Kimberly Ferguson

I am a PhD candidate studying Machine Learning in the Computer Science Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I am a member of the Autonomous Learning Lab (ALL), conducting research under the supervision of Sridhar Mahadevan. I am currently working on proto-value functions (PVF), representation learning, and transfer learning. I also work part-time for the Minneapolis-based consulting and research firm Smart Information Flow Technologies (SIFT).

Past projects include: the Wayang Intelligent Tutoring System with ROLE (2005,2006) and Medical Safety with LASER (2004-2005). I began my undergraduate education at Harvey Mudd College (1999-2000), and finished at the University of California Irvine in 2003, cum laude. I did undergraduate research at UCI in bioinformatics and machine learning with Dennis Kibler. I am a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

I am originally from San Diego, California. I like musicals, traveling and bats.

curriculum vitae [pdf]

kferguso (at) cs.umass.edu

Publications

Kimberly Ferguson. A Framework for Transfer Learning in Sequential Decision-Making. University of Massachusetts Amherst, Technical Report (UM-CS-2011-038), 2011. [pdf]
Kimberly Ferguson, Beverly Park Woolf, Sridhar Mahadevan. Transfer Learning and Representation Discovery in Intelligent Tutoring Systems. International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED09), Brighton, July, 2009. [pdf]
Christopher Miller, Peggy Wu, Eric Engstrom, Jeff Rye, Kimberly Ferguson-Walter, Debra Schreckenghost. A Multi-model Aid for Interface Design (MAID): Helping Designers Reason about Information Match. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 53rd Annual Meeting (HFES09), 2009. [pdf]
Peggy Wu, Tammy Ott, Christopher Miller, Kimberly Ferguson-Walter. Utilizing Human Computer Ettiquette to Encourage Human-Machine Therapeutic Alliance. Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI09), San Diego, July, 2009. [pdf]
Kimberly Ferguson. Proto-Transfer Learning in Markov Decision Processes Using Spectral Methods. University of Massachusetts Amherst, Technical Report (TR-08-23), 2008. [pdf]
Sridhar Mahadevan, Sarah Osentoski, Jeff Johns, Kimberly Ferguson, Chang Wang. Learning to Plan using Harmonic Analysis of Diffusion Models. International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS07), Providence, September, 2007. [pdf]
Ivon Arroyo, Kimberly Ferguson, Jeff Johns, Toby Dragon, Hasmik Meheranian, Don Fisher, Andrew G. Barto, Sridhar Mahadevan, Beverly P. Woolf. Repairing Disengagement with Non-Invasive Interventions. Proceedings of the 13th International Conference of Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED07), 2007. [pdf]
Sridhar Mahadevan, Mauro Maggioni, Kimberly Ferguson and Sarah Osentoski. Learning Representation and Control In Continuous Markov Decision Processes. National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI06), Boston, July, 2006. [pdf]
Kimberly Ferguson and Sridhar Mahadevan. Proto-transfer Learning in Markov Decision Processes Using Spectral Methods. ICML Workshop on Structural Knowledge Transfer for Machine Learning, Pittsburgh, June, 2006. [pdf]
Kimberly Ferguson, Ivon Arroyo, Sridhar Mahadevan, Beverly Woolf and Andy Barto. Improving Intelligent Tutoring Systems: Using Expectation Maximization To Learn Student Skill Levels. Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS06), Taiwan, June, 2006, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, No 4053, pp. 453-462, 2006. [pdf]
Longer Version: University of Massachusetts Amherst, Technical Report (TR-06-09), 2006. [pdf]

M.I.T.