Ummm... Map-Reduce is a system infrastructure based on functional programming. It has applications in Machine Learning, but it isn't fundamentally based in machine learning.
Ok, I think I see what you meant a bit more clearly now.
It's just that every respectable CS department I've seen has some course in machine learning, and most of them also have some kind of course in "Programming Language Paradigms" or something where functional programming, including the map and reduce functions, will be taught.
Though admittedly, the number where functional programming and its related disciplines are taught or researched, or even acknowledged, at any real level is pathetically small. Yet, FP and programming language theory in general are still far more advanced in academia than in industry.
