Special Event: The art and science of recommender systems, with Mounia Lalmas-Roelleke
Speaker: Mounia Lalmas-Roelleke, senior director of research at Spotify
Date: Wednesday, March 27, 2023 at 3 PM (ET)
Location: Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Room 1065.

Recommender systems are playing a crucial role in modern society, enabling individuals and organizations to personalize their experiences. These algorithms analyze vast amounts of user data on preferences, behaviour, and demographics to offer tailored recommendations for products, services, and content. By facilitating more personalized flows of information, recommender systems can enable users to find content that is relevant to them, connect with like-minded individuals, and discover new opportunities by encouraging exploration.

In this special in-person event, SRI Research Lead Ashton Anderson will host a talk by Mounia Lalmas-Roelleke, senior director of research at Spotify, on what principles are required for designing successful recommender systems. Lalmas-Roelleke will share insights from her research aimed at fulfilling Spotify’s mission to match audiences and creators in ways that are personally relevant, using techniques such as machine learning and metric validation that encompass search and recommendation functions, and are built through sustained considerations based in understanding a user’s journey, optimizing for the right metric, and thinking about diversity.