Afra Feyza Akyürek

Afra Feyza Akyürek

PhD Student in Computer Science

Boston University

Hi there, this is Feyza!

I am a fourth-year Computer Science PhD student at Boston University focusing natural language processing. Before that I received my masters in Statistics from Carnegie Mellon University. I earned my bachelors both in Industrial and Computer Engineering from Koç University, Istanbul. My current research interests are on leveraging natural language for continual learning, collaborative language models and learning from natural language feedback. In the past, I worked on a diverse set of problems including resource-constrained continual learning, low-resource machine translation and ethics in NLP.

Interests

  • Natural Language Processing
  • Continual Learning
  • Ethics in NLP

Education

  • PhD in Computer Science, 2024

    Boston University

  • MSc in Statistics, 2019

    Carnegie Mellon University

  • BSc in Computer Engineering, 2018

    Koç University

  • BSc in Industrial Engineering, 2018

    Koç University

Publications

Afra Feyza Akyürek, Sejin Paik, Muhammed Yusuf Kocyigit, Seda Akbiyik, Şerife Leman Runyun, Derry Wijaya (2022). On Measuring Social Biases in Prompt-Based Learning. Findings of NAACL 2022.

Afra Feyza Akyürek, Ekin Akyürek, Derry Wijaya, Jacob Andreas (2022). Subspace Regularizers for Few-Shot Class Incremental Learning. ICLR 2022.

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Garry Kuwanto*, Afra Feyza Akyürek*, Isidora Chara Tourni*, Siyang Li*, Derry Wijaya (2022). Low-Resource Machine Translation Training Curriculum Fit for Low-Resource Languages. Preprint.

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Ekin Akyürek, Afra Feyza Akyürek, Jacob Andreas (2021). Learning to Recombine and Resample Data for Compositional Generalization. ICLR 2021.

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Haryo Akbarianto Wibowo, Made Nindyatama Nityasya, Afra Feyza Akyürek, Suci Fitriany, Alham Fikri Aji, Radityo Eko Prasojo, Derry Tanti Wijaya (2021). IndoCollex: A Testbed for Morphological Transformation of Indonesian Word Colloquialism. Findings of ACL 2021.

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See all publications

Experience

 
 
 
 
 

Machine Learning Research Intern

Apple

Jun 2021 – Aug 2021 Cambridge, Massachusetts

Measuring and tackling gender bias in large-scale pretained language models.

Supervisors:

  • Rohit Gernapudi.
  • Ilya Oparin, PhD.
 
 
 
 
 

Biostatistics Intern

Novartis Pharmaceuticals

May 2019 – Jul 2019 East Hanover, New Jersey

Responsibilities included high-dimensional statistical analysis of clinical trial data for CAR-T therapy, a highly promising personalized immunotherapy for cancer. I created an explainable predictive modelfor treatment efficacy, revealed outstanding findings and communicated them to clinical experts.

Supervisors:

  • Kapildeb Sen, PhD.
  • Jufen Chu, PhD.
 
 
 
 
 

Operations Research Intern

PlusOneMinusOne (Arute Solutions)

Jun 2017 – Aug 2017 Istanbul, Turkey

Implementation of meta-heuristic algorithms such as genetic algorithm and simulated annealing to address cash management across ATM networks.

Supervisors:

  • Ahmet Çınar, PhD.
  • Arif Arin, PhD.
 
 
 
 
 

Logistics Analytics Intern

LC Waikiki

Jun 2016 – Dec 2016 Istanbul, Turkey

Responsibilities included determining optimal load factors for trucks using CPLEX Optimizer and dispersion analysis of goods across the logistics center.

Supervisors:

  • Arda Şirin
  • Nur Eren
  • İsmail Kaya

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