Hi! I’m currently a Machine Learning Engineer at BetterUp working on LLM applications in the coaching space. I graduated from University of Waterloo with a major in Computer Science and minoring in Combinatorics and Optimization in 2023. Previously, I was a ML Engineer Intern building up large-scale recommendation systems at BetterUp. I’ve also been fortunate enough to be advised by Yaoliang Yu, Bo Wang, Mario Ghossoub, and David Saunders working on various research projects from generative models for uncertainty quantification, machine learning for health care, and game theory!

On a high level, I’m interested in understanding and modeling decision-making and uncertainty as it’s one of the pillars to understanding general intelligence. I believe algorithmic decision-making paired with the intuitive nature of human decision-making can lead to many beneficial advancements and discoveries in the world. In particular, I am keen on the analysis and empirical studies of these models to better understand the behaviour and limitations of these tools. By bridging the gap between theory and empirical evaluations, I hope to develop principled and robust algorithms for real world use cases (i.e. probabilistic inference, uncertainty quantification, reliable decision-making systems, incorporating inductive biases)! Please find my CV attached here to learn more about me or reach out to me through email at sun.jesse@outlook.com.

Publications

* denotes equal contribution.

1. Conditional Generative Quantile Networks via Optimal Transport.
   Jesse Sun, Dihong Jiang, Yaoliang Yu. International Conference on Learning Representations - Deep Generative Models for Highly Structured Data Workshop. (2022)
2. Machine Learning to Improve Left Ventricular Scar Quantification in Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Patients.
   Zeinab N Ghaziani*, Jesse Sun*, Raymond H Chan, Harry Rakowski, Martin S Maron, Ethan J Rowin, Bo Wang, Wendy Tsang. Circulation (2020), PLOS Digital Health (2023)
3. SAUNet: Shape Attentive U-Net for Interpretable Medical Image Segmentation.
   Jesse Sun, Fatemeh Darbehani, Mark Zaidi, Bo Wang. International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention (MICCAI) 2020. (2020)

Outside of Work

Long distance endurance sports are a big passion of mine and I spend a lot of time training. So far, I’ve completed two marathons, and this year I’m training to finish a marathon in under 3 hours this fall. In addition to marathons, I enjoy competing in 10k and half-marathon races. Recently, I’ve ventured into the world of triathlons and am excited to participate in my first Ironman 70.3 in Switzerland this June! I’m always on the lookout for new training partners, so feel free to get in touch if you’re interested :)

In my free time, I also love reading and learning. With all that time spent alone on my Zwift trainer or out on a long run, I’ve really come to appreciate audiobooks. Some books I love and can’t recommend enough are Where Good Ideas Come From (Steven Johnson), Grit (Angela Duckworth), Essentialism (Greg McKeown), and Birth of a Theorem (Cedric Villani). As you may have noticed, my favourite genre is non-fiction/biography but always open for new recommendations!