Robert J Brunner

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Robert J Brunner

Personal profile

Personal profile

Robert J. Brunner is a professor in the School of Information Sciences and in the Department of Accountancy in the College of Business. He has affiliate appointments in the Astronomy, Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Informatics, Physics, and Statistics Departments; at the Beckman Institute, in the Computational Science and Engineering program; and at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. He is also the Data Science Expert in Residence at the Research Park at the University of Illinois.

His primary research goal focuses on the application of statistical and machine learning to a variety of real-world problems, and in making these efforts easier, faster, and more precise. This work spans fundamental algorithm design to more effectively incorporate uncertainty to optimization using novel computational technologies. More generally, Brunner helps lead efforts to promote data science across campus and to encourage effective data management, analysis, and visualization techniques.

Brunner earned his PhD in astrophysics at the Johns Hopkins University working under Alex Szalay on the development of the science archive for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. His PhD thesis helped develop the statistical approach to quantifying galaxy evolution, where large data are used to place constraints on the original and evolution of the Universe. He subsequently spent five years as a postdoctoral scholar at the California Institute of Technology working under S. George Djorgovsi and Tom Prince as the project scientist for the Digital Sky project. 

Research Interests

Observational Cosmology
Information Science
Statistical and Machine Learning
Advanced Computational Techniques
Transient and Variable Phenomena

Professional Information

The development of data science, the application of machine learning, algorithmic optimization, statistical uncertainty and its incorporation in machine learning, data management, effective visualization, and data storytelling.

Education

Ph.D. Johns Hopkins University

Teaching

ASTR 330: Search for Extraterrestrial Life
ASTR 406: Galaxies and the Universe
ASTR 496 - Foundations of Data Science
ASTR 596 - Practical Machine Learning
INFO 490: Introduction to Data Science

Office Address

Dept. of Astronomy
226 Astronomy
1002 West Green Street
M/C 221
Urbana, IL 61801

Office Phone

(217) 244-6099

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  • Humans vs. ChatGPT: Evaluating Annotation Methods for Financial Corpora

    Kaikaus, J., Li, H. & Brunner, R. J., 2023, Proceedings - 2023 IEEE International Conference on Big Data, BigData 2023. He, J., Palpanas, T., Hu, X., Cuzzocrea, A., Dou, D., Slezak, D., Wang, W., Gruca, A., Lin, J.C.-W. & Agrawal, R. (eds.). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., p. 2831-2838 8 p. (Proceedings - 2023 IEEE International Conference on Big Data, BigData 2023).

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

  • Sparse Spatio-Temporal Neural Network for Large-Scale Forecasting

    Bracht, E., Kindratenko, V. & Brunner, R. J., 2022, Proceedings - 2022 IEEE International Conference on Big Data, Big Data 2022. Tsumoto, S., Ohsawa, Y., Chen, L., Van den Poel, D., Hu, X., Motomura, Y., Takagi, T., Wu, L., Xie, Y., Abe, A. & Raghavan, V. (eds.). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., (Proceedings - 2022 IEEE International Conference on Big Data, Big Data 2022; vol. 2022-January).

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

  • Truth or Fiction: Multimodal Learning Applied to Earnings Calls

    Kaikaus, J., Hobson, J. L. & Brunner, R. J., 2022, Proceedings - 2022 IEEE International Conference on Big Data, Big Data 2022. Tsumoto, S., Ohsawa, Y., Chen, L., Van den Poel, D., Hu, X., Motomura, Y., Takagi, T., Wu, L., Xie, Y., Abe, A. & Raghavan, V. (eds.). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., p. 3607-3612 6 p. (Proceedings - 2022 IEEE International Conference on Big Data, Big Data 2022).

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

  • A Spitzer survey of Deep Drilling Fields to be targeted by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time

    Lacy, M., Surace, J. A., Farrah, D., Nyland, K., Afonso, J., Brandt, W. N., Clements, D. L., Lagos, C. D. P., Maraston, C., Pforr, J., Sajina, A., Sako, M., Vaccari, M., Wilson, G., Ballantyne, D. R., Barkhouse, W. A., Brunner, R., Cane, R., Clarke, T. E. & Cooper, M. & 43 others, Cooray, A., Covone, G., D'Andrea, C., Evrard, A. E., Ferguson, H. C., Frieman, J., Gonzalez-Perez, V., Gupta, R., Hatziminaoglou, E., Huang, J., Jagannathan, P., Jarvis, M. J., Jones, K. M., Kimball, A., Lidman, C., Lubin, L., Marchetti, L., Martini, P., Mcmahon, R. G., Mei, S., Messias, H., Murphy, E. J., Newman, J. A., Nichol, R., Norris, R. P., Oliver, S., Perez-Fournon, I., Peters, W. M., Pierre, M., Polisensky, E., Richards, G. T., Ridgway, S. E., Röttgering, H. J. A., Seymour, N., Shirley, R., Somerville, R., Strauss, M. A., Suntzeff, N., Thorman, P. A., Van Kampen, E., Verma, A., Wechsler, R. & Wood-Vasey, W. M., Feb 1 2021, In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 501, 1, p. 892-910 19 p.

    Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

    Open Access

  • Extended Isolation Forest

    Hariri, S., Kind, M. C. & Brunner, R. J., Apr 1 2021, In: IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering. 33, 4, p. 1479-1489 11 p., 8888179.

    Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

    Open Access
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  • 1 Oral presentation