Saeed Damadi PhD’s Documentation!

This documentation presents a comprehensive overview of my PhD research in sparse optimization and machine learning at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). Under the mentorship of Professor Jinglai Shen, my work focuses on advanced mathematical methods for sparse optimization.

During my PhD, I earned two master’s degrees to deepen my knowledge of statistics and machine learning. I completed a master’s degree at the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at UMBC, guided by Professor Hamed Pirsiavash, where I worked on compression of deep neural networks. This topic led to my PhD topic where I appreciated the advantages of the theory of sparse optimization for building smaller AI models. Due to the need for understanding statistics as the bedrock of artificial intelligence and machine learning, I earned a master’s degree in statistics to deepen my knowledge in this area.

I have two main research goals. First, I aim to compress neural networks to better understand how the brain works. Second, I am passionate about advancing quantitative trading through sophisticated deep neural networks and machine learning models.

Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn and X.