Demo Data from EDBT 2026 / reviewers in the wild / expert
Davis Brown
dblp:304/3144
· DBLP profile ↗
6ranked-venue papers
2as first author
6since 2021 · last 2025
—ORCID · unresolved
Domains — the database's venue-derived domains; a paper can count in several
Artificial intelligence and machine learning · 6 · 2 first-author · 6 since 2021Graphics, computer vision, multimedia, augmented reality and games · 1 · 1 since 2021
Expertise — from the expertise taxonomy: the topics of the expert's papers under the CCF categories. A weight counts papers with recency: 1 for a paper about the topic, 0.3 when the topic is its context, halved every five years.
| Artificial intelligence
5 papers |
Trustworthy machine learning · 39% Language models and text generation · 28% Graph learning · 10% | |
| Interdisciplinary, comprehensive, and emerging computing
1 paper |
Computational science and engineering · 100% | |
| Databases, data mining, and information retrieval
1 paper |
Machine learning and data management · 100% | |
| Software engineering, system software, and programming languages
1 paper |
Program synthesis and code generation · 100% |
Topics — the 11 heaviest of 16, each with the papers that count most for it
| Topic | Weight | Papers | Last | Evidence papers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Machine learning › Trustworthy machine learning
interpretability |
1.5 | 3 | 2025 | Understanding the Inner-workings of Language Models Through Representation Dissimilarity · EMNLP 2023 On the Symmetries of Deep Learning Models and their Internal Representations · NeurIPS 2022 Machines and Mathematical Mutations: Using GNNs to Characterize Quiver Mutation Classes · ICML 2025 |
Machine learning › Graph learning
graph neural network |
0.9 | 1 | 2025 | Machines and Mathematical Mutations: Using GNNs to Characterize Quiver Mutation Classes · ICML 2025 |
Natural language and speech › Language models and text generation
large language model evaluation |
0.9 | 1 | 2025 | Adaptively profiling models with task elicitation · EMNLP 2025 |
Natural language and speech › Language models and text generation
mathematical reasoning |
0.9 | 1 | 2025 | Machines and Mathematical Mutations: Using GNNs to Characterize Quiver Mutation Classes · ICML 2025 |
Program synthesis and code generation › neural program synthesis
LLM-based program synthesis |
0.9 | 1 | 2025 | Machine Learning meets Algebraic Combinatorics: A Suite of Datasets Capturing Research-level Conjecturing Ability in Pure Mathematics · ICML 2025 |
Natural language and speech › Language models and text generation
language model analysis |
0.7 | 1 | 2023 | Understanding the Inner-workings of Language Models Through Representation Dissimilarity · EMNLP 2023 |
Machine learning › Trustworthy machine learning
neural network interpretability |
0.7 | 1 | 2023 | Experimental Observations of the Topology of Convolutional Neural Network Activations · AAAI 2023 |
Machine learning › Representation and self-supervised learning
representation analysis |
0.7 | 1 | 2023 | Understanding the Inner-workings of Language Models Through Representation Dissimilarity · EMNLP 2023 |
Machine learning › Learning theory › neural network theory
neural network symmetries |
0.6 | 1 | 2022 | On the Symmetries of Deep Learning Models and their Internal Representations · NeurIPS 2022 |
Machine learning › Trustworthy machine learning › interpretability
explainable AI |
0.3 | 1 | 2025 | Machines and Mathematical Mutations: Using GNNs to Characterize Quiver Mutation Classes · ICML 2025 |
Computational geometry
topological data analysis |
0.2 | 1 | 2023 | Experimental Observations of the Topology of Convolutional Neural Network Activations · AAAI 2023 |
Methods — techniques the papers use, named apart from their topics
program synthesis · 2.6interpretability analysis · 2.6topological data analysis · 1.3persistent homology · 1.3mapper graph · 1.3graph neural network · 0.9automated benchmark generation · 0.9AI explainability · 0.9representation dissimilarity measures · 0.7symmetry analysis · 0.6group theory · 0.6
| Year | Publication | Venue | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Adaptively profiling models with task elicitationabstractLanguage model evaluations often fail to characterize consequential failure modes, forcing experts to inspect outputs and build new benchmarks.We introduce task elicitation, a method that automatically builds new evaluations to profile model behavior.Task elicitation finds hundreds of natural-language tasks-an order of magnitude more than prior work-where frontier models exhibit systematic failures, in domains ranging from forecasting to online harassment.For example, we find that Sonnet 3.5 over-associates quantum computing and AGI and that o3-mini is prone to hallucination when fabrications are repeated in-context 1 . Davis Brown, Prithvi Balehannina, Helen Jin, Shreya Havaldar, Seyed Hamed Hassani, Eric Wong 0001 |
EMNLP | 1 |
| 2025 | Machine Learning meets Algebraic Combinatorics: A Suite of Datasets Capturing Research-level Conjecturing Ability in Pure MathematicsabstractWith recent dramatic increases in AI system capabilities, there has been growing interest in utilizing machine learning for reasoning-heavy, quantitative tasks, particularly mathematics. While there are many resources capturing mathematics at the high-school, undergraduate, and graduate level, there are far fewer resources available that align with the level of difficulty and open endedness encountered by professional mathematicians working on open problems. To address this, we introduce a new collection of datasets, the Algebraic Combinatorics Dataset Repository (ACD Repo), representing either foundational results or open problems in algebraic combinatorics, a subfield of mathematics that studies discrete structures arising from abstract algebra. Further differentiating our dataset collection is the fact that it aims at the conjecturing process. Each dataset includes an open-ended research level question and a large collection of examples (up to 10M in some cases) from which conjectures should be generated. We describe all nine datasets, the different ways machine learning models can be applied to them (e.g., training with narrow models followed by interpretability analysis or program synthesis with LLMs), and discuss some of the challenges involved in designing datasets like these. Herman Chau, Helen Jenne, Davis Brown, Jesse He, Mark Raugas, Sara C. Billey, Henry Kvinge |
ICML | 3 |
| 2025 | Machines and Mathematical Mutations: Using GNNs to Characterize Quiver Mutation ClassesabstractMachine learning is becoming an increasingly valuable tool in mathematics, enabling one to identify subtle patterns across collections of examples so vast that they would be impossible for a single researcher to feasibly review and analyze. In this work, we use graph neural networks to investigate quiver mutation---an operation that transforms one quiver (or directed multigraph) into another---which is central to the theory of cluster algebras with deep connections to geometry, topology, and physics. In the study of cluster algebras, the question of mutation equivalence is of fundamental concern: given two quivers, can one efficiently determine if one quiver can be transformed into the other through a sequence of mutations? In this paper, we use graph neural networks and AI explainability techniques to independently discover mutation equivalence criteria for quivers of type $\tilde{D}$. Along the way, we also show that even without explicit training to do so, our model captures structure within its hidden representation that allows us to reconstruct known criteria from type $D$, adding to the growing evidence that modern machine learning models are capable of learning abstract and general rules from mathematical data. Jesse He, Helen Jenne, Herman Chau, Davis Brown, Mark Raugas, Sara C. Billey, Henry Kvinge |
ICML | 4 |
| 2023 | Experimental Observations of the Topology of Convolutional Neural Network ActivationsabstractTopological data analysis (TDA) is a branch of computational mathematics, bridging algebraic topology and data science, that provides compact, noise-robust representations of complex structures. Deep neural networks (DNNs) learn millions of parameters associated with a series of transformations defined by the model architecture resulting in high-dimensional, difficult to interpret internal representations of input data. As DNNs become more ubiquitous across multiple sectors of our society, there is increasing recognition that mathematical methods are needed to aid analysts, researchers, and practitioners in understanding and interpreting how these models' internal representations relate to the final classification. In this paper we apply cutting edge techniques from TDA with the goal of gaining insight towards interpretability of convolutional neural networks used for image classification. We use two common TDA approaches to explore several methods for modeling hidden layer activations as high-dimensional point clouds, and provide experimental evidence that these point clouds capture valuable structural information about the model's process. First, we demonstrate that a distance metric based on persistent homology can be used to quantify meaningful differences between layers and discuss these distances in the broader context of existing representational similarity metrics for neural network interpretability. Second, we show that a mapper graph can provide semantic insight as to how these models organize hierarchical class knowledge at each layer. These observations demonstrate that TDA is a useful tool to help deep learning practitioners unlock the hidden structures of their models. Emilie Purvine, Davis Brown, Brett A. Jefferson, Cliff A. Joslyn, Brenda Praggastis, Archit Rathore, Madelyn Shapiro, Bei Wang 0001, Youjia Zhou |
AAAI | 2 |
| 2023 | Understanding the Inner-workings of Language Models Through Representation DissimilarityabstractAs language models are applied to an increasing number of real-world applications, understanding their inner workings has become an important issue in model trust, interpretability, and transparency.In this work we show that representation dissimilarity measures, which are functions that measure the extent to which two model's internal representations differ, can be a valuable tool for gaining insight into the mechanics of language models.Among our insights are: (i) an apparent asymmetry in the internal representations of model using SoLU and GeLU activation functions, (ii) evidence that dissimilarity measures can identify and locate generalization properties of models that are invisible via in-distribution test set performance, and (iii) new evaluations of how language model features vary as width and depth are increased.Our results suggest that dissimilarity measures are a promising set of tools for shedding light on the inner workings of language models. Davis Brown, Charles Godfrey, Nicholas Konz, Jonathan H. Tu, Henry Kvinge |
EMNLP | 1 |
| 2022 | On the Symmetries of Deep Learning Models and their Internal RepresentationsabstractSymmetry has been a fundamental tool in the exploration of a broad range of complex systems. In machine learning, symmetry has been explored in both models and data. In this paper we seek to connect the symmetries arising from the architecture of a family of models with the symmetries of that family’s internal representation of data. We do this by calculating a set of fundamental symmetry groups, which we call the intertwiner groups of the model. Each of these arises from a particular nonlinear layer of the model and different nonlinearities result in different symmetry groups. These groups change the weights of a model in such a way that the underlying function that the model represents remains constant but the internal representations of data inside the model may change. We connect intertwiner groups to a model’s internal representations of data through a range of experiments that probe similarities between hidden states across models with the same architecture. Our work suggests that the symmetries of a network are propagated into the symmetries in that network’s representation of data, providing us with a better understanding of how architecture affects the learning and prediction process. Finally, we speculate that for ReLU networks, the intertwiner groups may provide a justification for the common practice of concentrating model interpretability exploration on the activation basis in hidden layers rather than arbitrary linear combinations thereof. Charles Godfrey, Davis Brown, Tegan Emerson, Henry Kvinge |
NeurIPS | 2 |