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Kiri L. Wagstaff

My background is in Computer Science, Planetary Science, and Geology. I am most interested in problems that lie at the interfaces between these fields, such as automated methods (artificial intelligence, machine learning) to investigate science questions using planetary data (orbital and in situ).

I am a researcher at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. After receiving my Ph.D. in Computer Science from Cornell University in 2002, I worked for a year in the JHU Applied Physics Lab's Space Department. My two major projects dealt with space weather prediction and the fault protection system for the MESSENGER spacecraft. I am now a member of JPL's Machine Learning and Instrument Autonomy Group, investigating ways that machine learning can be used to increase the autonomy of space missions. I also teach classes at Cal State L.A. in the Computer Science Department. My projects at JPL have included:

• Tracking the north polar ice caps (water and CO₂) on Mars
• Automatic landmark identification and change detection in Mars orbital images (dark slope streaks, dust devil tracks, etc.)
• Predicting county-level crop yield from Earth orbital images
• Modeling user preferences for sets, rather than individual items (like music playlists or rover image downlink sets)
• Modeling flight software with state charts and using automatic code generation to convert them into C/C++ (for implementation) or Promela (for model checking)
• Analyzing the sensitivity of machine learning algorithms to high-radiation environments
• Collaborative machine learning for sensor networks

News and upcoming events:

• I will give the JPL Section 388 Technical Seminar on Thursday, January 7, 2010. The topic: "Machine Learning for Volcano Sensor Networks."
• Along with four library employees, I will represent the Monrovia Library at the 2010 Get Involved Institute on library volunteer engagement, February 23-24, 2010.
• I was accepted as a volunteer at the Mars Desert Research Station. I will serve as part of Crew 89, from January 22 to February 7, 2010. You can read our blog to find out what we're up to!
• Newly published:
  • "Modeling and Learning Preferences over Sets," by Kiri L. Wagstaff, Marie desJardins, and Eric Eaton, Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, 2010.
  • "Progressive Refinement for Support Vector Machines," by Kiri L. Wagstaff, Michael Kocurek, Dominic Mazzoni, and Benyang Tang, Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, 20(1):53-69, 2010.
  • "Smart Robots on Mars: Deciding Where to Go and What to See," by Kiri L. Wagstaff, Juniata Voices, vol. 9, 2009.
• Recently accepted:
  • "Confidence-Based Feature Acquisition to Minimize Training and Test Costs," by Marie desJardins, James MacGlashan, and Kiri L. Wagstaff, SIAM Conference on Data Mining, April 2010.
  • "Detecting Structural Microbial Biosignatures in Digital Images," by Kiri L. Wagstaff and Frank A. Corsetti, Astrobiology, 2010.
• I was selected to receive the 2008 Lew Allen Award for Excellence in Research for "advancing the performance and application of machine learning methods to onboard Earth science missions and spacecraft engineering."