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Ruth Misener

11 accepted papers

2026

BoGrape: Bayesian optimization over graphs with shortest-path encoded

ICLR 2026poster

Graph-structured data are central to many scientific and industrial applications where the goal is to optimize expensive black-box objectives defined over graph structures or node configurations---as seen in molecular design, supply chains, and sensor placement. Bayesian optimization offers a princi…

Cited by 0SourceScholar
2025

BARK: A Fully Bayesian Tree Kernel for Black-box Optimization

ICML 2025poster

We perform Bayesian optimization using a Gaussian process perspective on Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (BART). Our BART Kernel (BARK) uses tree agreement to define a posterior over piecewise-constant functions, and we explore the space of tree kernels using a Markov chain Monte Carlo approach.…

Cited by 0SourcePDFScholar
2025

The Catechol Benchmark: Time-series Solvent Selection Data for Few-shot Machine Learning

NeurIPS 2025poster

Machine learning has promised to change the landscape of laboratory chemistry, with impressive results in molecular property prediction and reaction retro-synthesis. However, chemical datasets are often inaccessible to the machine learning community as they tend to require cleaning, thorough underst…

Cited by 0SourcecodeScholar
2025

Weighted Sum of Gaussian Process Latent Variable Models

AISTATS 2025poster

This work develops a Bayesian non-parametric approach to signal separation where the signals may vary according to latent variables. Our key contribution is to augment Gaussian Process Latent Variable Models (GPLVMs) for the case where each data point comprises the weighted sum of a known number of…

Cited by 0SourceScholar
2024

Transition Constrained Bayesian Optimization via Markov Decision Processes

NeurIPS 2024poster

Bayesian optimization is a methodology to optimize black-box functions. Traditionally, it focuses on the setting where you can arbitrarily query the search space. However, many real-life problems do not offer this flexibility; in particular, the search space of the next query may depend on previous…

Cited by 5SourcePDFScholar
2024

Verifying message-passing neural networks via topology-based bounds tightening

ICML 2024poster

Since graph neural networks (GNNs) are often vulnerable to attack, we need to know when we can trust them. We develop a computationally effective approach towards providing robust certificates for message-passing neural networks (MPNNs) using a Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU) activation function. Becau…

2023

Optimizing over trained GNNs via symmetry breaking

NeurIPS 2023poster

Optimization over trained machine learning models has applications including: verification, minimizing neural acquisition functions, and integrating a trained surrogate into a larger decision-making problem. This paper formulates and solves optimization problems constrained by trained graph neural n…

2022

SnAKe: Bayesian Optimization with Pathwise Exploration

NeurIPS 2022accept

"Bayesian Optimization is a very effective tool for optimizing expensive black-box functions. Inspired by applications developing and characterizing reaction chemistry using droplet microfluidic reactors, we consider a novel setting where the expense of evaluating the function can increase significa…

Cited by 20SourcePDFScholar
2022

Tree ensemble kernels for Bayesian optimization with known constraints over mixed-feature spaces

NeurIPS 2022accept

Tree ensembles can be well-suited for black-box optimization tasks such as algorithm tuning and neural architecture search, as they achieve good predictive performance with little or no manual tuning, naturally handle discrete feature spaces, and are relatively insensitive to outliers in the trainin…

2021

Partition-Based Formulations for Mixed-Integer Optimization of Trained ReLU Neural Networks

NeurIPS 2021poster

This paper introduces a class of mixed-integer formulations for trained ReLU neural networks. The approach balances model size and tightness by partitioning node inputs into a number of groups and forming the convex hull over the partitions via disjunctive programming. At one extreme, one partition…

2018

Design of Experiments for Model Discrimination Hybridising Analytical and Data-Driven Approaches

ICML 2018oral

Healthcare companies must submit pharmaceutical drugs or medical device to regulatory bodies before marketing new technology. Regulatory bodies frequently require transparent and interpretable computational modelling to justify a new healthcare technology, but researchers may have several competing…

Cited by 9SourcePDFScholar