I'm an undergrad Applied Math student who's interested in doing a thesis in Machine Learning. I'm currently taking a Machine Learning class offered at my school, and have some prior experience in the field, although not a ton.

As a beginner, its hard for me to recognize specific areas where I could possibly make some contribution, or do research of some "novel" approach. For example some areas of Machine Learning, such as Collaborative Filtering, have already had large bodies of research done on them, which would make it hard to improve upon the preexisting techniques.

What recommendations do you have for some sources, papers, where I could get some inspiration, or suggest areas/specific problems/specific techniques?