Emily Liu

Emily Liu

M.Eng. in Computer Science at MIT.

Posts by Collection

papers

Structured Latent Variable Models for Articulated Object Interaction

Published:

This paper explores how a robot can learn a low-dimensional representation of doors from videos of them opening or closing, enabling the inference of door-related parameters and interaction outcomes. Instead of relying solely on labeled datasets, the study employs a semi-supervised approach using the Neural Statistician, a structured latent variable model that separates shared context-level variables (common across all images of the same door) from instance-level variables (specific to each image). The model effectively generates realistic door image embeddings, which outperform context-free baselines in tasks such as predicting door parameters and optimizing actions in a visual bandit door-opening scenario, demonstrating its utility for more efficient and accurate robotic interaction.

Recommended citation: Structured Latent Variable Models for Articulated Object Interaction. Emily Liu, Michael Noseworthy, Nicholas Roy. 2023.
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Semi-Supervised Neural Processes for Articulated Object Interaction

Published:

This paper addresses the challenge of limited labeled action data for robotic object manipulation by introducing the Semi-Supervised Neural Process (SSNP). SSNP combines small amounts of labeled interaction data with abundant unlabeled visual data, using a jointly trained reward-prediction and autoencoding framework to extract task-relevant features. This approach reduces the need for extensive retraining and computational resources while improving generalization. The model outperforms other semi-supervised methods in a door-opening task, achieving superior performance with significantly less data.

Recommended citation: Semi-Supervised Neural Processes for Articulated Object Interaction. Emily Liu, Michael Noseworthy, Nicholas Roy. RSS 2024 Workshop on Structural Priors as Inductive Biases for Learning Robot Dynamics.
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Leveraging Intermediate Neural Collapse with Simplex ETFs for Efficient Deep Neural Networks

Published:

This paper examines the phenomenon of neural collapse, where network activations, class means, and linear classifier weights converge to a simplex equiangular tight frame (ETF) during training, enhancing interpretability, robustness, and generalization. Building on findings that neural collapse extends beyond the final layer in fully connected networks, the authors propose two novel methods: Adaptive-ETF, which enforces simplex ETF constraints across all layers beyond a certain depth, and ETF-Transformer, which applies these constraints to feedforward layers in transformer blocks. Both methods maintain performance while significantly reducing trainable parameters, offering efficient alternatives for network training and regularization.

Recommended citation: Leveraging Intermediate Neural Collapse with Simplex ETFs for Efficient Deep Neural Networks (2024). Emily Liu. NeurIPS 2024 Workshop on Mathematics of Modern Machine Learning.
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portfolio

teaching

Introduction to Cellular Automata

Workshop, Splash at MIT, 2022

Cellular automata are dynamic systems of “cell”-like objects that evolve over time to generate patterns. They have been studied extensively for their application to physics, biology, ecology, sociology, and more, in addition to posing interesting theoretical questions. Ideal for lovers of programming, mathematics, and art, this class will open with a brief lecture on history and application, as well as the rules for some basic CA. Students will then have the opportunity to implement elementary CA and Conway’s Game of Life in Python.

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Randomized Algorithms

High school summer course, MIT High School Studies Program, 2023

Randomized algorithms are algorithms that have access to a random source during computation, meaning that the output of the algorithm is non-deterministic. Oftentimes, randomized algorithms are useful in reducing computation time needed for otherwise slow or complex tasks. How do we design randomized algorithms to speed up computation without trading off correctness of our output? In this course, we will cover several Las Vegas and Monte Carlo algorithms, such as randomized quicksort, Frievald’s algorithm, game tree evaluation, and primality testing algorithms.

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Sentiment Analysis Primer

Workshop, HackMIT, 2023

This workshop serves as an introduction to sentiment and text analysis. It begins with an overview of neural network fundamentals and sentiment analysis, explaining its core concepts, applications, and significance in understanding text. Participants are then introduced to the Hugging Face ecosystem, highlighting its role in providing easy access to pre-trained NLP models.

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