Owain Evans leads a collaborative project on “Inferring Human Preferences” with Andreas Stuhlmueller, Jessica Taylor and Noah Goodman. Owain is working on techniques for learning about human beliefs, preferences and values from observing human behavior or interacting with humans. This draws on machine learning (e.g. inverse reinforcement learning and probabilistic programming), cognitive science, and analytic philosophy.
Owain was previously a PhD student at MIT. He worked on MIT’s Probabilistic Computing Projecton tools and applications for Venture. He also worked on Bayesian cognitive science with Josh Tenenbaum. His dissertation was “Bayesian Computational Models for Inferring Preferences” (supervisor: Roger White).
