Joey Rudoler
@jrudoler.bsky.social
wharton stats phd — ml theory, ml for science
prev: comp neuro, data, physics
working with Edgar Dobriban and Konrad Körding
also some sports (esp. philly! go birds)
prev: comp neuro, data, physics
working with Edgar Dobriban and Konrad Körding
also some sports (esp. philly! go birds)
I've been using Affinity Designer for a few years now and really like it -- there's a learning curve but you really get full control. Seems like all the features + more are included in this free version! Super awesome for posters and making nice figures/graphics for papers or talks.
PSA: Last week, Affinity Studio (major Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop alternative) went completely 'free forever'.
Pro design software, now accessible to all PhD students. May start recommending this in my workshops.
www.affinity.studio/graphic-desi...
Pro design software, now accessible to all PhD students. May start recommending this in my workshops.
www.affinity.studio/graphic-desi...
November 4, 2025 at 7:12 PM
I've been using Affinity Designer for a few years now and really like it -- there's a learning curve but you really get full control. Seems like all the features + more are included in this free version! Super awesome for posters and making nice figures/graphics for papers or talks.
With the government shutdown threatening SNAP and other benefits, reminder to academics to check if your university will match donations to food pantries and the like! e.g.
@Penn
is currently doubling donations to local charities through: pennsway.upenn.edu
@Penn
is currently doubling donations to local charities through: pennsway.upenn.edu
Home | Penn's Way
pennsway.upenn.edu
October 28, 2025 at 12:19 PM
With the government shutdown threatening SNAP and other benefits, reminder to academics to check if your university will match donations to food pantries and the like! e.g.
@Penn
is currently doubling donations to local charities through: pennsway.upenn.edu
@Penn
is currently doubling donations to local charities through: pennsway.upenn.edu
Excited be spending a few months at Tel Aviv University working on deep learning theory with Prof. Nadav Cohen and the Foundations of Deep Learning group. Amazingly collaborative group and department. Very much enjoying the cool science, time with family and friends, and outstanding food!
October 22, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Excited be spending a few months at Tel Aviv University working on deep learning theory with Prof. Nadav Cohen and the Foundations of Deep Learning group. Amazingly collaborative group and department. Very much enjoying the cool science, time with family and friends, and outstanding food!
Super nice results -- language features are represented in the brain (decodable from MEG) on a timescale that corresponds to how high-or-low level those features are (i.e. semantics are decodable for a long time, phonetics only briefly/locally)
When we group the features into 6 hierarchical levels, we find that the hierarchy is processed in a remarkably parallel manner, highly overlapping in time, with long-lived neural responses. Also, higher order features are decodable earlier than lower order features - a "reverse hierarchy".
6/8
6/8
October 22, 2025 at 9:12 AM
Super nice results -- language features are represented in the brain (decodable from MEG) on a timescale that corresponds to how high-or-low level those features are (i.e. semantics are decodable for a long time, phonetics only briefly/locally)
Just spent two wonderful weeks in London for the Analytical Connectionism Summer School (hosted at Gatsby/UCL this year). Met lots of wonderful scientists at the intersection of cog neuro and machine learning. Learned a lot and can’t recommend more highly! Small meetings rule
September 7, 2025 at 7:26 PM
Just spent two wonderful weeks in London for the Analytical Connectionism Summer School (hosted at Gatsby/UCL this year). Met lots of wonderful scientists at the intersection of cog neuro and machine learning. Learned a lot and can’t recommend more highly! Small meetings rule
Reposted by Joey Rudoler
I wanted to provide more color on this because its a bigger deal than the main Ai2 account is hyping it as. For example, the entire annual budget of the NSF for AI in 2026 is $655M dollars. To commit to a training models on single line item of about 20% of that is a huge deal.
With fresh support of $75M from NSF and $77M from NVIDIA, we’re set to scale our open model ecosystem, bolster the infrastructure behind it, and fast‑track reproducible AI research to unlock the next wave of scientific discovery. 💡
August 14, 2025 at 1:37 PM
I wanted to provide more color on this because its a bigger deal than the main Ai2 account is hyping it as. For example, the entire annual budget of the NSF for AI in 2026 is $655M dollars. To commit to a training models on single line item of about 20% of that is a huge deal.
Reposted by Joey Rudoler
Social scientists should not use chat interfaces when using LLMs in their research: they are impressively inefficient, and obscure/impose important methodological decisions that require thought.
THREAD🧵
THREAD🧵
June 23, 2025 at 4:31 PM
Social scientists should not use chat interfaces when using LLMs in their research: they are impressively inefficient, and obscure/impose important methodological decisions that require thought.
THREAD🧵
THREAD🧵
Wrote a new, modern stats curriculum.
Teach about probability and sampling via computational examples / simulations with real data. It's unbelievably helpful for intuition. Everything else follows.
Online and open-source: jrudoler-teaching.github.io/understandin...
Teach about probability and sampling via computational examples / simulations with real data. It's unbelievably helpful for intuition. Everything else follows.
Online and open-source: jrudoler-teaching.github.io/understandin...
July 31, 2025 at 8:20 PM
Wrote a new, modern stats curriculum.
Teach about probability and sampling via computational examples / simulations with real data. It's unbelievably helpful for intuition. Everything else follows.
Online and open-source: jrudoler-teaching.github.io/understandin...
Teach about probability and sampling via computational examples / simulations with real data. It's unbelievably helpful for intuition. Everything else follows.
Online and open-source: jrudoler-teaching.github.io/understandin...
Check out my (open source) short course on introductory statistics and data science!
It covers fundamentals of programming and probability, and then uses those to build up an intuition for hypothesis testing through sampling and simulation
jrudoler-teaching.github.io/understandin...
It covers fundamentals of programming and probability, and then uses those to build up an intuition for hypothesis testing through sampling and simulation
jrudoler-teaching.github.io/understandin...
understanding-uncertainty – Understanding Uncertainty
jrudoler-teaching.github.io
July 16, 2025 at 8:53 PM
Check out my (open source) short course on introductory statistics and data science!
It covers fundamentals of programming and probability, and then uses those to build up an intuition for hypothesis testing through sampling and simulation
jrudoler-teaching.github.io/understandin...
It covers fundamentals of programming and probability, and then uses those to build up an intuition for hypothesis testing through sampling and simulation
jrudoler-teaching.github.io/understandin...
Reposted by Joey Rudoler
Have you played with our Confirmation Bias Unit, yet? Head out to buff.ly/sa8UIeY and give it a try, share with your colleagues and students, and give us your feedback.
Community for Rigor | Units
We made a network of essential units to help you better understand the principles and practices of scientific rigor.
c4r.io
April 15, 2025 at 12:02 PM
Have you played with our Confirmation Bias Unit, yet? Head out to buff.ly/sa8UIeY and give it a try, share with your colleagues and students, and give us your feedback.
There are two kinds of statisticians: those who like telling other people they're wrong, and those who don't talk at all
March 3, 2025 at 7:31 PM
There are two kinds of statisticians: those who like telling other people they're wrong, and those who don't talk at all
Reposted by Joey Rudoler
Today, we are publishing the first-ever International AI Safety Report, backed by 30 countries and the OECD, UN, and EU.
It summarises the state of the science on AI capabilities and risks, and how to mitigate those risks. 🧵
Full Report: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/679a0c...
1/21
It summarises the state of the science on AI capabilities and risks, and how to mitigate those risks. 🧵
Full Report: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/679a0c...
1/21
January 29, 2025 at 1:50 PM
Today, we are publishing the first-ever International AI Safety Report, backed by 30 countries and the OECD, UN, and EU.
It summarises the state of the science on AI capabilities and risks, and how to mitigate those risks. 🧵
Full Report: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/679a0c...
1/21
It summarises the state of the science on AI capabilities and risks, and how to mitigate those risks. 🧵
Full Report: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/679a0c...
1/21
Reposted by Joey Rudoler
Announcing a new week-long program for young computational neuroscience/ behavior professors to talk about rigorous science, mentoring, lab management, and networking in a stunning retreat setting. Do great science as a community and have fun doing so.
January 21, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Announcing a new week-long program for young computational neuroscience/ behavior professors to talk about rigorous science, mentoring, lab management, and networking in a stunning retreat setting. Do great science as a community and have fun doing so.
newly converted @weightsbiases.bsky.social fan here! honestly did not realize how much better it could be than tensorboard. just way more organized, pretty, intuitive, and feature-rich.
shoutout once again to the awesome engineers building various MLOps tools for the rest of us to use <3
shoutout once again to the awesome engineers building various MLOps tools for the rest of us to use <3
January 20, 2025 at 10:07 PM
newly converted @weightsbiases.bsky.social fan here! honestly did not realize how much better it could be than tensorboard. just way more organized, pretty, intuitive, and feature-rich.
shoutout once again to the awesome engineers building various MLOps tools for the rest of us to use <3
shoutout once again to the awesome engineers building various MLOps tools for the rest of us to use <3
I don't understand the product appeal of AI companions... and honestly the companies producing them sometimes feel predatory (though I believe some people have good intentions to reduce loneliness etc.)
When I open friend.com the bot immediately turns on the anxiety / depression / alcoholism
When I open friend.com the bot immediately turns on the anxiety / depression / alcoholism
January 15, 2025 at 4:21 PM
I don't understand the product appeal of AI companions... and honestly the companies producing them sometimes feel predatory (though I believe some people have good intentions to reduce loneliness etc.)
When I open friend.com the bot immediately turns on the anxiety / depression / alcoholism
When I open friend.com the bot immediately turns on the anxiety / depression / alcoholism
Not a new topic but what are effective ways to incentivize grad students to be better TAs?
I really enjoy teaching but it seems there’s zero incentive to do a good job (beyond personal fulfillment and an altruistic desire to help students). We’re evaluated solely on research!
I really enjoy teaching but it seems there’s zero incentive to do a good job (beyond personal fulfillment and an altruistic desire to help students). We’re evaluated solely on research!
January 13, 2025 at 2:45 PM
Not a new topic but what are effective ways to incentivize grad students to be better TAs?
I really enjoy teaching but it seems there’s zero incentive to do a good job (beyond personal fulfillment and an altruistic desire to help students). We’re evaluated solely on research!
I really enjoy teaching but it seems there’s zero incentive to do a good job (beyond personal fulfillment and an altruistic desire to help students). We’re evaluated solely on research!
Reposted by Joey Rudoler
If you’re in grad school, finding a therapist can be really helpful. The thing you’re doing is hard and it’s harder if you don’t have help managing imposter syndrome, stress, self esteem, and a whole bunch of other things.
January 9, 2025 at 3:20 AM
If you’re in grad school, finding a therapist can be really helpful. The thing you’re doing is hard and it’s harder if you don’t have help managing imposter syndrome, stress, self esteem, and a whole bunch of other things.
Reposted by Joey Rudoler
Key-value memory is an important concept in modern machine learning (e.g., transformers). Ila Fiete, Kazuki Irie, and I have written a paper showing how key-value memory provides a way of thinking about memory organization in the brain:
arxiv.org/abs/2501.02950
arxiv.org/abs/2501.02950
Key-value memory in the brain
Classical models of memory in psychology and neuroscience rely on similarity-based retrieval of stored patterns, where similarity is a function of retrieval cues and the stored patterns. While parsimo...
arxiv.org
January 7, 2025 at 9:21 AM
Key-value memory is an important concept in modern machine learning (e.g., transformers). Ila Fiete, Kazuki Irie, and I have written a paper showing how key-value memory provides a way of thinking about memory organization in the brain:
arxiv.org/abs/2501.02950
arxiv.org/abs/2501.02950
My absolute favorite content on the internet is this guy Adam Aleksic (@etymologynerd, but not on Bluesky) who posts about linguistics. Awesome combo of silly content (“I made a gorilla language”) and super insightful commentary about language and communication interacting with modern tech/society
RETURN TO MONKE 🦍 #conlang #linguistics #language
YouTube video by Etymology Nerd
youtube.com
December 23, 2024 at 5:20 PM
My absolute favorite content on the internet is this guy Adam Aleksic (@etymologynerd, but not on Bluesky) who posts about linguistics. Awesome combo of silly content (“I made a gorilla language”) and super insightful commentary about language and communication interacting with modern tech/society
Visiting NYC really makes me feel like some sort of crunchy small town guy… but I live in Philly
December 20, 2024 at 3:08 PM
Visiting NYC really makes me feel like some sort of crunchy small town guy… but I live in Philly
LLM research today would look so different without @hf.co... making models of scale and diversity so easily accessible to researchers is an amazing engineering feat. Such a catalyst for progress. 🙏
December 15, 2024 at 4:09 PM
LLM research today would look so different without @hf.co... making models of scale and diversity so easily accessible to researchers is an amazing engineering feat. Such a catalyst for progress. 🙏
I absolutely love Keynote for academic presentations
Built-in support for Latex equations, easy UI, presenter view, super-customizable templates, looks beautiful, has great recording features
Is it just the collaborative editing that has people using google slides or beamer/overleaf?
Built-in support for Latex equations, easy UI, presenter view, super-customizable templates, looks beautiful, has great recording features
Is it just the collaborative editing that has people using google slides or beamer/overleaf?
December 12, 2024 at 3:51 PM
I absolutely love Keynote for academic presentations
Built-in support for Latex equations, easy UI, presenter view, super-customizable templates, looks beautiful, has great recording features
Is it just the collaborative editing that has people using google slides or beamer/overleaf?
Built-in support for Latex equations, easy UI, presenter view, super-customizable templates, looks beautiful, has great recording features
Is it just the collaborative editing that has people using google slides or beamer/overleaf?
Shoutout to the guy on my flight playing 2048. Forgot it existed and am now immediately hooked again
December 6, 2024 at 6:44 AM
Shoutout to the guy on my flight playing 2048. Forgot it existed and am now immediately hooked again
Go follow @yuh42.bsky.social ! She’s brilliant and has great insight into the theoretical side of transformers, in-context learning, and diffusion models. Constantly amazed by her and many other students in our cohort + department
December 3, 2024 at 12:43 AM
Go follow @yuh42.bsky.social ! She’s brilliant and has great insight into the theoretical side of transformers, in-context learning, and diffusion models. Constantly amazed by her and many other students in our cohort + department