Rebecca Hutchinson
Postdoctoral Scholar
2069 Kelley Engineering Center 
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331
cell: (412) 443-9573
office: (541) 737-4550
rah AT eecs DOT oregonstate DOT edu

CV in pdf format


Research Interests
My research is in machine learning, specifically graphical models for time series analysis and learning from high-dimensional sparse data.  I am currently doing a post-doctoral fellowship at Oregon State University with Tom Dietterich in Computational Sustainability, applying machine learning to ecological problems.

My thesis work develops a new probabilistic time series model inspired by the functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) domain called Hidden Process Models. 

Education
Ph.D., Computer Science Department, 2009
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
Advised by Tom Mitchell

B.S., Computer Science & Engineering, 2002
Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA

Refereed Publications
"Modeling fMRI data generated by overlapping cognitive processes with unknown onsets using Hidden Process Models," R. Hutchinson, T.M. Mitchell, R.S. Niculescu, and I. Rustandi, Neuroimage (2009), doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.01.025.  (preprint version)

"Hidden Process Models," R. Hutchinson, T.M. Mitchell, I. Rustandi, International Conference on Machine Learning 2006.  June 2006.

"Learning to Decode Cognitive States from Brain Images," T.M. Mitchell, R. Hutchinson, R.S. Niculescu, F.Pereira, X. Wang, M. Just, and S. Newman, Machine Learning, Vol. 57, Issue 1-2, pp. 145-175.  October 2004.

"Training fMRI Classifiers to Detect Cognitive States across Multiple Human Subjects ," X. Wang, R. Hutchinson, and T. M. Mitchell, Neural Information Processing Systems 2003.  December 2003.

"Classifying Instantaneous Cognitive States from fMRI Data," T. Mitchell, R. Hutchinson, M. Just, R.S. Niculescu, F. Pereira, X. Wang, American Medical Informatics Association Symposium, October 2003. (received Best Foundational Paper Award)

"Reducing Boundary Friction Using Translation-Fragment Overlap," R. Brown, R. Hutchinson, P. Bennett, J. G. Carbonell, and P. Jansen. Machine Translation Summit IX.  2003.

Technical Reports and Working Papers
"Hidden Process Models," R. Hutchinson, Ph.D. Thesis, CMU Technical Report CMU-CS-09-179.  December 18, 2009.

"Hidden Process Models," R. Hutchinson, Thesis Proposal, May 26, 2006.

"Hidden Process Models," T.M. Mitchell, R. Hutchinson, & I. Rustandi.  CMU Technical Report CS-CALD-05-116. February 17, 2006.

"Maximal Lattice Overlap in Example-Based Machine Translation,” R. Hutchinson, P.N. Bennett, J. Carbonell, P. Jansen, and R. Brown. Carnegie Mellon University Technical Report CMU-CS-03-138. June 6, 2003.

Talks and Posters
"Parameter Estimation in a Hierarchical Model for Species Occupancy," (poster with T.G. Dietterich), Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) Workshops: The Generative and Discriminative Learning Interface, Whistler, BC, December 12, 2009.  (abstract)

"Hidden Process Models with Applications to fMRI Data," Topic Contributed Session, Joint Statistical Meetings 2009, Washington, DC, August 2, 2009.  (slides)

"Modeling fMRI data generated by overlapping cognitive processes with unknown onsets using Hidden Process Models," (poster with T.M. Mitchell), Statistical Analyses of Neuronal Data Workshop 2008, Pittsburgh, PA, May 30, 2008.  (slides)

"Hidden Process Models for Analyzing fMRI Data," Graduate Student Seminar Series, Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science, May 11, 2007. (slides)

"Hidden Process Models: Decoding Overlapping Cognitive States with Unknown Timing," Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) Workshops: New Directions on Decoding Mental States from fMRI Data, Whistler, BC, December 8, 2006. (slides)

"Hidden Process Models," Women in Machine Learning Workshop, San Diego, CA, October 4, 2006. (slides)

"Hidden Process Models,"  International Conference on Machine Learning 2006, Pittsburgh, PA, June 28, 2006. (slides)

"Hidden Process Models," Thesis Proposal, Carnegie Mellon Computer Science Department, May 26, 2006. (slides)

“Learning to Identify Overlapping and Hidden Cognitive Processes from fMRI Data,” (poster with T.M. Mitchell and I. Rustandi), Human Brain Mapping (HBM) 2005, Toronto, ON, June 2005. (slides)

“Using Hidden Process Models to Decode Cognitive States from fMRI Data,” Brain Science Seminar, Carnegie Mellon University, April 2005.

 “Hidden Process Models for Body Monitoring Data,” BodyMedia, Inc., Pittsburgh, PA, March 2005. (slides)

Teaching
Co-advisor (with Tom Mitchell) for an undergraduate senior honors thesis, 2006-2007 academic year
TA for Artificial Intelligence (undergraduate level), Spring 2007
TA for Machine Learning (undergraduate/master’s level), Fall 2006

Service
Program Committee Member for the 1st annual NorthEast Student Colloquium on Artificial Intelligence (NESCAI) 2006.
Contributed reviews for the following journals: NeuroImage, Computational Neuroscience.
Contributed reviews for the following conferences and workshops: International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), NorthEast Student Colloquium on Artificial Intelligence (NESCAI), Women in Machine Learning Workshop (WIML).

Honors
National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship (2002-2005)
Bucknell Computer Science Department Most Outstanding Senior Award (2002)
Barry M. Goldwater Scholar (2001)
National Merit Scholar (1998)

Personal
I enjoy ultimate frisbee, racquetball, knitting, and cooking.  My husband and I have two dogs, Luna and Sola, who never fail to turn our hiking/camping trips into adventures.