Jelani Nelson (@minilek) / X

Jelani Nelson

4,471 posts

Jelani Nelson

@minilek

Professor and Department Chair @Berkeley_EECS. Research Scientist (part-time) @GoogleResearch. Founder @addiscoder. Posts are personal views. 🇻🇮🇺🇸🇪🇹

Berkeley, CA

people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~minilek

Joined February 2009

Jelani Nelson
@minilek
Oct 19, 2024
This tweet reminds me of an MIT Police alert all students got back in 2011.
Rikki Schlott
@RIKKISCHLOTT
Oct 18, 2024
PSA single men: there are literally so many single women sitting around at bars waiting to get hit on all of a sudden. Go outside for once, and the ratio will be massively in your favor.
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Jelani Nelson
@minilek
Apr 5, 2022
A @Stanford professor just threatened me with police. After BBQ Becky, Permit Patty, Golfcart Gail, and all the memes, we now have Retweet Rachel. Public advisory: don't call the cops on black people for no reason. Black people disagreeing with you on Twitter is not a crime.
Jelani Nelson
@minilek
Apr 5, 2022
Replying to @minilek
It is horrifying that the CMF claiming to uplift black children was co-authored by a person who finds police intimidation against blacks acceptable. I encourage concerned alumni and members of the @Stanford community to express your concern to the university administration.
Jelani Nelson
@minilek
Apr 5, 2022
Replying to @minilek
To be clear, what I *re*tweeted is not misinformation, not private, and not harassment. It's a screenshot from the public record. See for yourself: page 376 of tinyurl.com/oxnardcontract
Jelani Nelson
@minilek
Dec 3, 2023
My 5-year old says she wants to be a professor, so I took her to my office for a preliminary interview. I think she’s ready, what do you think?
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Jelani Nelson
@minilek
Jan 25, 2024
2+ yrs ago I co-authored a letter warning not offering Algebra I in public middle schools was anti-equity, as the wealthy could go private. Yesterday I discovered a great example: the main CA Math Framework author put her kids in a private school teaching Algebra I in 8th grade.
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Jelani Nelson
@minilek
Dec 22, 2024
"Students in upper-track math courses are no smarter or better at math than others. But their families have managed to give them a jump-start through additional after-school programs, tutors and other resources" --SFUSD administrator who supported detracking Insane quote ... 1/
EdSurge
@EdSurge
Dec 18, 2024
In 2014, San Francisco Unified School District pushed algebra to 9th grade from 8th grade, in an attempt to eliminate the tracking of students into lower and upper math paths and overturn disparities. How did this 10-year experiment pan out? Read more: edsurge.com/news/2024-12-1…
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Jelani Nelson
@minilek
Feb 1, 2025
~7 yrs ago I asked an ML faculty member to explain transformers+attention to me — not just the math, but the motivation. What they described was not nearly clear as the below video (also see the video before and the one after). The construction is completely clear and natural.
Grant Sanderson
@3blue1brown
Apr 7, 2024
The next chapter about transformers is up on YouTube, digging into the attention mechanism: youtu.be/eMlx5fFNoYc The model works with vectors representing tokens (think words), and this is the mechanism that allows those vectors to take in meaning from context.
00:00
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Jelani Nelson
@minilek
Mar 10, 2025
From @ylecun on greencard/visa revocations and deportations of scientists.
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Jelani Nelson
@minilek
Mar 2, 2025
Happy Adwa Victory Day! 129 years ago, Italian military forces attempting to colonize Ethiopia were completely annihilated in the Battle of Adwa by the Ethiopian Imperial Army, under the leadership of Emperor Menelik II and his generals. The defeat was so embarrassing for Italy
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Jelani Nelson
@minilek
Jan 5, 2023
Students making me blush w/ course evals "This man is insane on the blackboard – it's like he's pouring out knowledge." "Berkeley has a lot of great professors, but something is really special with this one! The clarity of the lectures and his technical depth is just wild."
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Jelani Nelson
@minilek
Mar 23, 2024
In the midst of this “reckless disregard for accuracy” thing, I’d like to point out that despite what her Instagram page might suggest, she actually has no affiliation with the Stanford mathematics department.
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Jelani Nelson
@minilek
Jul 1, 2025
Today is my first as department chair at @Berkeley_EECS When I left Harvard 6 yrs ago, I just saw it as moving from one great place to another. Then, it hit me at a state school I'm also now a public servant, and that fact weighs on me every day. I aim to serve the best I can.
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Jelani Nelson
@minilek
Mar 6, 2024
@elonmusk and @sama may not agree on much of late, but do agree AI is built on strong math foundations, including algebra and calculus, applauding @UofCalifornia for recent clarifications on math requirements for admission. Many industry leaders signed: mathmatters.ai
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