Events Calendar

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Filter May Events by Event Type:

• Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars (31)
• University Calendar (14)
• Workshops & Infosessions (5)
• Receptions & Special Events (6)
• Student Activity (1)

Events for May 01, 2014

• May

  01

  Graduate Seminar Series

  

  Thu, May 01, 2014 @ 12:45 PM - 01:50 PM

  Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science

  Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

  
  

  Speaker: Professor Amy Karlsson, University of Maryland
  
  Talk Title: Engineering Peptides and Proteins to Combat Human Disease
  
  Series: Graduate Seminar Series
  
  Abstract: Rational design and directed evolution are both powerful approaches for engineering proteins and peptides. Our lab applies these approaches to exploit the power of proteins and peptides in studying and combatting human disease, and I will discuss applications of protein engineering in fungal disease and cancer. We applied a rational design approach to engineer non-natural antimicrobial β-peptides that exhibit antifungal activity against the fungal pathogen Candida albicans. Through this work, we developed a deeper understanding of the properties of β-peptides that contribute to their toxicity towards fungal cells and fungal biofilms, and we are currently working on ways to apply this understanding to designing improved antifungal agents. We have also used directed evolution to engineer antibodies that can fold and function inside cells, which has broad applications in human diseases, including cancer. The reducing environment inside cells prevents formation of the disulfide bonds normally required for proper antibody folding, but we have developed a bacterial inner membrane display system that harnesses the cytoplasmic folding quality control mechanisms of the Escherichia coli twin-arginine translocation pathway to engineer proteins able to fold in the cytoplasmic environment. We used this method to display and screen a combinatorial library of single-chain variable fragment (scFv) antibodies and isolated scFvs with dramatic improvements in both antigen-binding and intracellular solubility. We are now using our display method to engineer scFvs for studying and treating cancer and fungal disease.
  
  
  Biography: Dr. Amy J. Karlsson received her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from
  Iowa State University in 2003 and then joined Prof. Sean Palecek’s group at the
  University of Wisconsin, where she received her PhD in chemical engineering in 2009. Following her doctoral work, she was an NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein Postdoctoral Fellow in Prof. Matt DeLisa’s lab at Cornell University. Dr. Karlsson joined the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Maryland as an assistant professor in 2012. Her group’s research lies at the interface of biology and engineering and uses protein engineering strategies to improve the understanding of human diseases and develop tools for drug design and disease diagnosis.
  
  Host: TBA
  
  

  Location: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 159

  Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

  Contact: Ryan Choi

  

• May

  01

  CS Distinguished Lecture: Szymon Rusinkiewicz (Princeton) - Investigating the Past with 3D Scanning, Visualization, and Analysis

  Thu, May 01, 2014 @ 04:00 PM - 05:30 PM

  Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

  Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

  
  

  Speaker: Szymon Rusinkiewicz, Princeton University
  
  Talk Title: Investigating the Past with 3D Scanning, Visualization, and Analysis
  
  Series: CS Distinguished Lectures
  
  Abstract: This talk will be available to stream via the link here. [Right-click and open in new tab or window for best performance.]
  
  Recent research into scanning, visualizing, and analyzing real-world 3D objects has the potential of providing novel insights into archaeological sites and artifacts. Two recent projects have investigated how digital methods may be used to document and propose reconstructions of objects from ancient Greece and Cyprus. The first is a system that uses 3-D and 2-D digitization hardware, together with computer-based matching techniques, to assist archaeologists and conservators in documenting and reassembling thousands of plaster fragments from wall-paintings at the site of Akrotiri (modern-day Santorini, Greece). The second is a joint research and educational project in which students created digital reconstructions of four buildings in Polis Chrysochous, Cyprus, producing a computer-animated movie to accompany an exhibition of material from the site.
  
  Biography: Szymon Rusinkiewicz is Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University. His work focuses on the interface between computers and the visual and tangible world: acquisition, representation, analysis, and fabrication of 3D shape, motion, surface appearance, and scattering. He investigates algorithms for processing geometry and reflectance, including registration, matching, completion, hierarchical decomposition, symmetry analysis, sampling, and depiction. Applications of this work include documentation of cultural heritage artifacts and sites, appearance and performance capture for digital humans, and illustrative depiction through line drawings and non-photorealistic shading models.
  
  Host: Hao Li
  
  

  Location: SAL 101

  Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

  Contact: Assistant to CS chair

  

• May

  01

  Boeing Tech Talk and Information Session

  Thu, May 01, 2014 @ 05:30 PM - 07:00 PM

  Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

  Workshops & Infosessions

  
  

  Mark your calendars for this end of semester event! Boeing will be back one last time this semester to prepare Viterbi students for the fall recruiting season in a Tech Talk & Information Session on Thursday, May 1st, SGM 101 5:30-7:00 PM.
  
  Scott Strode, Boeing’s Executive Sponsor for Viterbi, will talk about the company’s vision and you’ll also hear about technical excellence from Mike O’Grady, and Cliff Cousins will provide insight on innovation. Meet recruiters and learn about ways you could be part of the Boeing team!
  

  More Information: Boeing Info Session & Tech Talk Spring 2014.pdf

  Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101

  Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

  Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Services

  

• May

  01

  New York Is Like Johannesburg: Comparative Imaginations of South Africa and the U.S. A Concert and Conversation featuring Jean Grae

  

  Thu, May 01, 2014 @ 07:00 PM - 09:00 PM

  USC Viterbi School of Engineering

  University Calendar

  
  

  RSVP TO: http://web-app.usc.edu/ws/eo2/calendar/113/event/903812
  
  In 1994, Nelson Mandela became the first president of South Africa elected under universal suffrage. The end of the violent segregationist policy of apartheid two years prior had launched an era of new political possibilities. In celebration of the twenty-year anniversary of Mandela’s election, a panel and concert will consider the current condition of both South Africa and the United States, highlighting ongoing global struggles for an end to police abuse and labor suppression. Hip hop emcee Jean Grae will join Mazibuko K. Jara, journalist-activist and founder of South Africa’s Amandla magazine and Brian Ashley of the Alternative Information Development Centre in Cape Town and co-founder and editor of Amandla,as well as U.S. historians Robin D. G. Kelley and Johanna Fernandez to discuss contemporary cultural and political conditions shared between two nations whose struggles for civil and human rights modeled the ambitions of a majority world.
  
  About the Participants:
  
  Spawned from two super musically gifted parents, Jean Grae’s powers manifested at an early age. She studied at the LaGuardia Performing Arts School before majoring in music business at New York University. Feeling enveloped by mainstream mediocrity, she went out in search of others with abilities like hers, first under the moniker “What? What?” as a member of the indie group Natural Resource, providing classic singles such as “Baseball” and “Bum Deal,” then with her solo efforts: Attack of the Attacking Things, This Week, The Bootleg of the Bootleg, the 9th Wonder–produced Jeanius and, most recently, the mixtape Cookies or Comas. Grae has been featured on tracks with Pharoahe Monch, Talib Kweli, The Roots, Wale, Lil B the BasedGod, Phonte, Joell Ortiz and a long list of others. Also a producer, writer and director, Grae is currently at work on a sitcom entitled Life with Jeannie. (Facebook, Twitter)
  
  Brian Ashley is a staff member with the Alternative Information Development Centre in Cape Town and co-founder and editor of Amandla, a bimonthly South African magazine founded in 2006.
  
  Johanna Fernandez is a native New Yorker and assistant professor of history at Baruch College at the City University of New York. She teaches twentieth-century U.S. history, the history of social movements, the political economy of American cities and African American history. Her forthcoming book, tentatively entitled When the World Was Their Stage: A History of the Young Lords Party, 1968–1974, discusses the Young Lords Party, the Puerto Rican counterpart to the Black Panther Party.
  
  Mazibuko K. Jara, M. Phil., is a founder of Amandla magazine, Executive Director of Ntinga Ntaba kaNdoda (a community-owned development institution in South Africa), and a founder of the Treatment Action Campaign (HIV/AIDS treatment group) and the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality, which fought for and won the inclusion of sexual orientation as a ground for non-discrimination in the 1996 Constitution of South Africa. He is also a research associate with the University of Cape Town's Centre for Law and Society. He was previously Deputy National Secretary of Young Communist League, and later, the national spokesperson and chief strategist of the South Africa Communist Party from February 2000 to April 2005. He is currently active in the political organizations, Democratic Left Front and Democracy from Below.
  
  Robin D. G. Kelley is the Gary B. Nash Professor of American History at UCLA. Kelley’s research and teaching interests range widely, covering the history of labor and radical movements in the U.S. and the African diaspora, intellectual and cultural history (particularly music and visual culture), urban studies and transnational movements. His books include the prize-winning Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original; Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times; Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression; Race Rebels: Culture, Politics and the Black Working Class; and Yo’ Mama’s DisFunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America.
  
  Shana L. Redmond is assistant professor of American studies and ethnicity at USC. She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships and the author of the book Anthem: Social Movements and the Sound of Solidarity in the African Diaspora, which examines the sonic politics performed amongst and between organized Afro-diasporic publics in the twentieth century.
  
  Organized by Shana L. Redmond (American Studies and Ethnicity).
  
  For further information on this event:
  visionsandvoices@usc.edu

  Location: Ronald Tutor Campus Center (TCC) - Grand Ballroom, Ronald Tutor Campus Center

  Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

  Contact: Visions and Voices