Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for February
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CA DREAMS - Technical Seminar Series
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Fri, Feb 07, 2025 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. M.C. Frank Chang, Wintek Chair in Electrical Engineering and Distinguished Professor, UCLA
Talk Title: Future System-on-Chip for Full Spectrum Utilization from RF to Optics
Abstract: The ever-increasing bandwidth requirement due to explosively growing 5/6G and AIoT data flows has compelled global commission authorities to release EM-spectra up to millimeter-wave (30-300GHz) and even (sub)-millimeter-wave frequency regimes (>300GHz) for massively expanded sensing and network applications. In this talk, we will exemplify novel CMOS-embedded technologies and methodologies developed at UCLA to enable System-on-Chip (SoC) realizations for multi-broadband radio, wideband radar, contactless/plastic interconnect, 3D-imaging and gas-phase rotational spectrometry at (sub)-mm-Wave frequencies. We will also address challenges encountered in both design and implementations that may hinder further development of such systems, especially the major shortcomings in silicon technologies with limited dynamic range and power handling capabilities. We therefore propose replacing CMOS n-FET’s drain with selectively grown wide bandgap cubic-phase GaN (c-GaN) for >10X improved breakdown voltages to secure desired sensing/communication range/coverage with cost-effectiveness. Additionally, we will elaborate on the possible growth of multi-wavelength light-emitting sources and detectors directly atop n-FinFET’s c-GaN Drain with various indium contents of InGaN/GaN super-lattice for RF-optical combined radio/radar/interconnect applications by creating unprecedented “Photonic System-on-Chip” with full EM-spectrum utilization from RF to optics.
Biography: Dr. M.C. Frank Chang is the Wintek Chair in Electrical Engineering and Distinguished Professor of UCLA. Throughout his career, he has focused on the research & development of high-speed semiconductor devices and integrated circuits for radio, radar, imager, spectrometer, and AIoT System-on-Chip applications. He is a Member of the US National Academy of Engineering, the European Academy of Science and Arts, and an academician of Academia Sinica, Taiwan. He also received the IEEE David Sarnoff Award (2006), IET JJ Thomson Medal for Electronics (2017), IEEE/RSE (Royal Society Edinburgh) James Clerk Maxwell Medal (2023), and AASF’s Asian American Pioneer Medal (2024) for his seminal contributions to heterojunction technology and realizations of (sub)-mm-Wave System-on-Chip with unprecedented bandwidth and re-configurability. He also took a leave of absence from UCLA during 2015-2019 to serve as the President of National Chiao Tung University, Hsin-Chu, Taiwan. He earned his B.S. in Physics from the National Taiwan University (1972), his M.S. in Material Science from the National Tsing Hua University (1974), and his Ph.D. in Electronics from the National Chiao Tung University (1979).
Host: Dr. Steve Crago
More Info: https://www.isi.edu/events/5417/future-system-on-chip-for-full-spectrum-utilization-from-rf-to-optics/
Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97017422125?pwd=Dbrt8MNMrmBV3xalKQJcAiNsggFJjJ.1&from=addonWebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97017422125?pwd=Dbrt8MNMrmBV3xalKQJcAiNsggFJjJ.1&from=addon
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Amy Kasmir
Event Link: https://www.isi.edu/events/5417/future-system-on-chip-for-full-spectrum-utilization-from-rf-to-optics/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
CA DREAMS - Technical Seminar Series
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Fri, Feb 14, 2025 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Bobby Brar, President, Teledyne Scientific Company
Talk Title: Teledyne Scientific Advanced Technology Overview
Abstract: Teledyne Scientific Company is the Central R&D Lab for Teledyne Technologies. We are also a merchant supplier of advanced compound semiconductor technology for InP, GaN, MEMS and Heterogeneous Integration. The talk will review our current foundry offerings and new technologies in the pipeline, with an emphasis on what differentiates our offerings. The technologies developed and produced in our foundry are suitable for high-speed and broadband electronics for 5G/6G communication, high power RF sources, high-dynamic range sensors, electromagnetic warfare, and test and measurement applications.
Biography: Berinder “Bobby” Brar received his Ph.D in Electrical Engineering at UCSB in 1995, conducting research on the lnAs/AISb/GaSb semiconductor materials for high-speed electronic and optoelectronic applications. After completing his graduate work, he joined the Nanoelectronics branch in the Central Research Labs at Texas Instruments and worked on lnP- and Si-based resonant tunneling devices and field effect transistors for high-speed mixed-signal applications. Dr. Brar joined the Teledyne Scientific Company in 1999 to manage the Advanced III-V Devices and Materials department. Dr. Brar is presently the President of Teledyne Scientific Company, a technology leader in high performance compound semiconductor devices and integrated circuits, and high-performance imaging systems for military, space, astronomy, and commercial applications. Dr. Brar has previously worked at R&D labs for Rockwell, Texas Instruments, and Raytheon. Dr. Brar has published over 100 papers in conference proceedings and technical journals and has over 35 patents pending or awarded.
Host: Dr. Steve Crago
More Info: https://www.isi.edu/events/5386/teledyne-scientific-advanced-technology-overview/
Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97017422125?pwd=Dbrt8MNMrmBV3xalKQJcAiNsggFJjJ.1&from=addonWebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97017422125?pwd=Dbrt8MNMrmBV3xalKQJcAiNsggFJjJ.1&from=addon
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Amy Kasmir
Event Link: https://www.isi.edu/events/5386/teledyne-scientific-advanced-technology-overview/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
AI Seminar-Building World-class AI Innovation Ecosystems: Experience and FutureBuilding World-class AI Innovation Ecosystems: Experience and Future
Tue, Feb 18, 2025 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Amit Sheth, Univ of South Carolina
Talk Title: Building World-class AI Innovation Ecosystems: Experience and Future
Series: AI Seminar
Abstract: In the first part of this two-part talk, I will share my experience in building two high-impact innovation ecosystems focused on foundational, interdisciplinary, and translational AI. Key components of these ecosystems include visionary leadership—identifying and establishing a presence on topics and themes before they become trends—as well as creating high-performance, highly motivated collaborative teams. This involves recruiting exceptional faculty and students and providing world-class resources and facilities. The outcomes of these efforts include outstanding student success, interdisciplinary collaborations that merge foundational research with real-world applications, high-impact and well-cited publications, competitive funding, regional technical leadership, partnerships with industry, and support for startups and entrepreneurship. Additionally, there are significant regional economic impacts, along with national and international recognition for overall excellence.
https://usc.zoom.us/j/96128473400?pwd=RKbkQ0o8WLB0rxcTQVf2sxQbL0S6Oc.1
Meeting ID: 961 2847 3400
Passcode: 247398
Biography: Prof. Amit Sheth (Home Page, LinkedIn, GScholar) is an Educator, Researcher, and Entrepreneur. He is the NCR Chair & Professor of Computer Sc & Engg. He founded the university-wide AI Institute at the University of South Carolina in 2019 which now has ~50 researchers. Earlier, he was the Ohio Eminent Scholar and Exec. Director of Ohio Center of Excellence in Knowledge-enabled Computing and BioHealth Innovation at Wright State University. He is a Fellow of IEEE, AAAI, AAAS, ACM, and AAIA. His major awards include IEEE CS W. Wallace McDowell and IEEE TVSVC Research Innovation awards. He has (co-)founded four companies based on his university research, including the first Semantic Search company in 1999 that pioneered technology similar to what is found today in Google Semantic Search and Knowledge Graph, ezDI, which developed knowledge-infused clinical NLP/NLU, and Cognovi Labs at the intersection of emotion and AI. He is particularly proud of the success of his >>45 Ph.D. advisees and postdocs in academia, industry research, and entrepreneurship.
Host: Craig Knoblock and Karen Rawlins
More Info: https://www.isi.edu/events/5400/building-world-class-ai-innovation-ecosystems-experience-and-future/
Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/96128473400?pwd=RKbkQ0o8WLB0rxcTQVf2sxQbL0S6Oc.1Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - CRs #1135-1137
WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/96128473400?pwd=RKbkQ0o8WLB0rxcTQVf2sxQbL0S6Oc.1
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Pete Zamar
Event Link: https://www.isi.edu/events/5400/building-world-class-ai-innovation-ecosystems-experience-and-future/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
AI Seminar- Evaluating Sparse Autoencoders with Board Game Models
Fri, Feb 21, 2025 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Adam Karvonen, Machine Learning Researcher with the ML Alignment & Theory Scholars
Talk Title: Evaluating Sparse Autoencoders with Board Game Models
Abstract: Join Zoom Meeting: https://usc.zoom.us/j/94409584905?pwd=Sm5LVkd0bndUdEluM3piK0NWTUQrUT09 Meeting ID: 944 0958 4905Passcode: 822247 Sparse Autoencoders (SAEs) have recently become one of the most popular approaches in interpretability. As a result, there has been a flurry of new proposed SAE approaches. However, we struggle to evaluate these new approaches because there isn’t an underlying ground truth in natural language that we can use to create objective metrics for interpretability. We examine the setting of board games, using OthelloGPT and ChessGPT, and create two supervised metrics: “coverage” to assess individual feature quality and “board reconstruction” to measure overall state capture. Additionally, we propose a new SAE training approach called “p-annealing”. Our metrics reveal improvements that were hidden by existing proxy metrics, and the p-annealing approach performs the best on our metrics. While SAEs achieve high performance on board reconstruction (F1 scores of 0.85 and 0.95 on Chess and Othello), they don’t match the performance of linear probes, suggesting current techniques may not capture all of a model’s board state information. Papers: Intro to Sparse Autoencoders: What are SAEs? How do they work? What are the next steps for the field to take? Similar to this blog post: https://adamkarvonen.github.io/machine_learning/2024/06/11/sae-intuitions.html Board Game Models: Covers this paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.00113 and this blog post: https://adamkarvonen.github.io/machine_learning/2024/06/12/sae-board-game-eval.html
Biography: I am mostly interested in machine learning and software engineering. Lately, a lot of my focus has been on Large Language Models - both in using them as a tool when combined with formal methods, and in understanding and interpreting them. Outside of work, I race dirt bikes. I race A class in hard enduro, and B class in regular enduro and hare scrambles.
Host: Abel Salinas and Justina Gilleland
More Info: https://www.isi.edu/events/5368/evaluating-sparse-autoencoders-with-board-game-models/
Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/94409584905?pwd=Sm5LVkd0bndUdEluM3piK0NWTUQrUT09Location: Virtual Only
WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/94409584905?pwd=Sm5LVkd0bndUdEluM3piK0NWTUQrUT09
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Pete Zamar
Event Link: https://www.isi.edu/events/5368/evaluating-sparse-autoencoders-with-board-game-models/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
CA DREAMS - Technical Seminar Series
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Fri, Feb 21, 2025 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Jeong-sun Moon, HRL Laboratories
Talk Title: HRL's Millimeter-wave GaN Technologies
Abstract: This talk will present HRL’s millimeter-wave GaN technologies developed under the DARPA DREAM program to advance millimeter-wave GaN transistor technologies with higher linearity, efficiency, and power density, leveraging HRL’s long history of GaN technology development.
Biography: Dr. Jeong-sun Moon is a Principal Scientist at HRL Laboratories, Malibu, CA and a Fellow of IEEE. He has been with HRL since 2000 and working on developing next-generation advanced RF/EO/IR technologies and has been a PI for numerous contracts from DARPA, ONR, and USG. Before joining the HRL, he worked at the Sandia National Laboratories. He has over 200 technical publications and holds 30 patents.
Host: Dr. Steve Crago
More Info: https://www.isi.edu/events/5342/hrls-millimeter-wave-gan-technologies/
Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97017422125?pwd=Dbrt8MNMrmBV3xalKQJcAiNsggFJjJ.1&from=addonWebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97017422125?pwd=Dbrt8MNMrmBV3xalKQJcAiNsggFJjJ.1&from=addon
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Amy Kasmir
Event Link: https://www.isi.edu/events/5342/hrls-millimeter-wave-gan-technologies/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
NL Seminar-Contextualization for Human-AI Interactions
Thu, Feb 27, 2025 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Justin Cho, USC/ISI, USC/ISI
Talk Title: Contextualization for Human-AI Interactions
Abstract: Meeting hosts only admit on-line guests that they know to the Zoom meeting. Hence, you’re highly encouraged to use your USC account to sign into Zoom. If you’re an outside visitor, please inform us at (nlg-seminar-host(at)isi.edu) to make us aware of your attendance so we can admit you. Specify if you will attend remotely or in person at least one business day prior to the event. Provide your: full name, job title and professional affiliation and arrive at least 10 minutes before the seminar begins. https://usc.zoom.us/j/94650895633?pwd=FiYw69aOiNZ9KkmIdO0JpaiG59QctB.1 Meeting ID: 946 5089 5633 Passcode: 282370 Recent developments in AI are nothing short of amazing, but goal posts move, and we quickly discover that AI remains insufficient for fulfilling many real world tasks. The shortcoming can be largely attributed to a lack of contextual understanding on the AI’s part. This is not surprising given that the dominant training and evaluation paradigm for AI models prioritizes scale and rapid progress. As a result, we’ve developed a bias for textual data, instruction data with transactional interactions, aggregated and simple preference data, and evaluation tasks that can be easily verified. In this talk, I present research that explores the opposite side of this bias for enabling more useful and contextualized human-AI interactions. Specifically, I introduce three research directions to demonstrate that utility is a function of context and that teaching an AI model to understand the specific context of its interaction with humans is crucial for successful outcomes. (1) How an interaction takes places: human-AI interactions will expand beyond communicating with a textual interface, such as speech. I present how we can adapt language models for speech-based interactions with literature-guided prompts and speech-based preference data. (2) Who the user is: every user is different and sparingly share their data. I demonstrate how we can align language models to individual users without any fine-tuning and using small amount of per-user data. (3) What is the goal: complex tasks require evaluations that take a more holistic approach that goes beyond the immediate model response. Through a case study of using language models as content moderators, I argue that evaluations for complex tasks need to account for each group of stakeholders as the perceived effectiveness of language models vary significantly among them.
Biography: Justin Cho is a PhD Candidate at University of Southern California advised by Jonathan May. His research has centered around refining the context in which language models are involved in human-AI interactions, such as enhancing dialogue models with grounding techniques and understanding of the interaction modality, personalizing language model outputs, and applying them for social good. He has previously led USC’s team into the semifinals for the fourth Alexa Prize Socialbot Grand Challenge, co-organized the Conversational AI workshop at ICML 2024, and interned at Meta’s Conversational AI team, Amazon Alexa, and Amazon AGI. Subscribe here to learn more about upcoming seminars: https://www.isi.edu/events/ For more information on the NL Seminar series and upcoming talks, please visit: https://www.isi.edu/research-groups-nlg/nlg-seminars/
Host: Jonathan May and Katy Felkner
More Info: https://www.isi.edu/events/5488/nl-seminar-contextualization-for-human-ai-interactions/
Webcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5CpzeC1nEMLocation: Information Science Institute (ISI) - Virtual Only
WebCast Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5CpzeC1nEM
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Pete Zamar
Event Link: https://www.isi.edu/events/5488/nl-seminar-contextualization-for-human-ai-interactions/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
AI Seminar-Can We Blame the Chatbot if it Goes Wrong?
Fri, Feb 28, 2025 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Sun-Gyoo Kang, National Bank of Canada
Talk Title: Can We Blame the Chatbot if it Goes Wrong?
Abstract: Zoom Info: https://usc.zoom.us/j/93148797047?pwd=ebx0kDpoHqrXACc24lWM1Y8fZw89qO.1 Webinar ID: 931 4879 7047 Passcode: 621721 Reg Link: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_CE_lGmAHQ7SVwxK9PBwJ0Q This presentation examines the complex issue of accountability for AI chatbots, particularly in light of recent tragic incidents where chatbots contributed to suicides. The presentation will be mainly on the Air Canada case, which established corporate responsibility for chatbot errors. It will then define key concepts like accountability, responsibility, and liability, and then explores the importance of transparency and explainability in achieving accountability and identifies various actors—developers, data providers, deployers, and even users—who might share responsibility. Finally, it will compare the EU's AI Act and Canada's AIDA, highlighting their shared responsibility models and the ongoing challenges of assigning liability in the rapidly evolving field of generative AI.
Biography: Sun Gyoo Kang is a lawyer and compliance officer in the financial industry, specializing in the banking sector. He is currently the Chief Compliance Advisor at National Bank of Canada. Sun Gyoo is also the founder of Law and Ethics in Tech, a private research lab focusing on AI and FinTech law and regulations, as well as ethical considerations surrounding these technologies. His research on AI ethics is demonstrated through publication such as the “Analysis of artificial intelligence and data act based on ethical frameworks" in the International Journal of Law, Ethics, and Technology. He often writes columns for the Montreal AI Ethics Institute talking about different ethical issues with artificial intelligence.
Host: Abel Salinas and Pete Zamar
More Info: https://www.isi.edu/events/5349/ai-seminar-can-we-blame-the-chatbot-if-it-goes-wrong/
Webcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgrtHFbx23ELocation: Information Science Institute (ISI) - Virtual Only
WebCast Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgrtHFbx23E
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Pete Zamar
Event Link: https://www.isi.edu/events/5349/ai-seminar-can-we-blame-the-chatbot-if-it-goes-wrong/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
CA DREAMS - Technical Seminar Series
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Fri, Feb 28, 2025 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Gabriel M. Rebeiz, Professor, University of California, San Diego
Talk Title: Silicon-Based Phased-Arrays for SATCOM and 5G/6G: Lessons Learned from a Life in Microwaves
Abstract: Affordable phased-arrays, built using low-cost silicon chips, have become an essential technology for high data-rate terrestrial (5G) systems to their high gain, electronically steerable patterns, narrow beamwidths, high tolerance to interference and adaptive nulling capabilities. These advances are reshaping our communication and sensor systems, as we work to change our world from the Marconi-Era driven by low-gain antenna systems to the Directive Communications era where every antenna, every beam, every sensor is electronically steered. This talk summarizes our work in this area and concludes with future 5G-Advanced and 6G systems with wideband frequency coverage and where every device will be connected at Gbps speeds. The talk will also present life-long lessons that Professor Rebeiz learned from his work in microwaves.
Biography: Professor Gabriel M. Rebeiz is Member of the National Academy (elected for his work on phased-arrays) and is a Distinguished Professor and the Wireless Communications Industry Endowed Chair at the University of California, San Diego. He is an IEEE Fellow and is the recipient of the IEEE MTT Microwave Prize (2000, 2014, 2020) all for phased-arrays. His 2x2 and 4x4 RF-beamforming architectures are now used by most companies developing communication and radar systems. All SATCOM affordable phased-arrays are based on his work. He has published 900 IEEE papers with an H-index of 102 and has graduated 124 PhD students including the former CEO of Qualcomm and several VPs in the communications and defense industry.
Host: Dr. Steve Crago
More Info: https://www.isi.edu/events/5339/silicon-based-phased-arrays-for-satcom-and-5g-6g-lessons-learned-from-a-life-in-microwaves/
Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97017422125?pwd=Dbrt8MNMrmBV3xalKQJcAiNsggFJjJ.1&from=addonWebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97017422125?pwd=Dbrt8MNMrmBV3xalKQJcAiNsggFJjJ.1&from=addon
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Amy Kasmir
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor.
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