Statement of Purpose

Ashwin Keshav Tayade

Computer Science(M.S.)

The greatest invention of mankind is the computer whose most rudimentary version was invented in 1822.
I am amazed and inspired by how since then, humanity has been continuously motivated to do research
in the world of computers and bring them closer to us with each passing day. For me, the roots of
motivation to pursue research were laid right in my childhood. One of my prime stimuli is that many
members of my immediate family, including my father and brother, are successful engineers. Both of
them have influenced my life very strongly. Their interest and passion for the work they do played a major
role in convincing me that I have what it takes to become a successful engineer and researcher. Another
motivation for me is my experience with Artificial Intelligence, which combined with my interest in the field,
has left me with a deep curiosity for AI. The final motivating factor is the strong foundation built with my
undergraduate studies, on which I aim to base my research.

I am an undergraduate student from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani(BITS, Pilani). During
my undergraduate studies, courses like Data Structures and Algorithms, Probability and Statistics,
Operating Systems helped me develop the basics of computer science theory. At the same time, courses
like Information Retrieval, Image Processing, and Artificial Intelligence exposed me to the fundamentals of
machine intelligence. These courses motivated me to learn the state of the art methods of machine
learning and their applications, spurring me to participate in various research projects whenever I got the
chance.

I got my first opportunity in the summer after my 4th semester when I was selected to work in Homi
Bhabha Centre for Science Education(HBCSE) with Prof. G. Nagarjuna. Our goal was to create an offline
search engine for a platform called GSTUDIO that hosted multiple websites which are used across 1000
schools in rural India. Rural parts of India lack basic infrastructure, including the internet. In today’s world,
the internet is one of the fundamental necessities of education and development. HBCSE, a research
institute funded by Indian Govt, is building new methods to close the gap between education in cities and
villages. One of these projects is the continuous developments of GSTUDIO and my project was to
improve this platform. The aim was to load all educational material onto one computer which then acts as
a server for other computers in a school. These schools usually have very basic computers which lack the
performance of server- grade systems The main challenge of my project was to build a search engine
which is very lightweight without sacrificing accuracy and latency. This necessitated that we thoroughly
researched our approach. I led the development of the advanced search module that exploited the
intricacies of the data to ease the search process for the end user in addition to making the search faster.
This project was crucial in helping me understand how to apply Machine Learning for the good of society.
It also gave me a glimpse of the theory behind NLP and persuaded me to dig deeper into ML in a more
systematic manner. Another thing I gained from this project was the satisfaction of seeing our work being
used to achieve some meaningful results that are being used for the good of society.

After developing an interest in ML and AI in general, I formally took up Artificial Intelligence and
Information Retrieval in my 5th and 6th semesters. Being introductory courses, they taught me about the
different algorithms that form the core of these fields and gave me valuable hands-on experience through
class projects. I worked on building a hotel review system to provide the user with the top reviews of any
hotel in the database using clustering algorithms. Another project was designing a system that used the
Minimax algorithm with Alpha Beta pruning to implement a turn-based game that pit AI against a human
player which left me in pure awe of the subject. The sheer effectiveness of these algorithms despite their
simplicity was extremely thought-provoking for me

After my 6th semester, I felt that I had acquired enough know how to pursue a serious research project. I
looked for an opportunity that would give me a research experience as close to the real world as possible.
I got my chance when I was selected to work at University of Bremen, Germany, for a research internship
under Prof. Gabriel Zachmann, after being awarded the DAAD-WISE 2018 scholarship received by only
around 100 students across India. This was an excellent learning opportunity as I designed and
implemented a novel, fast and lightweight solution for detecting eye blinks for the purpose of redirected
walking. The complete freedom in designing the solution gave me a chance to explore different
techniques in computer vision. Prof. Zachmann’s helpful advice encouraged me to learn the best
approaches to machine learning and computer vision. I was also involved in the collection of the dataset
which was used to evaluate the eye detection model. Based on this research, I wrote a paper titled Blink
Detection Using Histogram and Blob Detection Techniques, currently under review by the National
Conference on Communications (NCC) 2019. This experience cemented my decision to specialize in
machine learning and I realized that pursuing a Masters degree will give me the right amount of research
exposure to accomplish my goal.

After my recent exposure to computer vision, I started a research project in NLP with Dr. Lavika Goel to
develop models to detect similar paraphrases. After researched various DNN approaches and ended up
using a combined model of CNN with LSTM Networks to train the system. Based on my current work, I
co-authored a paper titled Comparison of Integrated model of “Deep Neural Siamese Network and KL
Divergence weighted matrix for paraphrase detection. This paper is currently under review by Computer
Speech and Language.

All the projects that I have undertaken have taught me different aspects of machine learning and played
their part in my decision to pursue a career in research. From my first internship to the projects I am
currently pursuing, I have found the machine learning to be very challenging and exciting. I also saw
firsthand the potential ML has to solve a multitude of social problems. Despite my deep interest in
pursuing machine learning further, I understand that it is a challenging field and it is important for me to
first become a good computer scientist. Hence, I took a serious interest in my academics as seen by my
Cumulative Grade Point Average(CGPA) which stands at 9.33 after 6 semesters. I rank in the top 10 in
my department and I have been awarded the University Merit scholarship, awarded to the top 3% of the
students across the University, for all 6 semesters. These accomplishments give me confidence to pursue
my ambitious goal of working on cutting-edge research in machine learning and in the process build
something which will help make a positive difference in the world.

University of Wisconsin-Madison ​has the distinction of being one of the best places in the world to pursue
academic research in machine learning and a graduate degree from here would play a vital role achieving
my goal of becoming an accomplished researcher working to solve real world problems using my
knowledge of machines. I find the research conducted by Professors Mohit Gupta and Robert Nowak in
the WISIONLab and MADLab respectively to be very interesting and contributing to the work of these labs
would be a privilege. I feel that ​University of Wisconsin-Madison​ would act as a great platform for me to
further develop my research skills, interact with an amazing set of people, and contribute to the fields of
my interest in the best way possible. I hope that I will have the privilege to study at this prestigious
University and I hope to hear from you soon.