Pedro Rodriguez


Research Scientist in Natural Language Processing

Pedro Rodriguez

I am a researcher at FAIR Labs at Meta in Seattle. I completed my PhD in Computer Science at the University of Maryland at College Park titled "Evaluating Machine Intelligence with Question Answering" in 2021. I worked in the Computational Linguistics and Information Processing (CLIP) Lab with Jordan Boyd-Graber.

Thus far I have primarily worked in Natural Language Processing (NLP), but have recently started working in Reinforcement Learning (RL) for Compiler Optimization as well. Methodologically, my research focuses on improving how we evaluate machine learning and NLP models. This encapsulates improving how we build datasets, improving evaluation methodology, creating better benchmarks, and making sure that these align with intended use. Topically, I am interested in question answering, information retrieval, and RL for compiler optimization.

In my free time, I am an avid skier, climber, hiker, and violinist.

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Contact

Contact me at me@pedro.ai. Recruiters, please read this page before contacting me.

Industry Experience

Education

I defended my PhD dissertation in computer science at University of Maryland at College Park in April 2021. I earned my Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley in December 2014. During my undergraduate degree, I was a research assistant in UC Berkeley's AMPLab, UC Berkeley's Astronomy Department, and Boise State University's Cryosphere Group.

Service

Certifications and Professional Organizations

Avalanche Education

As a bilingual avalanche safety instructor, I have taught hundreds of students throughout Idaho, Oregon, California, Colorado, Argentina, and Chile how to safely enjoy backcountry skiing and riding. In my blog, I've posted several of my lectures and written on snowgeek.org as well. Fun fact: I got my nickname "Pinguino" while teaching in Argentina (e.g., the favicon for my site is a penguin).