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Events for February 04, 2021

  • Virtual Career & Internship Expo

    Thu, Feb 04, 2021 @ 07:00 AM - 07:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Receptions & Special Events


    This event is open exclusively to Viterbi undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students and facilitates connections between Viterbi students and employers.

    Registration Information available on our website

    Location: Virtual
    Time: 8 a.m. - 4 p.m. (PST) | 8:30 p.m. - 4:30 a.m. (IST) | 11 p.m. - 7 a.m. (CST)


    For the most up-to-date information on the Career & Internship Expo, visit: https://viterbicareers.usc.edu/careerexpo/

    Location: Virtual

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • NL SEMINAR-From Human Language to Agent Action

    Thu, Feb 04, 2021 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Information Sciences Institute

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Jesse Thomason, USC CS/Amazon Alexa

    Talk Title: From Human Language to Agent Action

    Abstract: There is a usability gap between manipulation capable robots and helpful in home digital agents. Dialog enabled smart assistants have recently seen widespread adoption, but these cannot move or manipulate objects. By contrast, manipulation-capable and mobile robots are still largely deployed in industrial settings and do not interact with human users. Language enabled robots can bridge this gap natural language interfaces help robots and non-experts collaborate to achieve their goals. Navigation in unexplored environments to high level targets like Go to the room with a plant can be facilitated by enabling agents to ask questions and react to human clarifications on the fly. Further, high level instructions like Put a plate of toast on the table require inferring many steps, from finding a knife to operating a toaster. Low level instructions can serve to clarify these individual steps. Through two new datasets and accompanying models, we study human human dialog for cooperative navigation, and high and low level language instructions for cooking, cleaning, and tidying in interactive home environments. These datasets are a first step towards collaborative, dialog enabled robots helpful in human spaces.

    Biography: Jesse is starting as an Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California in fall 2021, and is currently hanging out at Amazon Alexa AI for a year. Recently, he was a postdoctoral researcher working with Luke Zettlemoyer at the University of Washington. His research focuses on language grounding and natural language processing applications for robotics RoboNLP. Key to this work is using dialog with humans to facilitate both robot task execution and learning to enable lifelong improvement of robots language understanding capabilities. He has encouraged work in RoboNLP through workshop organization at NLP, robotics, and vision conference venues.



    Host: Jon May and Mozhdeh Gheini

    More Info: https://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/

    Webcast: https://youtu.be/vSLk1T48WTo

    Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - Virtual Only

    WebCast Link: https://youtu.be/vSLk1T48WTo

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Petet Zamar

    Event Link: https://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/

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  • BD Technology Leadership Development Program Info Session

    Thu, Feb 04, 2021 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    PhD Students and Postdocs

    Virtual Session, Launching Your Career in the Med Tech Industry

    Come learn about BD's Technology Leadership Development Program (we're hiring!), one of the premier career-accelerating opportunities in the med tech industry, along with insider interview & resume tips that will give you a leg up for your transition to industry.

    WHEN: Feb 4 @ 2 ET, Feb 9 @ 5 ET, or Feb 10 @ 8 ET

    PLEASE RSV HERE: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=fObDlC2eAEimt2Ndl4ghZQtnRfKzTwNLtv4lXVv-n7dURFE5R0JNQUg2VTNISFBURzhERDRKQloxOS4u

    Join the Session HERE: https://teams.microsoft.com/dl/launcher/launcher.html?url=%2F_%23%2Fl%2Fmeetup-join%2F19%3Ameeting_N2Q3Yjg0MGUtMDRkNy00YTkwLWE5NTEtYzBhZTUwY2ZhYzA5%40thread.v2%2F0%3Fcontext%3D%257b%2522Tid%2522%253a%252294c3e67c-9e2d-4800-a6b7-635d97882165%2522%252c%2522Oid%2522%253a%252219aa5f70-9974-4ad1-94b2-194ac9239b21%2522%257d%26anon%3Dtrue&type=meetup-join&deeplinkId=6220f644-b8e9-4cdf-98ab-4b831a43b222&directDl=true&msLaunch=true&enableMobilePage=true&suppressPrompt=true

    The TLDP vision is to develop future leaders of BD's R&D organization.

    The program consists of three successively more challenging assignments (~18 months each) that span multiple businesses and / or locations within BD. A personalized and dynamic career path is sculpted for each TLDP associate with the influence of senior R&D leaders and your personal skills and interests.

    Program Qualifications:

    Outstanding Ph.D. graduates with significant leadership experience and technical depth in engineering, life sciences, or natural sciences fields: Mechanical engineering, biomedical engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, chemical engineering, materials science, chemistry, biology, and related fields

    Early-stage career (less than 3 years of industry or postdoc experience outside the pursuit of a degree)

    Willingness and ability to relocate to different geographic locations

    To qualify for this position, you must be legally authorized to work in the United States without restriction to duration.


    Postdocs and PhD students at all stages are welcome. Please note that we encourage you to apply for the program 6 months - 1 year prior to your intended start date for optimal timing.

    Apply at https://jobs.bd.com/job/sandy/technology-leadership-development-program-senior-engineer/159/17633017 (Job ID R-376803)

    Application closes March 1st for the 2021 spring cycle

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • PwC Tech Talk - Reimagining what’s possible with digital transformation

    Thu, Feb 04, 2021 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Pre-registration is required for this event. Please register here: https://tinyurl.com/yc9uf7c3 by Wednesday, February 3.

    Additional event details and joining information will be sent out in advance of the event.

    At this event, you will have the opportunity to hear from Mitra Best, lead partner of Strategic Innovation and Technology, who will talk about the impact we make on society through technology. In addition, you'll be able to attend various sessions focused on different tech groups with PwC and how they bring their work to life!

    What: PwC Tech Talk - Reimagining what's possible with digital transformation

    Who: Freshmen, Sophomores and Juniors in a 5 year program interested in learning more about technology and careers at PwC!

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Repeating EventUndergraduate Advisement Drop-in Hours

    Thu, Feb 04, 2021 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Do you have a quick question? The CS advisement team will be available for drop-in live chat advisement for declared undergraduate students in our four majors during the spring semester on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 1:30pm to 2:30pm Pacific Time. Access the live chat on our website at: https://www.cs.usc.edu/chat/

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Undergrad

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    Contact: USC Computer Science

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  • Repeating EventM.S. Group Advisement

    Thu, Feb 04, 2021 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Workshops & Infosessions


    This optional group advisement session is for new and continuing M.S. Computer Science students and M.S. students in our Data Science Programs. Access instructions will be emailed to students prior to the session.

    Location: Online - Zoom

    Audiences: Graduate

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    Contact: USC Computer Science

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  • CS Distinguished Lecture: Ayanna Howard (Georgia Institute of Technology) - Hacking the Human Bias in the Robotics Machine

    Thu, Feb 04, 2021 @ 04:00 PM - 05:20 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Ayanna Howard, Georgia Institute of Technology

    Talk Title: Hacking the Human Bias in the Robotics Machine

    Series: Computer Science Distinguished Lecture Series

    Abstract: People tend to overtrust sophisticated computing devices, including robotic systems. As these systems become more fully interactive with humans during the performance of day-to-day activities, the role of bias in these human-robot interaction scenarios must be more carefully investigated. Bias is a feature of human life that is intertwined, or used interchangeably, with many different names and labels -“ stereotypes, prejudice, implicit or subconsciously held beliefs. In the digital age, this bias has often been encoded in and can manifest itself through AI algorithms, which humans then take guidance from, resulting in the phenomenon of excessive trust. Trust conveys the concept that when interacting with intelligent systems, humans tend to exhibit similar behaviors as when interacting with other humans; thus, the concern is that people may under-appreciate or misunderstand the risk associated with handing over decisions to an intelligent agent. Bias further impacts this potential risk for trust, or overtrust, in that these systems are learning by mimicking our own thinking processes, inheriting our own implicit biases. Consequently, the propensity for trust and the potential of bias may have a direct impact on the overall quality of the interaction between humans and machines, whether the interaction is in the domains of healthcare, job-placement, or other high-impact life scenarios. In this talk, we will discuss this phenomenon of integrated trust and bias through the lens of intelligent systems that interact with people in scenarios that are realizable in the near-term.

    Register in advance for this webinar at:

    https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_FtvySGKTReuCvZr_2cpAeQ

    After registering, attendees will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium.


    Biography: Ayanna Howard, Ph.D. is the Linda J. and Mark C. Smith Professor and Chair of the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She also holds a faculty appointment in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and serves on the Board of Directors for the Partnership on AI and Autodesk. Dr. Howard's career focus is on intelligent technologies that must adapt to and function within a human-centered world. Her work, which encompasses advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), assistive technologies, and robotics, has resulted in over 250 peer-reviewed publications in a number of projects - from healthcare robots in the home to AI-powered STEM apps for children with diverse learning needs. To date, her unique accomplishments have been highlighted through a number of awards and articles, including highlights in USA Today, Upscale, and TIME Magazine, as well as being recognized as one of the 23 most powerful women engineers in the world by Business Insider and one of the Top 50 U.S. Women in Tech by Forbes. In 2013, she also founded Zyrobotics, which develops STEM educational products to engage children of all abilities. Prior to Georgia Tech, Dr. Howard was a Senior Robotics Researcher and Deputy Manager in the Office of the Chief Scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She has also served as the Associate Director of Research for the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines, Chair of the Robotics Ph.D. program, and the Associate Chair for Faculty Development in ECE at Georgia Tech.


    Host: Heather Culbertson

    Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_FtvySGKTReuCvZr_2cpAeQ

    Location: Online Zoom Webinar

    WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_FtvySGKTReuCvZr_2cpAeQ

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Computer Science Department

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