"I read Model-based Machine Learning with enthusiasm and curiosity, finding it well writtenand captivating. This book helps understand some of the most common models and it can beused by both beginners and more experienced individuals. I particularly appreciated that itpushes readers to think critically about the assumptions, sometimes hidden, their validity, andtheir consequences on the results obtained. As peoples lives are influenced by machine-madedecisions, understanding the assumptions that affect the behavior of a a machine learningalgorithm and making sure that it is transparent, interpretable and fair is an essential skill tohave for anyone who is responsible for any stage of a models development." -Emanuela Furfaro, in Journal of the American Statistical Association, October 2024