Michael Giering.
    NYAS Annual Machine Learning Symposium, New York, NY, Oct 2008.
    
    
  • Separating and Understanding a Talker from a Mixture in Reverberant Spaces.
    BG Shinn-Cunningham, S Bressler, MVS Shashanka.
    152nd meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), Honolulu, Hawaii, Dec 2006.
    
    
  • The Role of Fundamental Frequency in Segregating and Understanding a Talker Competing with Another Talker in a Reverberant Setting.
    MVS Shashanka, BG Shinn-Cunningham, S Nasser.
    29th midwinter meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology (ARO), Baltimore, Feb 2006.
    
    
  • Effects of Reverberant Energy on Statistics of Speech.
    MVS Shashanka, BG Shinn-Cunningham, M Cooke.
    Workshop on Speech Separation and Comprehension in Complex Acoustic Environments, Montreal, Canada, Nov 2004.
    
  
  
•  Technical Reports / Manuscripts 
  
  
  • Probabilistic Latent Variable Model for Sparse Decompositions of Non-negative Data.
    MVS Shashanka, B Raj, P Smaragdis.
    Unpublished Draft, March 2007.
    
    
  • Optimal Multi-Channel Data Allocation with Flat Broadcast per Channel.^*
    AA Bertossi, MC Pinotti, S Ramaprasad, R Rizzi, MVS Shashanka.
    Technical Report DIT-02-0079, University of Trento, 2003.
    ^*Authors listed alphabetically.
    

PATENTS

• Method and System for Matching Audio Recordings.
  P Smaragdis and MVS Shashanka, USA Patent Application filed (27 Aug 2007).
  
  
• System and Method for Recognizing Speech Securely.
  P Smaragdis and MVS Shashanka, USA Patent Application filed (16 Jan 2007).
  
  
• Secure Classification of Data with Gaussian Distributions.
  MVS Shashanka and P Smaragdis, USA Patent 7,526,084 (filed 02 Sep 2005, issued 28 Apr 2009).

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

• Spring 2005
  • Boston University, Boston, MA
  • CN550 - Computational Models of Recognition, Memory and Attention

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

• Oct 2007 - Present
  • Mars Incorporated, Mount Olive, NJ
  • Reasearch Scientist. I am part of a multi-disciplinary central business research group and internal think-tank that provides applied long-term research for Mars, Inc. My focus is machine learning, data mining and applied math modeling.
    
    
• Summer 2006 - August 2007
  • Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs, Cambridge, MA
  • Reasearch Intern. Worked on probabilistic models and algorithms for separating sources from single-channel audio recordings.
    
    
• 2004 - August 2007
  • Boston University, Boston, MA
  • Graduate Research Assistant in the Auditory Neuroscience Lab. Designed and conducted experiments to understand human auditory processing in natural reverberant environments, worked on psychoacoustics and developed computational/mathematical models of auditory perception.
    
    
• Summer 2005
  • Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs, Cambridge, MA
  • Reasearch Intern. Developed algorithms for secure classification between two parties such that private data is not exchanged; worked on sound separation algorithms.
    
    
• Spring 2003
  • University of Trento, Trento, Italy
  • Research Fellow in the Department of Informatics and Telecommunication. Conducted research in the area of network algorithms. Developed efficient algorithms for optimally allocating data over multiple channels for broadcast such that average client waiting time is minimized.
    
    
• Summer 2002
  • Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
  • Summer Research Fellow in the Department of Electrical Engineering. Worked on applying learning automata to the problem of channel assignment in wireless networks.
    
    
• Summer 2001
  • Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, India
  • Summer Intern in the Ultrasonics Instrumentation Section, Electronics Division. Developed a software module using Visual Basic for better visualization of scan data for an ultrasonic imaging system.

ENTREPRENEURIAL EXPERIENCE

• Fall 2005
  • Biomimetic Systems, Boston, MA and Boston University, Boston, MA
  • Completed technology and venture assessments for the Boston University startup Biomimetic Systems.

TALKS / PRESENTATIONS

• Latent Variable Framework for Modeling and Separating Single-Channel Acoustic Sources.
  Cognitive and Neural Systems Dissertation Defense, Boston University, Boston, MA, 17 Aug 2007.
  
  
• Latent Variable Decomposition - Models and Applications (with Dr. Bhiksha Raj).
  MIT Brains and Machines Seminar, Cambridge, MA, 16 May 2007.
  
  
• Probabilistic Models for Single-Channel Audio Processing.
  East Bay Institute of Research and Education, Martinez, CA, 26 Apr 2007.
  
  
• Probabilistic Models for Single-Channel Audio Processing.
  Boston University Hearing Research Center Seminar, Boston, MA, 19 Jan 2007.
  
  
• Probabilistic Models for Acoustic Processing.
  Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Cambridge, MA, 21 Nov 2006.

SCHOLARSHIPS AND AWARDS

• Finalist, Best Student Paper Award, Intl. Conf. on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP) 2006
• Invited Outstanding Young Scientist, Workshop on Speech Separation and Comprehension in Complex Acoustic Environments (2004)
• Arts and Science Dean's Fellowship, Boston University (2003 - 2004)
• Research Fellowship Awardee (top 3% in India), JN Center for Advanced Scientific Research and Govt. of India (2002)
• Merit Scholarship, Birla Institute of Technology and Science - awarded to top 10 students across majors in order of merit (1999 - 2002)
• National Talent Search Scholarship, Govt. of India (1997 - 2003)
• National top 1% among 17846 candidates, National Standard Exam in Physics, India (1999)
• Ranked 7th in Pre University Examinations (out of 319,028 students), State of Karnataka, India (1999)
• Ranked 1 in the State of Karnataka, National Talent Search Exam, India (1997)
• Ranked 16 in Secondary School Examinations (out of 471,307 students), State of Karnataka, India (1997)
• Ranked 6 in Regional Maths Olympiad, State of Karnataka, India (1997)
• Ranked 13 in Regional Maths Olympiad, State of Karnataka, India (1996)
• Ranked 12 in Inter-State Talent Tests in Maths, India (1996)

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES & MEMBERSHIPS

• Member, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
• Voting Member, IEEE Multimedia Communications Technical Committee
• Member, New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS)
• Scientific Committee Member, Workshop on Statistical and Perceptual Audition (SAPA) 2008
• Technical Program Committee Member, Intl. Conf. on Multimedia and Expo (ICME) Multimedia Content Analysis Track 2007
• Invited Participant, Workshop on New Ideas in Hearing, Paris, 2006
• Invited Reviewer for IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing; IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language Processing; Neural Information Processing Systems Conference (NIPS); International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME); Workshop on Statistical and Perceptual Audition

GRADUATE COURSES

• Hearing
  • Neural and Computational Models of Speech and Hearing
  • Neural Coding and Perception of Sound (Harvard/MIT Speech and Hearing Program)
  • Psychoacoustics
    
    
• Cognitive and Neural Systems
  • Computational Neuroscience (Introductory and Advanced)
  • Models of Recognition, Memory and Attention
  • Models of Vision
  • Models of Adaptive movement and Planning
    
    
• Engineering
  • Information Theory and Coding
  • Advanced Signals and Systems
  • Technology Commercialization

MISCELLANEOUS

• Languages
  • English, Kannada (fluent reading, writing, speaking)
  • Hindi (functional)
    
    
• Citizenship: India

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