NYU appoints Greg Durrett as Associate Professor in data science and AI

NYU Center for Data Science has appointed Greg Durrett as Associate Professor of Computer Science and Data Science.

NYU Center for Data Science says Greg Durrett has joined the university as Associate Professor of Computer Science and Data Science. The center conducts research across machine learning, natural language processing, data systems, and AI theory, with partnerships across scientific and applied research domains.

According to the university, Durrett’s work focuses on making large language models more reliable, reflective, and creative. His portfolio spans projects ranging from “C-to-Rust translation to identifying the limits of scaling,” and includes contributions to the NSF-Simons AI Institute for Cosmic Origins. The university says he recently published NeurIPS research on “using language models to help visualize astronomy data.”

AI model reliability and future capabilities

Durrett’s research examines how models reason about information in text and how their outputs can be assessed for accuracy. He says: “I think broadly I’m interested in where large language models are, and where are they going. They’re doing a lot of things very, very well, and we want to figure out how we can take those capabilities and use them to solve a lot of problems of interest.”

His work also addresses future limitations, exploring model behavior in areas where scaling alone may not provide improvements. This includes examining distinctions between interpolation and genuine extrapolation in model outputs.

The university says Durrett is collaborating with Assistant Professor Mengye Ren on work related to “cognitive behaviors” in large language models, studying how systems reflect on their answers, check for errors, and backtrack when needed. The aim is to develop methods for teaching these behaviors without relying on emergent properties from large-scale models.

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