Juan Elenter

Bio

> I'm a math and music nerd currently at Spotify as a Research Scientist, working on large-scale recommendation systems and generative sequential modeling. I recently earned an MA in Statistics from The Wharton School and an MEng in Systems Engineering from SEAS at the University of Pennsylvania.

Before graduate school, I worked on genomic motif discovery through ATAC-seq analysis at Stanford's KundajeLab. I also interned at CERN , contributing to the CMS Open Data initiative alongside Dr. Lassila-Perini.

Originally from the beautiful city of Montevideo, Uruguay , I studied at Universidad de la República. During this time, I played for Uruguay's national Waterpolo team and worked as a software developer at IBM. If any of this sounds interesting, or if you want to share some mate , feel free to reach out.

My work

Broadly, I work on developing reliable learning systems that scale effectively with data and compute. At Spotify, I apply these methods to large-scale recommendation systems, with a particular focus on sequential generative modeling.

Throughout my graduate studies, I adopted a data-centric perspective of ML, focusing on continual model fine-tuning as new, diverse data emerges. This has driven my work in active and continual learning using large pre-trained models. On the theoretical side, my work on duality-based constrained optimization has shown that dual subgradient methods can yield near-optimal and near-feasible solutions, without randomization, despite non-convexity. This allows models to not only excel at their main task, but also meet critical requirements such as robustness and fairness.

I also have a particular interest in problems involving biological signals such as genome sequences, medical images and the gut microbiome.

Miscelaneous

• Uruguay
• Water

Some stuff I like about Uruguay.

Mate: 1/2 Moncayo + 1/2 Baldo
My only real conversation is with this green gourd. Julio Cortázar

The uruguayan
Kind of chill and obsessed with soccer.

La Negra Tomasa
The best pizza in Uruguay, provably.

Jorge Drexler
No le hagas caso a tanto misterio
vos ya sabés la verdad
que no hay nada peor para esta seriedad
que tomársela en serio.

Asado
Typical sunday meal at family gatherings.

Murga
Asaltantes Con Patentes 2013

In the words of one my engineering professors: "To make my heritage more informative, let me tell you that Uruguayans are idiosyncratic folk. Having a working knowledge of Uruguayans means you are aware that we are obsessed with fútbol (soccer) and have managed to stay within the global top-10 despite the low population number. You are also aware that we drink mate from a calabash (a type of gourd) shell instead of tea or coffee from a mug and eat 125 pounds of beef per year. That comes at about a 6oz portion per day. Except we think a portion of beef is a full pound which means we eat beef only once every three days. On a more serious note Uruguay is very socially liberal. It was one of the first countries in the world to enact laws for free public education, 45-hr workweeks and female voting at the turn of the twentieth center and among the first to legalize marihuana and same sex marriage at the turn of the 21st. A certain anarchist vein runs strong. We are suspicious of government and have an obstinately uncooperative attitude towards authority. We nonetheless have a very large government sector because as much as we are suspicious of government we are more suspicious of corporations. Disregard for authority extends to divine powers. Half the population defines themselves as agnostic or atheist and active practice of religion is rare. What Uruguayans call “the right” is to the left of Bernie Sanders."

Water is my natural environment.

Involuntarily drinking water in Punta Ballena.

Glassy morning in one of my favourite uruguayan spots.

Involuntarily drinking frozen, cristalyzed water.

West Santa Lucia River by the way.

Me and my uncle Ernesto, with whom I crossed the Atlantic in 2016.

Signed up for water polo. Still no idea where the horses go.

Projects

ATAC-seq analysis and motif discovery
@ Stanford, KundajeLab

Prediction of complex traits in agriculture.
@ UdelaR, FarielBerry Lab
I find this case very confusing, and have not thoroughly checked the result. R.A.Fisher

CMS Open Data Initiative
@ CERN, CMS

Vitæ

• Spotify 2024-Present

  Research Scientist
  Personalization - Generative Recommendaton
• Simons Foundation 2022

  Summer Intern
  Center for Computational Mathematics
• University of Pennsylvania 2021-2024

  The Wharton School & SEAS
  MA in Statistics
  MEng in Electrical and Systems Engineering
• Stanford University 2021

  Visiting Student at KundajeLab
  ATAC-seq analysis, motif discovery
• CERN 2020

  Intern
  CMS Open Data initiative
• IBM 2019

  Full Stack Developer
  
• Universidad de la República 2016-2021

  Bsc. Electrical Engineering
  Signal Processing