UAlbany CSI 436/536 Machine Learning (Spring 2026) Syllabus (still in development)

1 Basic information

Time: Monday and Wednesday 3-4:20pm
Dates: Wednesday Jan 21, 2026 - Monday May 4, 2026
Credits: 3
Classroom: Taconic 122

Instructor:
Prof. Chong Liu, cliu24 AT albany.edu
Office hours: TBD

Teaching Assistant:
TBD
Final Exam:
TBD

Reference Books:
[1] Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning. Christopher Bishop, 2009.
[2] Understanding Machine Learning: From Theory to Algorithms. Shai Shalev-Shwartz and Shai Ben-David, 2014.

2 Topics to be covered

• Review: linear algebra, calculus, optimization, probability, and statistics
• Linear classification
• Linear regression
• Generative models
• Ensemble methods
• Kernel methods, neural networks, and deep learning
• Unsupervised learning: clustering and dimension reduction
• Advanced machine learning