PODS Keynote
Speaker: Jan Van den Bussche (Hasselt University)
Title: Models are data too: Towards expressive querying of machine-learning models
Abstract: Machine learning generates large amounts of models that should be managed by sound data management practices. In particular, we should be able to query these models using expressive, declarative query languages. In this talk we will survey some existing ideas, point at research challenges, and try to enthuse the research community into looking at a new kind of database queries. Since models are code, albeit learned, not written, we will also foray into the querying of program code.
Bio: Jan Van den Bussche is a professor of computer science in the Data Science Institute at Hasselt University (Belgium). He has been active in database theory research since 1989 and received his PhD in 1993 from the University of Antwerp. Together with his advisor Jan Paredaens he helped establish a "Belgian School" in database theory. He served as program chair for ICDT in 2001 and for PODS in 2006. He chaired the ICDT Council from 2001 until 2011, and chaired the PODS Executive Committee in 2017 and 2018. Broadly, his research interests revolve around the design and analysis of data models and query languages for a wide variety of data and computations.