Andrew West

Principal Research Scientist

Download Andrew's bio (PDF)

Education

Ph.D. in Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, 2013
Master of Science in Engineering in Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, 2010
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Washington & Lee University, 2007

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Biography

Andrew G. West is a Principal Research Scientist on the Strategy & Analytics team.

In this role, he applies deep learning, machine learning, forecasting, and other data science techniques across Verisign's domain name business and associated marketing efforts. Dr. West publishes research and pursues intellectual property as an affiliate of Verisign Labs. He joined Verisign in 2013 after completing his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania.

His recent work has focused on: (1) Leveraging deep learning for generative and classification tasks, (2) modeling and forecasting many aspects of the domain name lifecycle, (3) applying big data techniques to Internet-scale quantification problems, and (4) designing crowd-sourced data collection for market measurement and competitive intelligence. Complementing these are broader research interests that include reputation management, metadata analysis, email/Web 2.0 abuse, underground economies, behavioral profiling, and Internet virality. This skill set has been demonstrated externally across 35+ peer-reviewed publications, and more internally-facing, by bringing emergent techniques to bear on business problems.

Prior to Verisign, his dissertation research investigated security in "open collaboration" applications. His work examined how user-generated content and collaborative semantics change how abuses manifest and can be detected. This yielded tools still in popular use, notably STiki, which has been used to remove 1.1+ million damaging revisions from Wikipedia. Media outlets such as the Chronicle of Higher Education and Gizmodo have recognized his contributions, and he remains an active volunteer in the Wikipedia community.

Finally, he remains in active service to the academic and professional communities as a reviewer/editor for multiple conferences and journals.