Research
Hi! I’m Nakul Upadhya and I’m a Doctoral Candidate at the Optimization and Machine Learning (OptiMaL) Lab at the University of Toronto under Professor Eldan Cohen. My research focuses on developing inherently interpretable machine learning models for tabular and time-series data, with applications in manufacturing and healthcare. My current line of work focuses on the concept of augmenting interpretable ML algorithms with “shape functions” - feature specific non-linear transformations - that allow for increased model expressiveness while retaining interpretability.
Selected Publications
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Empowering Decision Trees via Shape Function BranchingAdvances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 2025 - Literati: Towards Anytime Optimal Shape Generalized Trees via AO*Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 2026
Away from the desk
Apart from research, I’m very interested in speciality coffee and trying new coffee beans and cafes. Check out the coffee I’m drinking! Currently I’m developing a machine learning model for predicting espresso grind sizes for various coffees. If you are interested in contributing data for this project, send me an email! Additionally, I’m getting back into actual reading apart from papers, so check out my recently read books.