The only important parts of a PhD thesis are the acknowledgments and dedication sections 😉 so I’ve uploaded the ones from my thesis here.

Acknowledgments

When Noah A. Smith accepted me into the Ph.D. program, he invited me into an environment that eventually produced a new and improved me: a version of me that is more open to new ideas, better at executing, smarter, and more patient. I will be forever grateful to Noah for believing in me and fully trusting me from day one and for always treating me with respect, patience, and love. Noah not only taught me how to do science, he also significantly improved my storytelling abilities, my ability to hold onto a reader’s attention, and my ability to frame my stories in an appealing way.

Although formally Mike Lewis wasn’t on my committee, he was on all of the papers in my thesis, and I consider him to have been my de facto co-advisor. Our ability to bounce ideas off of each other while improving them at each iteration is incredible.
Mike’s advising complemented my thinking style in a way that immensely improved the level of the work I did during the Ph.D. Working with Mike has shown me how much easier it is to tackle complex problems when you approach them with the right partner.

The end of my first academic year was rough for me, both academically and personally. It was then that Omer Levy invited me to be his intern at Facebook AI Research (FAIR). This totally changed the course of my Ph.D., and I am very grateful to Omer for that opportunity. Omer taught me many important skills for empirical machine learning research that I still carry to this day.

After spending half a year at FAIR as Omer’s intern, Luke Zettlemoyer invited me to stay at FAIR, as a visiting researcher, for two additional years. That allowed me to work with Mike and do resource-intensive research that would not have been possible without an industry affiliation. Throughout this time, Luke gave me total freedom to explore and do research on whatever I wanted to and always provided support. Being at FAIR for two and a half years made my research much stronger than it would have been if I hadn’t been there.

I’m grateful to Jonathan Frankle for inviting me to join MosaicML as a visiting researcher for six months and for always supporting my research.

I’m grateful to Kyunghyun Cho for hosting me at the wonderful Center for Data Science at NYU where I spent the last academic year of my PhD.

I’m grateful for my first mentee, Muru Zhang, for showing me how rewarding it can be to advise.

I’m grateful for the help of Elise deGoede Dorough and Sandy Kaplan from the Allen School at the University of Washington.

I’m grateful for all the other collaborators I’ve had during my Ph.D., who I learned so much from: Adi Haviv, Ori Ram, Peter Izsak, Sewon Min, Ludwig Schmidt, Will Merrill, Alisa Liu, and members of the BigScience project.

I’m grateful for my friend Samuel K. Ainsworth. I met Sam at visit days before starting graduate school where we bonded over our love for free food. Five years later we’re still eating free food together, hopefully for many more years.

I’m grateful for my friend Ivan Evtimov. We met during the beginning of the first year of school since Ivan would always show up to the board-game nights I organized, and we have been friends ever since.

I’m grateful for my friendship with Tim Dettmers and Gabriel Ilharco and for their smart comments and strong support for my work.

I’m grateful to my academic twin brother Jungo Kasai for five years of conversations, comments on papers, and reminders about administrative tasks that I had to complete.

I’m grateful to Ian Covert, Edward Misback, and Nathan Hatch for our countless days together playing tennis.

I’m grateful for my friends back home Ofek Doitch, Dean Stephansky, Andrey Shulika, Nimrod Fiat, Gili Yablonka, Nir Aviv, Tzvika Geft, Shai Kazaz, Gil Levi, Gregory Axler, and Lior Uzan.

I’m grateful to Ben K., Sammy, Danny, Kyra, Dasha, Ben A., Jamie, Paul, Jason, Lana, Carolyn, Shirley, Ivan, Pearly, Adi, Orville, Joe, Amitai, and everyone else who taught me how to stand on the shoulders of giants.

I’m grateful for James, Trixie, Andrea, Raven, Grini, Ian, Za, and everyone else who went to Brazil with me.

I’m grateful for my therapist who has taught me how to better understand myself and others.

I’m grateful for all the love and support I’ve received from Saba, Safta, Ima, Ori, Avia, Yossi, Liat, Idan, Ronnie, and Bara, without which I would not have been able to complete my Ph.D.

Dedication

Dedicated to my grandfather, Haim Yehiel (born in 1926 in Thessaloniki, Greece, died in 2022 in Ramat Hasharon, Israel), for inspiring me to be a nerd.

This is him at the Technion in Haifa in 1945 during an undergraduate class on welding.