The Redwood Center is excited to announce the graduation of Ph.D. student Jamie Simon in December 2024. Jamie’s graduate work was devoted to the development of fundamental theory for deep learning, which turned out to be more topical than anyone suspected in 2019. His academic training (and departmental affiliation) was in physics, and the style and methodology of his studies of deep learning reflected this. His graduate work touched on a diverse suite of current topics in deep learning theory, centering on the theory of infinite-width networks, including kernel methods and feature-learning limits. During his Ph.D., Jamie was an author on roughly eighteen publications in ML and physics written with twelve groups across academia and industry. Upon graduating, he received the Physics Department’s Alex Zettl award for the most influential thesis of the year.

Around Redwood, Jamie is known for his mentorship of younger students and his devotion to fun during the pursuit of science. Exemplifying this, upon being hooded by his advisor Mike DeWeese, Jamie’s first act as a newly-minted doctor was catching a grape in his mouth thrown by a friend in the audience.

Post-graduation, Jamie is continuing an industry fellowship with Imbue, who will sponsor his open-ended research into deep learning theory and support a small team of graduate students at the Redwood Center.