[Discussion] How alive is traditional machine learning in academia?

Is there still room for research on techniques and models that are commonly used in the industry? I currently work as a Data Scientist and am considering pursuing a Master's or Ph.D. in machine learning. However, it appears that most recent developments focus primarily on neural networks, especially Large Language Models (LLMs). Despite extensively searching through arXiv articles, I've had little success in finding research on areas like feature engineering, probability models, and tree-based algorithms. If anyone knows professors specializing …

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