Sami Benzaid UNC - Chapel Hill Computer Science Graduate Student Office: SN024 (Sitterson Hall, Room 024) benzaids <AT> email <DOT> unc <DOT> edu

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About Me:

• I'm currently a graduate student in computer science at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC). At the moment my range of interests within the field is very large. Graphics, Networks, Image Processing, and Computer Architecture are all on the list, among other things. I suppose my current project is to narrow down the list a bit, and move towards a topic that I'd like to explore in-depth. I started attending UNC Chapel Hill in the fall of 2008. Prior to that, I attended Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota for my undergraduate degree, from Fall 2004 to Spring 2008.

CV/Resumé:

• My resumé is in PDF format, and can be downloaded here.

Research:

• September 2007 - March 2008: I started and finished my senior comprehensive project, which was a group project with five students, all of whom were computer science majors as well. The goal for the project was to write a software application to make support vector machines (SVMs) quantitatively and visually more intuitive to a wider range of people. Our project advisor was Professor David Musicant. We have submitted our paper (entitled "Understanding Support Vector Machine Classifications via a Recommender System-Like Approach"; see 'Publications' below) for publication, and are currently awaiting the results.
• Summer 2007: I joined an already ongoing data mining research project. It is an interdisciplinary project, with computer scientists, chemists, and atmospheric scientists. The primary goal of the project during the summer months was to use data from an Aerosol Time-Of-Flight Mass Spectrometer (ATOFMS) to accurately predict the amount of environmental carbon (EC) in the atmosphere. I continued to work on this project during the 2007-2008 school year. Our research advisor was Professor David Musicant.
• Summer 2006: I was a research assistant for two months on a data mining project led by Professor Amy Csizmar Dalal. The goal of the project was to accurately predict the user-perceived quality of streaming media based on data from user surveys. A paper, of which I am a co-author, was published from this project, and is cited in the publications section.

Publications:

1. David Barbella, Sami Benzaid, Janara Christensen, Bret Jackson, Victor Qin, David Musicant. "Understanding Support Vector Machine Classifications via a Recommender System-Like Approach". Proceedings of The International Conference on Data Mining (DMIN '09), Editors: Robert Stahlbock, Sven F. Crone, and Stefan Lessmann. CSREA Press, 2009, pages 305-311.
2. Deborah S. Gross, Robert Atlas, Jeffrey Rzeszotarski, Emma Turetsky, Janara Christensen, Sami Benzaid, Jamie Olson, Thomas Smith, Leah Steinberg, Jon Sulman, Anna Ritz, Benjamin Anderson, Catherine Nelson, David R. Musicant, Lei Chen, David C. Snyder, James J. Schauer. "ENCHILADA: Environmental Chemistry through Intelligent Atmospheric Data Analysis". Submitted for Publication (2008).
3. A. Csizmar Dalal, D. Musicant, J. Olson, B. McMenamy, S. Benzaid, B. Kazez, E. Bolan. "Predicting User-Perceived Quality Ratings from Streaming Media Data". In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC 2007), Glasgow, Scotland, June 2007.

Background:

• A list of Computer Science courses that I've taken:
  • Computer Vision (UNC Chapel Hill, Spring 2009)
  • Computer Graphics (UNC Chapel Hill, Spring 2009)
  • COMP991: Reading and Research (Medical Image Analysis) - I'm reading various papers about diffusion-weighted imaging, diffusion tensor imaging, and atlas construction, among other things. The goal is to create atlases for diffusion-weighted imaging. (UNC Chapel Hill, Spring 2009; Currently Taking)
  • Computer Networks (UNC Chapel Hill, Fall 2008; Textbook: Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach (4e) by James F. Kurose and Keith W. Ross)
  • Images, Graphics, and Vision (UNC Chapel Hill, Fall 2008)
  • COMP991: Reading and Research (Networks) - I read about various different high-speed TCP Congestion Control/Avoidance protocols, and ran simulations to compare how they get along when running simultaneously under varying conditions. (UNC Chapel Hill, Fall 2008)
  • Operating Systems (Carleton College, Spring 2008; Textbook: Modern Operating Systems (3e) by Andrew S. Tanenbaum)
  • Artificial Intelligence (Carleton College, Spring 2008; Textbook: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (2e) by Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig)
  • Computer Networks (Carleton College, Winter 2008; Textbook: Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach (4e) by James F. Kurose and Keith W. Ross)
  • Software Design (Carleton College, Winter 2008; Textbooks: [1.] Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction (2e) by Steve McConnell, [2.] Head First Design Patterns (1e) by Elisabeth Freeman, Eric Freeman, Bert Bates, and Kathy Sierra, [3.] About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design (3e) by Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann, and David Cronin)
  • Natural Language Processing (Carleton College, Spring 2007; Textbook: Foundations of Statistical Natural Language Processing (1e) by Christopher D. Manning and Hinrich Schuetze)
  • Theory of Computation/Automata and Computability (Carleton College, Spring 2007; Textbook: Automata and Computability (1e) by Dexter C. Kozen)
  • Programming Languages (Carleton College, Winter 2007; Textbook: Programming Language Pragmatics (2e) by Michael L. Scott)
  • Algorithms (Carleton College, Winter 2007; Textbook: Algorithm Design (1e) by Jon Kleinberg and Éva Tardos)
  • Computer Organization and Architecture (Carleton College, Fall 2006; Textbook: Computer Organization and Design (2e) by David A. Patterson and John L. Hennessy)
  • Mathematics of Computer Science (Carleton College, Fall 2006; Textbook: Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications (6e) by Kenneth H. Rosen)
  • Database Systems (Carleton College, Winter 2006; Textbook: Database Management Systems (1e) by Raghu Ramakrishnan and Johannes Gehrke)
  • Data Structures (Carleton College, Fall 2005; Textbook: Objects, Abstraction, Data Structures and Design: Using Java 5.0 (1e) by Elliot B. Koffman and Paul A. T. Wolfgang)
  • Introduction to Computer Science (Carleton College, Spring 2005; Textbook: Java Software Solutions (Java 5.0 Version): Foundations of Program Design (4e) by John Lewis and William Loftus)
• A list of Mathematics courses that I've taken:
  • Advanced Linear Algebra
  • Differential Equations
  • Linear Algebra
  • Multivariable Calculus
  • Probability and Statistics
  • Single Variable Calculus

Relevant Links:

• UNC Chapel Hill - The university at which I am now a graduate student.
• UNC Chapel Hill Computer Science Department - The Computer Science department at UNC Chapel Hill. Information on courses, research, etc...
• Carleton College - The college I attended for my undergraduate degree.
• Carleton College Computer Science Department - The Carleton CS department website; contains info about courses, faculty, past and present comps projects, among other things.
• ENCHILADA - "Environmental Chemistry Through Intelligent Atmospheric Data Analysis". This is a program that helps visualize and perform several different operations on ATOFMS (Aerosol Time-Of-Flight Mass Spectrometer) data. Part of what I did during the Summer of 2007 was work on parts of this software.
• EDAM ENCHILADA at SourceForge - This is the SourceForge page for the EDAM Enchilada project, where the source code can be obtained for those who are interested. (In case you haven't had enough acronyms, EDAM stands for Exploratory Data Analysis and Management).
• Randy Pausch's Last Lecture - Randy Pausch was a Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. This is a talk he gave at CMU entitled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams". My parents found this video and recommended it to me, and I listed it here because I believe it conveys a very positive and encouraging message that is relevant to anyone (it isn't just for people in computer science).

Recreational Interests:

• I enjoy playing video games (primarily on consoles rather than on a computer, but I do have a few favorite computer games). Nintendo is my favorite console and game company, and I've been playing their games since I was six years old (and yes, I did get a Wii at launch, AND I didn't have to wait in line or pay anything more than retail ^_^). I enjoy Nintendo's classics, like Mario games and Zelda games, among many others. However, in recent years, a lot of unique games have come to their systems that have really grown on me, such as the extremely well-written and addicting lawyer game series Phoenix Wright, and the surgery puzzle game Trauma Center. Of course, I don't limit myself to Nintendo games; I enjoy role-playing games, especially anything made by Squaresoft (now Square Enix) like the Final Fantasy series, Kingdom Hearts, or Chrono Games. I also enjoy party games, and music sim games such as Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) and Guitar Hero.
• As far as my other recreational interests, my favorite books are The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and the Harry Potter books. Incidentally, these also serve (with the exception of The Hobbit, although it looks like something's being done about it) as some of my favorite movies. I really enjoy movies, and am open to all different genres, although admittedly my favorite genre is comedy. Music-wise, "Weird Al" Yankovic is my favorite American singer, but I like to listen to music in French and Japanese as well. However, more than 50% of the time, I listen to the video game remix music of OCRemix, often from their stream site while I'm doing homework.
• I really enjoy traveling, although unfortunately I can't (yet ^_^) claim to have done much of it. During my sophomore year at Carleton, I studied abroad in Paris, France for a term (10 weeks). It's definitely one of the best things I've ever done, and has made me want to learn more languages and travel to as many different places as I can. I currently speak a little bit of French (which unfortunately is silently deteriorating, as I lack a way in which to practice it), and most recently I studied the Japanese language for a year. I can put together some basic phrases in Japanese, but I still need a lot more work. I'm hopeful that one day I'll be able to spend enough time in both France and Japan to really learn the languages well, explore their various different regions.
• How to kill time on the Internet:
  • Slashdot - Technology news aggregator
  • Reddit - News aggregator
  • Digg - Another news aggregator
  • xkcd - A math/science/technology-related webcomic
  • Penny Arcade - A gaming webcomic
  • Wellington Grey - Miscellanea - Another math/science/technology webcomic. There are some good flowcharts, too.
  • Homestar Runner - Entertaining Flash comics by two very talented people.

Page maintained by Sami Benzaid
Last updated 10/16/2009
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