{{Short description|American computer scientist and statistician}} {{Infobox scientist |image = |caption = Mackey pictured in 2023 | name = Lester Wayne Mackey II | birth_place = Long Island, NY, USA | fields = Machine learning <br> Computer science <br> Statistics | workplaces = Microsoft Research <br> Stanford University | alma_mater = University of California, Berkeley <br> Princeton | thesis_title = Matrix Factorization and Matrix Concentration | thesis_url = https://escholarship.org/uc/item/08q2q9vw | thesis_year = 2012 | doctoral_advisor = Michael I. Jordan | website = https://web.stanford.edu/~lmackey }}
'''Lester Mackey''' is an American computer scientist and statistician. He is a principal researcher at Microsoft Research and an adjunct professor at Stanford University. Mackey develops machine learning methods, models, and theory for large-scale learning tasks driven by applications from climate forecasting, healthcare, and the social good. He was named a 2023 MacArthur Fellow.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Lester Mackey |url=https://www.macfound.org/fellows/class-of-2023/lester-mackey |access-date=2023-10-11 |website=www.macfound.org |language=en}}</ref>
== Early life and education == Mackey grew up on Long Island.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title={{!}} Lester Mackey |url=https://mathematicallygiftedandblack.com/honorees/lester-mackey/ |access-date=2023-10-11 |language=en-US}}</ref> He has said that, as a teenager, the Ross Mathematics Program in number theory introduced him to proof-based mathematics, where he learned about induction and rigorous proof.<ref name=":0" /> He got his first taste of academic research at the Research Science Institute.<ref name=":0" /> He joined Princeton University as an undergraduate student, where he earned his BSE in Computer Science. There he conducted research with Maria Klawe and David Walker.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Li |first=Wendy |date=2019-10-09 |title=Conversations with Maya: Lester Mackey |url=https://www.societyforscience.org/blog/conversations-with-maya-lester-mackey/ |access-date=2023-10-11 |website=Society for Science |language=en-US}}</ref> Mackey was a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a PhD in Computer Science (2012) and an MA in Statistics (2011).<ref name=":1"></ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/lmackey/|title=Lester Mackey, Principal Researcher|website=microsoft.com}}</ref> At Berkeley, his dissertation, advised by Michael I. Jordan, included work on sparse principal components analysis (PCA) for gene expression modeling, low-rank matrix completion for recommender systems, robust matrix factorization for video surveillance, and concentration inequalities for matrices.<ref>{{Cite thesis |title=Matrix Factorization and Matrix Concentration |url=https://escholarship.org/uc/item/08q2q9vw |publisher=UC Berkeley |date=2012 |language=en |first=Lester |last=Mackey}}</ref> After Berkeley, he joined Stanford University, first as a postdoctoral fellow working with Emmanuel Candès and then as an assistant professor of statistics and, by courtesy, computer science. At Stanford, he created the Statistics for Social Good working group.<ref name=":1" />
== Research and career == In 2016, Mackey joined Microsoft Research as a researcher and was appointed as an adjunct professor at Stanford University. He was made a principal researcher in 2019.<ref name=":1" />
Mackey's early work developed a method to predict progression rates of people with ALS. He used the PRO-ACT database of clinical trial data and Bayesian inference to predict disease prognosis.<ref name=":1" /> He has also developed machine learning models for subseasonal climate and weather forecasting, to more accurately predict temperature and precipitation 2-6 weeks in advance.<ref name=":1" /> His models outperform the operational, physics-based dynamical models used by the United States Bureau of Reclamation.<ref name=":1" />
== Awards and honors == * 2003 Intel Science Talent Search 6th Place<ref>{{Cite web |date=2003-03-11 |title=Top Teen Scientists Honored At Intel Science Talent Search |url=https://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/2003/20030311corp.htm |access-date=2023-10-13 |website=Intel |language=en}}</ref> * Namesake of minor planet 15093 Lestermackey<ref>{{Cite web |title=(15093) Lestermackey |url=https://minorplanetcenter.net/db_search/show_object?object_id=15093 |access-date=2023-10-14 |website=IAU Minor Planet Center |language=en}}</ref> * 2006 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship<ref>{{Cite web |title=2006 Goldwater Scholars |url=https://goldwaterscholarship.gov/2006-scholars/ |access-date=2023-10-13 |website=Goldwater Scholarship |language=en}}</ref> * 2007 Computing Research Association Outstanding Undergraduate Award Winner<ref>{{Cite web |title=2007 Outstanding Undergraduate Award Winners |url=https://archive.cra.org/Activities/awards/undergrad/2007.html |access-date=2023-10-13 |website=CRA |language=en}}</ref> * 2007 Moses Taylor Pyne Honor Prize<ref>{{Cite web |last=Stevens |first=Ruth |date=2007-02-24 |title=Princeton gives highest awards to top students |url=https://www.princeton.edu/news/2007/02/24/princeton-gives-highest-awards-top-students |access-date=2023-10-12 |website=Princeton |language=en}}</ref> * 2009 Second Place in the $1 million Netflix Prize competition for collaborative filtering<ref>{{Cite web |last=Jackson |first=Dan |date=2017-07-07 |title=The Netflix Prize: How a $1 Million Contest Changed Binge-Watching Forever |url=https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/the-netflix-prize |access-date=2023-10-11 |website=Thrillist |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Crowley |first=Magdalene L. |date=2017-07-10 |title=The tale of Lester Mackey's pursuit of the Netflix Prize |url=https://eecs.berkeley.edu/news/2017/07/tale-lester-mackeys-pursuit-netflix-prize |access-date=2023-10-11 |website=EECS at UC Berkeley |language=en}}</ref> * 2010 Best Student Paper Award, International Conference on Machine Learning<ref>{{Cite web |title=ICML 2010 - Awards |url=https://icml.cc/Conferences/2010/awards.html |access-date=2023-10-13 |website=ICML |language=en}}</ref> * 2012 First Place in the ALS Prediction Prize4Life Challenge for predicting Lou Gehrig's disease progression<ref>{{Cite web |last=Zakaib |first=Gwyneth |date=2012-11-15 |title=Contest Winners Offer Solutions for Tracking ALS |url=https://www.alzforum.org/news/research-news/contest-winners-offer-solutions-tracking-als?id=3320 |access-date=2023-10-13 |website=ALZ Forum |language=en}}</ref> * 2019 Winner of U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's Subseasonal Climate Forecast Rodeo<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-03-07 |title=Teams complete Bureau of Reclamation's Sub-Seasonal Climate Forecast Rodeo — outperforming the baseline forecasts |url=https://www.usbr.gov/newsroom/newsrelease/detail.cfm?RecordID=64969 |access-date=2023-10-13 |website=USBR |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190929013341/https://www.usbr.gov/newsroom/newsrelease/detail.cfm?RecordID=64969 |archive-date=2019-09-29 |language=en}}</ref> * 2022 Elected to the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies Leadership Academy<ref>{{Cite web |title=ASA Community |url=https://community.amstat.org/ |access-date=2023-10-11 |website=community.amstat.org |language=en}}</ref> * 2022 Outstanding Paper Award, NeurIPS<ref>{{Cite web |last=Chairs 2023 |first=Communications |date=2022-11-21 |title=Announcing the NeurIPS 2022 Awards – NeurIPS Blog |url=https://blog.neurips.cc/2022/11/21/announcing-the-neurips-2022-awards/ |access-date=2023-10-11 |language=en-US}}</ref> * 2023 Ethel Newbold Prize<ref>{{Cite web |title=Bernoulli Society News |url=https://www.bernoullisociety.org/news |access-date=2023-10-11 |website=www.bernoullisociety.org}}</ref> * 2023 Elected Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics<ref>{{Cite web |title=Institute of Mathematical Statistics {{!}} 2023 IMS Fellows Announced |url=https://imstat.org/2023/05/02/2023-ims-fellows-announced/ |access-date=2023-10-11 |language=en}}</ref> * 2023 MacArthur Fellowship<ref name=":1" /> * 2024 Elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association<ref name="ASA Fellows 2024">{{cite web|url=https://www.amstat.org/docs/default-source/amstat-documents/pdfs/fellows/Fellows2024.pdf|title=ASA Fellows 2024|publisher=American Statistical Association|access-date=May 31, 2024}}</ref>
== Selected publications == * {{Cite Q|Q123016814}} * {{Cite Q|Q123016825}} * {{Cite Q|Q77680580}}
== References == {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mackey, Lester}} Category:Living people Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:People from Long Island Category:Princeton University alumni Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni Category:Microsoft employees Category:MacArthur Fellows Category:African-American statisticians Category:21st-century American statisticians Category:21st-century American scientists Category:American computer scientists Category:African-American computer scientists Category:Stanford University Department of Statistics faculty Category:Fellows of the American Statistical Association Category:Research Science Institute alumni Category:21st-century African-American scientists