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Events for February

  • Interviews Open Forum

    Mon, Feb 03, 2020 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Increase your preparedness for interviews by attending this professional development Q&A moderated by Viterbi Career Connections staff or Viterbi employer partners.
    For more information about Labs & Open Forums, please visit viterbicareers.usc.edu/workshops.

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211

    Audiences: All Viterbi

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Astani Civil and Environmental Engineering Seminar

    Mon, Feb 03, 2020 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Ruggiero Lovreglio, Massey University, New Zealand

    Talk Title: Virtual and Augmented Reality Application for Human Behavior in Disasters

    Abstract: Abstract: Understanding how people behave during disasters is fundamental to enhance the safety of building from the design stage to the maintenance stage. To date, new technologies can be used to facilitate the investigation of human behaviour and training. This presentation will illustrate the Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) applications carried out by Dr Lovreglio et al. to investigate the evacuation behaviour in building fires and earthquakes and for safety training. The presentation will highlight the advantages and limitations of these technologies as well as possible future implementations of VR and AR.




    Biography: Biography: Dr Ruggiero Lovreglio (known as Rino) is Senior Lecturer at Massey University (New Zealand) where he teaches Digital Construction and Research Methods. He got his PhD in 2016 from the Scuola Interpolitecnica (Politecnico di Bari, Milano e Torino) on Human Behaviour in Fire. To date, he has been investigating human behaviour in several disasters such as building fires, earthquakes and wildfires. His research uses new technologies such as Virtual and Augmented Reality to investigate behaviours and training people. He has published more than 50 papers, 30 of them are journal articles. He is an Associate Editor for Safety Science (IF: 3.6), a member of the Editorial Board of Fire Technology (IF: 1.4) and co-author of the 6th edition of the SFPE Handbook. More info regarding Dr Lovreglio previous working experience and achievements is available at http://www.lovreglio.info


    Dr Ruggiero Lovreglio
    PhD, MEng, BEng
    Associate Editor, Safety Science
    Editorial Member, Fire Technology


    Host: Dr. Burcin Becerik-Gerber

    Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Evangeline Reyes

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  • Geostationary Littoral Imaging and Monitoring Radiometer

    Geostationary Littoral Imaging and Monitoring Radiometer

    Tue, Feb 04, 2020 @ 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Jeff Puschell, Principal Engineering Fellow and Chief Scientist, Space Systems at Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems in El Segundo, California

    Talk Title: Geostationary Littoral Imaging and Monitoring Radiometer

    Host: Mahta Moghadda, PhD

    More Information: GLIMR SEMINAR 2-4-20 DR. JEFF PUSCHELL Final 1-24-20.pdf

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Luz Antunez-Castillo, MBA, EdD

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  • 2020 Eberhardt Rechtin Lecture

    2020 Eberhardt Rechtin Lecture

    Tue, Feb 04, 2020 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM

    Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: David W. Bates, M.D., M.Sc., Harvard University

    Talk Title: Collaboration Between Engineering and Healthcare: Results From the BWH Patient-Safety Learning Laboratory Studies

    More Information: 2020 Rechtin Lecture Flyer_1.6.20.pdf

    Location: USC Hotel, Center Ballroom

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Grace Owh

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  • Bloomberg CED Workshop

    Tue, Feb 04, 2020 @ 06:00 PM - 07:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Calling all Center for Engineering Diversity (CED) students!

    Summer will be here before we know it! Come chat with Software Engineers from Bloomberg LP about how you can make the most of your summer internship.

    Gain perspective on what it's like to intern at large tech firms, small startups, and discuss other ways to make yourself stand out at the next career fair. Food will be provided!

    Have questions> Submit any here in advance: https://forms.gle/aijHP2rS6Zt4476x6

    Please note: The link above is for questions for this workshop only, and not an RSVP form. RSVP on Viterbi Career Gateway

    Location: 211

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • AAAI@USC Perceptron Workshop

    AAAI@USC Perceptron Workshop

    Tue, Feb 04, 2020 @ 07:30 PM - 08:30 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Perceptrons are the fundamental building blocks of neural network and deep learning algorithms that are taking over the world! Next Tuesday, join us as we explore this crucial ML algorithm, both in theory and in practice with code. New to artificial intelligence? No problem! This workshop is geared towards AI beginners as well as more experienced members who want to brush up on the fundamentals of how the perceptron algorithm works under the hood.

    RSVP HERE

    Location: ZHS 252

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: USC AAAI

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  • Viterbi Mock Interview Day

    Wed, Feb 05, 2020 @ 09:30 AM - 04:30 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Receptions & Special Events


    Viterbi Mock Interviews Day
    Location: Michelson Hall (MCB 101)

    Sign up below for a time slot between 9:30 am and 4:30 pm to have a 20 minute mock interview with one of our employer participants on February 5th, 2020!

    Register: https://slotted.co/2020mocks

    Aera Energy,
    Air Force Test Center,
    Bloomberg,
    CRW social gaming,
    DK Engineer, Corp,
    Ensign-Bickford Industries/Honeybee Robotics,
    Farmers Insurance,
    FBI,
    Granite Construction,
    Koder,
    Magnopus,
    MATT Construction Company,
    Microsoft,
    NetApp,
    OnPrem Solution Partners,
    Redfin,
    Salesforce,
    SCS Engineers,
    Suffolk Construction,
    Syng, Inc.,
    Turner Construction Company,
    Upful, Inc,
    UPS,
    W.E. O'Neil Construction,
    and West Basin Municipal Water District

    Location: Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience (MCB) - 101

    Audiences: All Viterbi

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • NL Seminar-Why journalism is broken and how data can help fix it

    Wed, Feb 05, 2020 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Information Sciences Institute

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Gabriel Kahn , USC Annenberg

    Talk Title: Why journalism is broken and how data can help fix it

    Series: Natural Language Seminar

    Abstract: Pizza gate, Russian trolls, deep fakes. We live in an information swamp and it sucks. At its core, the crisis in journalism is about a shifting economic model that has made it difficult for legitimate news organizations to survive. The consequences are dire. But harnessing data in the right ways can provide vital information to communities and can help news organizations do more with less. The future of a healthy news environment requires collaboration between news, data and computer science. Gabriel Kahn outlines the current problems and some potential solutions.


    Biography: Gabriel Kahn has worked as a newspaper correspondent and editor for three decades, including 10 years at The Wall Street Journal, where he served as Los Angeles bureau chief, deputy Hong Kong bureau chief and deputy Southern Europe bureau chief, based in Rome. He has reported from more than a dozen countries on three continents. He joined USC Annenberg in the fall of 2010, where he jointly runs the Media, Economics and Entrepreneurship program. The goal of M 2e is to bolster students understanding of economics and encourage innovation and experimentation with new ideas in communication and journalism. In addition to his teaching and reporting work, Kahn studies the economic models of the news industry and consults with startups and established news companies on strategy. In 2018, he launched Crosstown, which has pioneered a new approach to local news through data.

    Host: Emily Sheng

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

    Webcast: https://bluejeans.com/s/FVVU4/

    Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - CR 689

    WebCast Link: https://bluejeans.com/s/FVVU4/

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Peter Zamar

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

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  • Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things and Ming Hsieh Institute Seminar

    Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things and Ming Hsieh Institute Seminar

    Wed, Feb 05, 2020 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Christopher Ré, Department of Computer Science at Stanford University

    Talk Title: If You Want to be Rich, Get a lot of Money: Theory and Systems for Weak Supervision

    Series: Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things

    Abstract: If you want to build a high-quality machine learning product, build a large, high-quality training set. At first glance, this seems as useful as the statement "if you want to be rich, get a lot of money." However, a key idea driving our work is that new theoretical and systems concepts including weak supervision, automatic data augmentation policies, and more, can enable engineers to build training sets more quickly and cost effectively. Along with state-of-the-art results on benchmarks, these concepts have allowed our group and collaborators to build a range of state-of-the-art applications including patient-care monitoring on electronic health records, automatic triage systems for radiologists, and enabling cardiologists to spot rare abnormalities in video MRI-along with widely used products from Apple and Google. This talk describes the theoretical and systems challenges that such applications create.

    On the machine-learning theory side, a key problem is estimating the quality and correlation of various sources of training data-”but without ground truth labels. This problem connects to classical questions about estimating the covariance of latent variable models. We describe our new techniques that solve this case and can even improve fully supervised methods for estimating the structure of graphical models.

    On the machine-learning systems side, this theory opens up new ways to build machine-learning systems. Here, we describe our recent work on systems that help engineers build and maintain machine learning products-without writing low-level code in frameworks like TensorFlow. These systems draw on recent ideas in machine learning, e.g., zero-code deep learning systems, and twists on classical data management ideas, e.g., schemas to separate the model, the supervision, and down-stream serving code.
    Much of this work is open source and available at http://snorkel.org or my website.



    Biography: Christopher (Chris) Ré is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University who is affiliated with the Statistical Machine Learning Group and Stanford AI Lab. His recent work is to understand how software and hardware systems will change as a result of machine learning along with a continuing, petulant drive to work on math problems. Research from his group has been incorporated into scientific and humanitarian efforts, such as the fight against human trafficking, along with products from technology and enterprise companies. He cofounded a company, based on his research into machine learning systems, that was acquired by Apple in 2017. More recently, he cofounded SambaNova systems based, in part, on his work on accelerating machine learning. He received a SIGMOD Dissertation Award in 2010, an NSF CAREER Award in 2011, an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship in 2013, a Moore Data Driven Investigator Award in 2014, the VLDB early Career Award in 2015, the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2015, and an Okawa Research Grant in 2016. His research contributions have spanned database theory, database systems, and machine learning, and his work has won best paper at a premier venue in each area, respectively, at PODS 2012, SIGMOD 2014, and ICML 2016.

    Host: Paul Bogdan, pbogdan@usc.edu

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Talyia White

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  • AME Seminar

    Wed, Feb 05, 2020 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Pavlos P. Vlachos, Purdue

    Talk Title: Fluid Mechanics in Clinical Echocardiography

    Abstract: In this talk we will probe flows in cardiac disease using in-vivo measurements in clinical settings, and we will discuss how traditional experimental fluids mechanics tools can translate into clinical practice.

    Flows in the cardiovascular system manifest intrinsic complexity, which is often associated with diseased states. Imaging modalities such as ultrasound/echocardiography and phase-contrast MRI provide unique opportunities and challenges for flow measurements in patients. Currently, the relationship between clinical flow measurements and clinical diagnostic parameters is qualitative, and often is reliant on heuristics and non-physical assumptions.

    In this talk we will discuss how to overcome these limitations by integrating medical imaging with experimental fluid mechanics, in order to, ultimately, improve accuracy, robustness, and clinical diagnostic utility of these tools.

    Specifically, we will discuss how fluid mechanics can be used in the analysis of echocardiographic imaging for heart failure. We will show an improved approach for clinical implementation of EchoPIV (echocardiographic Particle Image Velocimetry) and a new method for the velocity reconstruction of Color-Doppler flow imaging. Finally, we will present a use-case in the analysis of fetal and neonatal echocardiograms of babies born with single ventricle (hypoplastic left heart syndrome). If time permits, some additional examples of application to 4D flow MRI will be presented.

    Host: AME Department

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Tessa Yao

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  • Theory Lunch

    Thu, Feb 06, 2020 @ 12:15 PM - 02:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Kobbi Nissim, Georgetown University

    Talk Title: Legal Theorems of Privacy

    Abstract: There are significant gaps between legal and technical thinking around data privacy. Technical standards such as k-anonymity and differential privacy are described using mathematical language and strive for mathematical rigor whereas legal standards are not rigorous from a mathematical point of view and often resort to concepts such as de-identification and anonymization which they only partially define. As a result, arguments about the adequacy of technical privacy measures for satisfying legal privacy often lack rigor, and their conclusions are uncertain. The uncertainty is exacerbated by a litany of successful privacy attacks on privacy measures thought to meet legal expectations but then shown to fall short of doing so.

    We ask whether it is possible to introduce mathematical rigor into such analyses so as to make formal claims and prove "legal theorems" that technical privacy measures meet legal expectations. For that, we explore some of the gaps between these two very different approaches, and present initial strategies towards bridging these gaps. In particular, we focus on the concept of singling out from the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). To capture this concept, we define a new type of privacy attack, predicate singling out, where an adversary finds a predicate matching exactly one row in a database with probability significantly better then a statistical baseline. We then argue that any data release mechanism that purports to "render anonymous" data under the GDPR should prevent predicate singling out. Hence, the concept has legal consequences as it can be used as a yardstick for arguing whether data release mechanisms meet the GDPR standard of data anonymization.


    Biography: Professor Kobbi Nissim is a McDevitt Chair at the department of Computer Science, Georgetown University and affiliated with Georgetown Law. Nissim's work is focused on the mathematical formulation and understanding of privacy. His work from 2003 and 2004 with Dinur and Dwork initiated rigorous foundational research of privacy and in 2006 he introduced differential privacy with Dwork, McSherry and Smith. Nissim was awarded the Caspar Bowden Privacy for research in Privacy Enhancing Technology in 2019, the Gödel Prize in 2017, IACR TCC Test of Time Awards in 2016 and in 2018, and the ACM PODS Alberto O. Mendelzon Test-of-Time Award in 2013.

    Host: Shaddin Dughmi

    Location: 213

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Cherie Carter

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  • CS Distinguished Lecture: Karon MacLean (University of British Columbia) - Making Haptics and its Design Accessible

    Thu, Feb 06, 2020 @ 04:00 PM - 05:20 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Karon MacLean, University of British Columbia, Canada

    Talk Title: Making Haptics and its Design Accessible

    Series: Computer Science Distinguished Lecture Series

    Abstract: Today's advances in tactile sensing and wearable, IOT and context-aware computing are spurring new ideas about how to configure touch-centered interactions in terms of roles and utility, which in turn expose new technical and social design questions. But while haptic actuation, sensing and control are improving, the difficulties of incorporating them into a real-world design process poses a major obstacle to adoption in everyday technology.

    In this talk I'll overview highlights chosen from of an ongoing effort to understand how to support haptic designers and end-users. These include online experimental design tools, DIY open sourced hardware and accessible means of creating, for example, expressive physical robot motions and evolve physically sensed expressive tactile languages, and major community-based studies of design practice.

    To accelerate design practice, we put our systems, designs and datasets online. A central and evolving piece of our larger openhaptics effort is Haptipedia, an expert-sourced, community-based browsable visualization of historical haptic inventions as a resource to future designers.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium.


    Biography: Karon MacLean is Professor in Computer Science at UBC, with degrees in Biology and Mechanical Engineering (BSc, Stanford; M.Sc. / Ph.D, MIT) and time spent as a professional robotics engineer (Center for Engineering Design, University of Utah) and haptics / interaction researcher (Interval Research, Palo Alto). At UBC since 2000, MacLean's research specializes in haptic (touch) interaction: cognitive, sensory and affective design for people interacting with the computation we touch, emote and move with and learn from, from robots to handheld devices and the situated environment. MacLean leads UBC's Designing for People interdisciplinary research cluster and CREATE graduate training program (25 researchers spanning 11 departments and 5 faculties - dfp.ubc.ca), is Special Advisor, Innovation and Knowledge Mobilization to UBC's Faculty of Science, and will co-chair ACM UIST (User Interface Software and Technology) in 2020.


    Host: Heather Culbertson

    Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Computer Science Department

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  • Interviews Open Forum

    Thu, Feb 06, 2020 @ 04:30 PM - 05:30 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Increase your preparedness for interviews by attending this professional development Q&A moderated by Viterbi Career Connections staff or Viterbi employer partners.
    For more information about Labs & Open Forums, please visit viterbicareers.usc.edu/workshops.

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211

    Audiences: All Viterbi

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Protiviti Trojan Talk

    Thu, Feb 06, 2020 @ 06:30 PM - 08:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Protiviti is a global consulting firm specializing in technology, business process improvement, analytics, risk, compliance, transaction services, and intern audit. We have been recognized for the 6th consecutive year as one of Fortune Magazine's 100 Best Companies to Work For.

    Do you?....
    Enjoy building and maintaining relationships?
    Need a challenge to keep you engaged and passionate about your work?
    Desire exposure and work experience beyond your major specialization?
    Thrive in fast-paced, dynamic, work environments?
    Seek diverse opportunities for career growth and advancement?
    Like to travel and experience new cities?

    A career in consulting might be for you! Stop by our Trojan Talk on Thursday, February 6th starting at 6:30 pm to meet our professionals and learn about a career at Protiviti! Food and drinks will be provided!

    - What majors are you recruiting for? ISE only - all levels
    - Can you offer Visa sponsorship? No we do not sponsor
    - Are you willing to hire a student on CTP or OPT? No we are unable to at this time

    Interested in opportunities at Protiviti? Follow the links below:
    - Full-time and entry level positions for juniors, seniors -- Visit https://www.protiviti.com/US-en/careers!
    - Opportunities for sophomores:
    Protiviti is hosting our annual Summer Leadership Conference in Los Angeles on June 5th, 2020! This one-day conference is a great opportunity for students to learn about Protiviti and a career in consulting, while developing professional and leadership skills.

    Participants will meet consultants at all levels of our organization, take part in a variety of team building and professional development activities to gain a better understanding of the consulting career path. Participants will also have the opportunity to interview for a summer 2021 Protiviti internship during the conference.

    If you are interested in applying for the Summer Leadership Conference, please submit an application, including your resume and unofficial transcript, by clicking HERE before February 28th: https://protiviti.recsolu.com/external/form/8upBxgiRcdEXoHv3jNmrGg

    Want to learn more about Protiviti? Check out our Instagram feed , our Careers Blog, and #MyProtivitiStory videos to see the latest firm happenings and hear from our people!

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Repeating EventGrammar Tutoring

    Fri, Feb 07, 2020 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Workshops & Infosessions


    INDIVIDUAL GRAMMAR TUTORIALS
    Need help refining your grammar skills in your academic and professional writing? Meet one-on-one with professors from the Engineering Writing Program, work together on your grammar skills, and take your writing to the next level!

    ALL VITERBI UNDERGRADUATE AND GRADUATE STUDENTS WELCOME!
    Sign up here: http://bit.ly/grammaratUSC

    All sessions will be via Zoom.

    Questions? Contact helenhch@usc.edu

    Location: ZOOM

    Audiences: Graduate and Undergraduate Students

    View All Dates

    Contact: Helen Choi

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  • NL Seminar-MACHINE LEARNING THROUGH THE INFORMATION BOTTLENECK

    Fri, Feb 07, 2020 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Information Sciences Institute

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Artemy Kolchinsky, Santa Fe Institute

    Talk Title: MACHINE LEARNING THROUGH THE INFORMATION BOTTLENECK

    Series: Natural Language Seminar

    Abstract: he information bottleneck IB has been proposed as a principled way to compress a random variable, while only preserving that information which is relevant for predicting another random variable. In recent times, the IB has been proposed and challenged as a theoretical framework for understanding why and how deep learning architectures achieve good performance. I will cover: 1. an introduction to the ideas behind IB, 2. methods for implementing information-theoretic compression in neural networks + some possible applications of such methods, 3. the current status of the IB theory of deep learning, 4. recently discovered caveats that arise for IB in machine learning scenarios.

    Biography: Artemy Kolchinsky is a postdoctoral fellow at the Santa Fe Institute (Santa Fe, NM). His work lies at the intersection of information theory, statistical physics, and machine learning. He is interested in using tools from statistical physics to derive fundamental bounds on the ability of real-world agents whether protocells, organisms, or computers to acquire and exploit information in adaptive ways.

    Host: Emily Sheng

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

    Webcast: https://bluejeans.com/298422226

    Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - CR #1016

    WebCast Link: https://bluejeans.com/298422226

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Peter Zamar

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

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  • Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things and Ming Hsieh Institute Seminar

    Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things and Ming Hsieh Institute Seminar

    Fri, Feb 07, 2020 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Nikunj Mehta, Falkonry

    Talk Title: Discovering and Explaining Patterns in Industrial Multivariate Time Series Data

    Series: Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things

    Abstract: Complex assets and process units exhibit many different behaviors during the course of industrial operations. Identifying and removing sources of inefficiency in these operations is essential for advancing manufacturing and process operations. In this talk, we explain how classification as opposed to anomaly detection and forecasting is the essential machine learning problem for Industry 4.0. We explain the main challenges for these machine learning problems to motivate research directions. We then describe a signal processing pipeline and user interface for democratizing such machine learning and real-time processing.

    Biography: Dr. Nikunj founded Falkonry after realizing that very valuable operational data produced in industrial infrastructure goes mostly unutilized in the energy, manufacturing and transportation sectors. Falkonry has enabled companies to scale predictive operations. Falkonry has significantly improved their uptime, yield and quality. Prior to Falkonry, Dr. Mehta led software architecture and customer success for C3 IoT. Earlier, he led innovation teams at Oracle focused on database technology and led the creation of the IndexedDB standard for databases embedded inside all modern browsers. He has contributed to standards at both W3C and IETF, and is a member of the ACM.

    Host: Paul Bogdan, pbogdan@usc.edu

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Talyia White

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  • Medical Imaging Seminar

    Medical Imaging Seminar

    Mon, Feb 10, 2020 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Andrei Irimia, Gerontology, Biomedical Engineering, & Neuroscience at USC

    Talk Title: Multimodal Imaging, Machine Learning and Electrophysiology for Connectome Mapping in Traumatic Brain Injury and Alzheimer's Disease

    Series: Medical Imaging Seminar Series

    Abstract: Mapping brain circuitry and its changes after traumatic brain injury (TBI) benefits substantially from the integration of multimodal neuroimaging techniques to quantify and monitor brain pathology, plasticity and degeneration. We have integrated fMRI and network theory with EEG and other approaches to perform supervised learning of connectome data and to study functional trajectories after mild TBI (mTBI). Our results show that geriatric mTBI is associated with fronto-hippocampo-limbic alterations in the brain's default mode network (DMN), and that many of these alterations are statistically indistinguishable from those observed in AD. By leveraging machine learning, we have shown that AD-like degradation of functional circuits can be predicted by acute cognitive deficits after geriatric mTBI. In addition to establishing a statistical association between brain injury, cognition and AD-like DMN degradation, these findings advance the important goal of acutely forecasting mTBI patients' chronic alterations of brain connectivity along AD-like functional trajectories.

    Biography: Andrei Irimia is Assistant Professor of Gerontology, Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience at USC. He holds a PhD in biophysics from Vanderbilt University and has done postdoctoral research at UCSD and UCLA prior to joining USC. His research leverages structural MRI, fMRI, DTI and EEG to study the relationship between traumatic brain injury and Alzheimer's disease. His laboratory in the Davis School of Gerontology is funded by the NIH and DoD.

    Host: Richard Leahy, leahy@sipi.usc.edu

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Talyia White

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  • PwC Women's Consulting Experience

    Mon, Feb 10, 2020 @ 06:30 PM - 08:30 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Are you a female interested in a career in consulting?

    PwC is hosting an information session to talk about our summer program, PwC's Women's Consulting Experience, and the internship opportunities available to you for summer 2021. You will have the opportunity to network with PwC Advisory professionals and learn more about our various Advisory Horizontals before our application deadline. Dinner will be provided.

    Date: Monday, February 10th
    Time: 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
    Location: USC Campus - SGM 101

    Please note the following eligibility requirements:
    - Female students who are sophomores in a four-year degree program or juniors in a five-year degree program.
    - Eligible Majors: Computer Science, Industrial & Systems Engineering, Computer Engineering, Information Technology, Data & Analytics, Business or a Cyber specific major.
    - Must be available to attend the program from June 22-24, 2020 (travel provided by PwC).
    - Learn more about WCE by visiting our website: pwc.com/wce

    For any questions, please reach out to Angie Nastasi, your PwC Recruiter at angeline.r.nastasi@pwc.com

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • ISE 651 - Epstein Seminar

    ISE 651 - Epstein Seminar

    Tue, Feb 11, 2020 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM

    Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Zhijian (ZJ) Pei, Professor, Texas A&M University

    Talk Title: Ceramic Binder Jetting Additive Manufacturing: Three Methods to Increase Density

    Host: Prof. Yong Chen

    More Information: February 11, 2020.pdf

    Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Grace Owh

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  • International Students Open Forum

    Tue, Feb 11, 2020 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    International students, increase your career and internship knowledge by attending this professional development Q&A moderated by Viterbi Career Connections staff or Viterbi employer partners.

    For more information about Labs & Open Forums, please visit viterbicareers.usc.edu/workshops.

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211

    Audiences: All Viterbi

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Vanderley M. John, Ph.D.

    Wed, Feb 12, 2020 @ 02:00 AM - 03:00 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Vanderley M. John, Ph.D., Professor of Building Materials Construction Engineering, Polytechnic School, University of Sao Paulo

    Talk Title: Overview of Research on low-carbon cement and industrial ecology at Poli USP

    Abstract: Overview of Research on low-carbon cement and industrial ecology at Poli USP
    Vanderley M. John
    Professor of Building Materials of Polytechnic School, University of Sao Paulo.

    The environmental crisis, the global demand for more and better-built environment, adaptation to population aging and the digital industrial revolution are setting an accelerating pace of innovation. The construction sector will be forced to innovate.
    To make possible the reduction of environmental impacts we need metrics suited to use in today's decision-making made by non-experts. LCA is too expensive and complex for that. From a construction point of view, it is incomplete. Its efficacy is reduced by generalized use of secondary data, which also defeats the capacity to identify the best supplier and drive poor performers out of the market. Producing meaningful benchmarks for each LCA indicator is unpractical. Results of ongoing research focused on developing simplified LCA-based metrics, focused on construction grand environmental challenges will be presented. The indicators are cheap and easy to measure, making possible to build benchmark using primary data. They are simple to understand and interpret and suited to be applied at multiple scales of built environment. Examples will be given on wood and cement-based materials, including industry-wide benchmarks and new resource use efficiency metrics.
    Cement-based materials are the most largely used artificial materials -“ some 30 billion metric ton each year - making the bulk of the stock of built environment. Currently it uses 1/3 of the flow of materials and emits 8% of anthropogenic CO2, shares that are growing. Cement industry is considering carbon capture and storage technology, an environmentally risky and costly technology. Example of a new low-cost technology that combines packing for minimum water demand, dispersion and replacing binders, by large fractions of fillers will be given. It allows reducing +60% of the total binder +50% the CO2 footprint and 40% of water consumption, in comparison with our global benchmark. The technology has been tested at industrial conditions. The technology is scalable, and a UN Environment estimates a mitigation potential of 900 MtCO2 /year by 2050.
    Finally, considering the urgency of technological change, it is crucial to partner with industry to accelerate innovation and increase success rates. The development of the Sustainable Construction Innovation Center (CICS USP), an innovation hub entirely funded by private money will be present. It includes the construction of the CICS living lab, a building designed to demonstrate new construction technologies in actual use conditions accelerated innovation and to foster the investigation of user well being and user-building interactions.


    Host: Dr. Lucio Soibelman

    Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Salina Palacios

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  • Computer Science General Faculty Meeting

    Wed, Feb 12, 2020 @ 12:00 PM - 02:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Receptions & Special Events


    Bi-Weekly regular faculty meeting for invited full-time Computer Science faculty only. Event details emailed directly to attendees.

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 526

    Audiences: Invited Faculty Only

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • International Students Open Forum

    Wed, Feb 12, 2020 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    International students, increase your career and internship knowledge by attending this professional development Q&A moderated by Viterbi Career Connections staff or Viterbi employer partners.

    For more information about Labs & Open Forums, please visit viterbicareers.usc.edu/workshops.

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211

    Audiences: All Viterbi

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things and Ming Hsieh Institute Seminar

    Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things and Ming Hsieh Institute Seminar

    Wed, Feb 12, 2020 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Mykel Kochenderfer, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University

    Talk Title: Automated Decision Making for Safety Critical Applications

    Series: Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things

    Abstract: Building robust decision making systems is challenging, especially for safety critical systems such as unmanned aircraft and driverless cars. Decisions must be made based on imperfect information about the environment and with uncertainty about how the environment will evolve. In addition, these systems must carefully balance safety with other considerations, such as operational efficiency. Typically, the space of edge cases is vast, placing a large burden on human designers to anticipate problem scenarios and develop ways to resolve them. This talk discusses major challenges associated with ensuring computational tractability and establishing trust that our systems will behave correctly when deployed in the real world. We will outline some methodologies for addressing these challenges.

    Biography: Mykel Kochenderfer is a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University. He is the director of the Stanford Intelligent Systems Laboratory (SISL), conducting research on advanced algorithms and analytical methods for the design of robust decision making systems. In addition, he is the director of the SAIL-Toyota Center for AI Research at Stanford and a co-director of the Center for AI Safety. He received a Ph.D. in informatics from the University of Edinburgh and B.S. and M.S. degrees in computer science from Stanford University. Prof. Kochenderfer is an author of the textbooks "Decision Making under Uncertainty: Theory and Application" and "Algorithms for Optimization", both from MIT Press.

    Host: Paul Bogdan, pbogdan@usc.edu

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Talyia White

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  • ECE Seminar: Internet Architectural Evolution

    Wed, Feb 12, 2020 @ 02:30 PM - 03:30 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Professor Barath Raghavan, Dept of CS, USC

    Talk Title: Internet Architectural Evolution

    Abstract: The core architectural features of today's Internet were codified three decades ago. They have served us well over these years, both in practice and as something to inveigh against in research. To remedy numerous weaknesses, some have developed clean-slate designs that reimagine the Internet anew, while others have sought and achieved incremental change. What all agree upon is that architectural evolution is hard.

    I will describe a line of research, a decade in the making, to enable architectural change in the Internet. This research has three key aims: pluralism, deployability, and meta-deployability. Since we cannot know what the future holds, we designed an architectural "framework" that enables pluralism -“ the seamless co-existence of many different Internet architectures. Since the high cost of deployment has inhibited experimentation and innovation, we ensured the deployability of new architectures through this framework. And since deployment of the framework itself is a barrier to enabling such architectural evolution, we designed for meta-deployability -“ for the framework itself to be incrementally deployable in today's Internet.

    Biography: Barath Raghavan joined USC as an assistant professor of computer science in 2018. Previously he led the engineering team at Nefeli Networks, was a senior staff researcher at ICSI, was CTO of a social-impact nonprofit, developed networked systems at Google, and taught complexity theory at Williams College. His work spans an equally diverse range of areas including Internet architecture, network function virtualization, digital agriculture, network security and privacy, rural Internet access, network troubleshooting and testing, and computing for urban resilience. He received his PhD from UC San Diego in 2009 and his BS from UC Berkeley in 2002. He has received a number of paper awards including from ACM SIGCOMM, ACM DEV, ACM CHI, and the IRTF.

    Host: Prof. Richard M. Leahy

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Mayumi Thrasher

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  • DKE Trojan Talk

    Wed, Feb 12, 2020 @ 05:30 PM - 06:30 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Join us for an informative session about DKE, the work we do and what we have to offer! In the meantime, here is a little bit about us:

    DK Engineer, Corp (DKE) is a boutique civil engineering consulting firm that provides design and construction administration services for construction projects throughout Southern California. DKE specializes in urban infill and land development projects offering a wide range of civil engineering design services for multi-family residential, commercial, hospitality, and mixed-use sectors. With over 50 years of combined experience, our team produces exceptional work, and strives to exceed our clients' expectations.

    We pride ourselves in our start-up entrepreneurial culture. If you are looking for a fun, non-corporate atmosphere where the focus is truly on developing the best engineers in the industry and delivering exceptional client service, DKE is the firm for you. As part of the DKE team, you will have a voice in how we continue to grow in this exciting market.

    DKE offers a fun and dynamic work environment, competitive benefits including 401K matching, health benefits, life insurance, comp time, generous cash bonuses, flexible working, among others.

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • AAAI @ USC AI Industry Panel

    AAAI @ USC AI Industry Panel

    Wed, Feb 12, 2020 @ 06:30 PM - 08:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations

    Workshops & Infosessions


    AAAI will be holding our first ever industry panel this Wednesday! Representatives from Deep 6 AI, Develandoo, and Blue Fever will be joining us for a discussion about AI in industry. Companies will also be accepting resumes. Join us to learn about how data science and AI are applied in industry and get your questions answered! Learn more about how AI technologies like natural language processing, deep learning, machine learning, and more are harnessed for industry applications!

    More Information: panel-poster-rotate.png

    Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 200

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: USC AAAI

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  • NVIDIA Tabling

    Thu, Feb 13, 2020 @ 12:00 PM - 04:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Come by our booth at the Engineering Quad on Thursday, February 13th from 12:00 - 4:00 PM and explore career opportunities with NVIDIA!

    RSVP to let us know you are planning to stopping by. RSVP'ing does not guarantee a place in line, as this is an open event. In the spirit of being inclusive to all students, we will keep the RSVP open and not set a limit to it. RSVP'ing only lets us know how many people are planning on stopping by the table.

    This is in the Engineering Quad, an outdoor space, please check the weather. Meeting with recruiters will be the same as a Career Expo, with a first-come first-served format. We will be tabling from 12 pm - 4 pm and closing at 4 pm.

    You will get a chance to share your resume and technical skills with one of our Engineers.
    Please note that this is our only recruiting event for the semester.

    Who: Viterbi Masters student
    What: NVIDIA Recruiting Day at USC
    Where: Engineering Quad
    What to bring: Your resume!

    NVIDIA has continuously reinvented itself over two decades. Our invention of the GPU in 1999 sparked the growth of the PC gaming market, redefined modern computer graphics, and revolutionized parallel computing. More recently, GPU computing ignited the era of AI. NVIDIA is a "learning machine" that constantly evolves by adapting to new opportunities that are hard to solve, that only we can tackle, and that matter to the world. Our life's work is to amplify human imagination and intelligence.

    For more information: www.nvidia.com/university

    Location: E-Quad

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Theory Lunch

    Thu, Feb 13, 2020 @ 12:15 PM - 02:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Salil Vadhan, Harvard University

    Talk Title: Derandomization Beyond Connectivity: High-Precision Estimation of Random Walks and Laplacian Solvers in Small Space

    Abstract: I will describe a series of works that attacks the derandomization of space-bounded computation (e.g. seeking to prove RL=L) using a combination of ideas from the literature on time-efficient Laplacian solvers (Spielman and Teng, STOC '04; Peng and Spielman, STOC '14; Cheng et al. '15; Cohen et al. FOCS '16, STOC '17, FOCS '18) with ones used to show that Undirected S-T Connectivity is in deterministic logspace (Reingold, STOC '05 and JACM '08; Rozenman and Vadhan, RANDOM '05).

    In particular, we obtain deterministic, nearly logarithmic-space algorithms for (a) estimating random walk probabilities to within polynomially small error and (b) approximately solving linear systems given by graph Laplacians, with both results holding for Eulerian directed graphs and hence also undirected graphs. Previously both of these problems were known to be solvable for general directed graphs by randomized algorithms in logarithmic space (Aleliunas et al. FOCS '79; Doron, Le Gall, and Ta-Shma RANDOM '17), and hence by deterministic algorithms using space O(log^{3/2} N) (Saks and Zhou, FOCS '95 and JCSS '99).

    Joint works with Murtagh, Reingold, and Sidford (FOCS '17 and RANDOM '19) and Ahmadinejad, Kelner, Murtagh, Peebles, and Sidford (arXiv:1912.04524)


    Biography: Salil Vadhan is Vicky Joseph Professor of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at Harvard University. After completing his undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Computer Science at Harvard in 1995, he obtained his PhD in Applied Mathematics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1999, where his advisor was Shafi Goldwasser. His research centers around the interface between computational complexity theory and cryptography. He focuses on the topics of pseudorandomness and zero-knowledge proofs. His work on zig-zag product, with Omer Reingold and Avi Wigderson, was awarded the 2009 Gödel Prize.

    Host: Shaddin Dughmi

    Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 213

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Cherie Carter

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  • Sonny Astani Civil and Environmental Engineering Seminar

    Thu, Feb 13, 2020 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Ameet Pinto, Northeastern University

    Talk Title: How do we manage the drinking water microbiome?

    Abstract: See attached abstract.

    Host: Dr. Adam Smith

    More Information: A. Pinto Abstract _2-13-2020.pdf

    Location: Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience (MCB) - 102

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Evangeline Reyes

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  • Grand Challenges Scholars Program Orientation

    Thu, Feb 13, 2020 @ 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Receptions & Special Events


    Interested in earning recognition at graduation from the National Academy of Engineering and finding ways to help society through engineering? Come out to USC's Grand Challenges Scholars Orientation and learn more about what exactly the Grand Challenges are and how you can get involved with the program!

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211

    Audiences: Undergrad

    Contact: Viterbi Undergraduate Programs

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  • Repeating EventGrammar Tutoring

    Fri, Feb 14, 2020 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Workshops & Infosessions


    INDIVIDUAL GRAMMAR TUTORIALS
    Need help refining your grammar skills in your academic and professional writing? Meet one-on-one with professors from the Engineering Writing Program, work together on your grammar skills, and take your writing to the next level!

    ALL VITERBI UNDERGRADUATE AND GRADUATE STUDENTS WELCOME!
    Sign up here: http://bit.ly/grammaratUSC

    All sessions will be via Zoom.

    Questions? Contact helenhch@usc.edu

    Location: ZOOM

    Audiences: Graduate and Undergraduate Students

    View All Dates

    Contact: Helen Choi

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  • CS Colloquium: Scott Niekum (UT Austin) - Scaling Probabilistically Safe Learning to Robotics

    Fri, Feb 14, 2020 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Scott Niekum, The University of Texas at Austin

    Talk Title: Scaling Probabilistically Safe Learning to Robotics

    Series: Computer Science Colloquium

    Abstract: Before learning robots can be deployed in the real world, it is critical that probabilistic guarantees can be made about the safety and performance of such systems. In recent years, safe reinforcement learning algorithms have enjoyed success in application areas with high-quality models and plentiful data, but robotics remains a challenging domain for scaling up such approaches. Furthermore, very little work has been done on the even more difficult problem of safe imitation learning, in which the demonstrator's reward function is not known. This talk focuses on new developments in three key areas for scaling safe learning to robotics: (1) a theory of safe imitation learning; (2) scalable reward inference in the absence of models; (3) efficient off-policy policy evaluation. The proposed algorithms offer a blend of safety and practicality, making a significant step towards safe robot learning with modest amounts of real-world data.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium.


    Biography: Scott Niekum is an Assistant Professor and the director of the Personal Autonomous Robotics Lab (PeARL) in the Department of Computer Science at UT Austin. He is also a core faculty member in the interdepartmental robotics group at UT. Prior to joining UT Austin, Scott was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute and received his Ph.D. from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research interests include imitation learning, reinforcement learning, and robotic manipulation. Scott is a recipient of the 2018 NSF CAREER Award and 2019 AFOSR Young Investigator Award.


    Host: Stefanos Nikolaidis

    Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Computer Science Department

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  • Morely Builders Trojan Talk

    Tue, Feb 18, 2020 @ 11:00 AM - 02:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Morley Builders will be hosting a lunch time Meet & Greet to discuss who we are, the work we do, and current job openings! Please join us for a very informal lunch, food will be provided, to meet a few of us and ask questions! Bring your resume.

    Hiring for: Bachelors & Masters, Civil Engineering Students (But all engineering majors welcome)

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • CS Colloquium: Cheng Tan (Courant Institute / New York University) - Auditing Outsourced Services

    Tue, Feb 18, 2020 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Cheng Tan, Courant Institute / New York University

    Talk Title: Auditing Outsourced Services

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: How can users of a cloud service verify that the service truly performs as promised? This question is vital today because clouds are complicated black boxes, running in different administrative domains from users. Their correctness can be undermined by internal corruptions---misconfigurations, operational mistakes, insider attacks, unexpected failures, or adversarial control at any layer of the execution stack.


    This talk will present verifiable infrastructure, a framework that lets users audit outsourced applications and services. I will introduce two systems: Orochi and Cobra, which verify the execution of, respectively, untrusted servers and black-box databases. Orochi and Cobra introduce various techniques, including deduplicated re-execution, consistent ordering verification, GPU accelerated pruning, and others. Beyond these two systems, I will also discuss verifiable infrastructure more generally.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium.


    Biography: Cheng Tan is a computer science Ph.D. candidate in the Courant Institute at New York University. His interests are in operating systems, networked systems, and security. His work on the Efficient Server Audit Problem was awarded best paper at SOSP 2017. His work on data center network troubleshooting at Microsoft Research has been deployed globally in more than 30 data centers in Microsoft Azure.

    Host: Barath Raghavan

    Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Self-Care Carnival

    Tue, Feb 18, 2020 @ 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Receptions & Special Events


    VITERBI's biggest week is coming up! To start it, come de-stress at the Self-Care Carnival. We will have FREE acai bowls, a puppy pen, booths that include DIY lip scrubs, succulent painting, and more -“ all hosted by Viterbi student organizations! Come by for some free food, free goods, and Viterbi friends!

    Location: Epstein Family Plaza (E-Quad)

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Viterbi Undergraduate Programs

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  • ISE 651 - Epstein Seminar

    ISE 651 - Epstein Seminar

    Tue, Feb 18, 2020 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM

    Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Dennis Kon-Jin Lin, University Distinguished Professor, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park

    Talk Title: Order-of-addition Experiments: Design and Analysis

    Host: Dr. Qiang Huang

    More Information: February 18, 2020.pdf

    Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Grace Owh

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  • Interviews Open Forum

    Tue, Feb 18, 2020 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Increase your preparedness for interviews by attending this professional development Q&A moderated by Viterbi Career Connections staff or Viterbi employer partners.
    For more information about Labs & Open Forums, please visit viterbicareers.usc.edu/workshops.

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211

    Audiences: All Viterbi

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Grand Challenges Lecture Series

    Tue, Feb 18, 2020 @ 05:30 PM - 06:30 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Carol Peden,

    Talk Title: Why Healthcare Needs Engineers

    Abstract: Grand Challenges Lecture Series - Health - Dr. Carol Peden


    Host: Grand Challenge Scholars Program

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211

    Audiences: GCSP Participants

    Contact: Viterbi Undergraduate Programs

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  • Interviews Open Forum

    Wed, Feb 19, 2020 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Increase your preparedness for interviews by attending this professional development Q&A moderated by Viterbi Career Connections staff or Viterbi employer partners.
    For more information about Labs & Open Forums, please visit viterbicareers.usc.edu/workshops.

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211

    Audiences: All Viterbi

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Joint Math-FLDS/ CPS Seminar

    Joint Math-FLDS/ CPS Seminar

    Wed, Feb 19, 2020 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Reinhard Heckel, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Technical, University of Munich

    Talk Title: Image Recovery and Recognition via Exploiting the Structural Bias of Neural Networks

    Abstract: Deep neural networks are highly successful tools for image classification, recovery, and restoration. This success is often attributed to large amounts of training data. However, recent findings challenge this view and instead suggest that a major contributing factor to this success is that the architecture imposes strong prior assumptions-”so strong that it enables image recovery without any training data. In this talk we discuss two instances of this phenomena: First, we show that fitting a convolutional network to a corrupted and/or under-sampled measurement of an image provably removes noise and corruptions from that image, without ever having trained the network. Second, we show that it is possible to learn from a dataset with both true and false examples, obtained without explicit human annotations, by exploiting the phenomena that neural networks fit true examples faster than false ones.

    Host: Mahdi Soltanolkotabi, soltanol@usc.edu

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Talyia White

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  • AME Seminar

    Wed, Feb 19, 2020 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Alberto Aliseda, University of Washington

    Talk Title: Fluid Mechanics of Intracranial Aneurysms: Fundamental Aspects and Application to Clinical Decision-Making

    Abstract: The fluid mechanics inside intracranial aneurysms dominate the efficacy of endovascular treatment methods, modulating the mechanical stresses and residence times inside the sac and at the aneurysmal neck. Embolic coils and flow-diverting stents, the two dominant types of endovascular devices for treatment, are designed to slow down flow inside the aneurysmal volume and reduce stresses on the aneurysmal sac, creating an environment that enables successful thrombosis in the aneurysm, which eliminates the risk of rupture.

    In-vitro experiments characterize the hemodynamics inside intracranial aneurysms, prior to treatment and post-treatment with flow-diverting stents. We use stereo (2D-3C) and 3D (3D-3C) particle image velocimetry (PIV) to explore the parameter space of aneurysms in a large cohort of patients followed along several years. The flow measurements are interpreted as a combination of two canonical flows: flow in a curved pipe and cavity flow. As such, the parent-vessel Reynolds and Dean numbers are the relevant non-dimensional parameters. Unsteadiness in the cardiac cycle introduces the Womersley number as a third component of flow inertia. Despite inertia dominating the parent-vessel flow, flow-diverting stents significantly reduce the velocity inside the aneurysmal sac, leading to viscous-dominated flow. A critical Dean number is identified that separates two opposite flow behaviors that could help predict treatment success.

    I will also discuss a computational investigation of a large population of patients whose aneurysm treatments are followed over time, to determine the mechanism by which endovascular treatment fails to prevent aneurysmal growth. A novel modeling technique that uses high-resolution, synchrotron micro-CT scans to understand the flow inside coiled aneurysm enables homogenization methods for improved porous medium representation of deployed coils or stents, improving the clinical utility of the simulation results.

    Host: AME Department

    More Info: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Tessa Yao

    Event Link: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/

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  • AME Seminar

    Wed, Feb 19, 2020 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Alberto Aliseda, University of Washington

    Talk Title: Fluid Mechanics of Intracranial Aneurysms: Fundamental Aspects and Application to Clinical Decision-Making

    Abstract: The fluid mechanics inside intracranial aneurysms dominate the efficacy of endovascular treatment methods, modulating the mechanical stresses and residence times inside the sac and at the aneurysmal neck. Embolic coils and flow-diverting stents, the two dominant types of endovascular devices for treatment, are designed to slow down flow inside the aneurysmal volume and reduce stresses on the aneurysmal sac, creating an environment that enables successful thrombosis in the aneurysm, which eliminates the risk of rupture.

    In-vitro experiments characterize the hemodynamics inside intracranial aneurysms, prior to treatment and post-treatment with flow-diverting stents. We use stereo (2D-3C) and 3D (3D-3C) particle image velocimetry (PIV) to explore the parameter space of aneurysms in a large cohort of patients followed along several years. The flow measurements are interpreted as a combination of two canonical flows: flow in a curved pipe and cavity flow. As such, the parent-vessel Reynolds and Dean numbers are the relevant non-dimensional parameters. Unsteadiness in the cardiac cycle introduces the Womersley number as a third component of flow inertia. Despite inertia dominating the parent-vessel flow, flow-diverting stents significantly reduce the velocity inside the aneurysmal sac, leading to viscous-dominated flow. A critical Dean number is identified that separates two opposite flow behaviors that could help predict treatment success.

    I will also discuss a computational investigation of a large population of patients whose aneurysm treatments are followed over time, to determine the mechanism by which endovascular treatment fails to prevent aneurysmal growth. A novel modeling technique that uses high-resolution, synchrotron micro-CT scans to understand the flow inside coiled aneurysm enables homogenization methods for improved porous medium representation of deployed coils or stents, improving the clinical utility of the simulation results.

    Host: AME Department

    More Info: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Tessa Yao

    Event Link: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/

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  • Medical Imaging Seminars - Part 1 of 2

    Medical Imaging Seminars - Part 1 of 2

    Wed, Feb 19, 2020 @ 04:00 PM - 04:30 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: E. Brian Welch, Ph.D., M.B.A., Director of Clinical Science, Hyperfine, Guilford, CT

    Talk Title: Portable Point-of-Care Bedside MRI

    Series: Medical Imaging Seminar Series

    Abstract: I will describe the career path that led me from USC (B.S. B.M.E.E. 1998) to graduate school, experiences in industry to academia and back to industry again, and conclude with the most exciting stage of my career so far -“ helping to validate the clinical utility of the world's first portable point-of-care bedside MRI scanner.


    Biography: Brian is a biomedical-electrical engineer (B.S. BME-E University of Southern California, 1998) whose Ph.D. training at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine focused on biomedical imaging. Specifically, he is an expert in methods and software development for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). His previous and ongoing work concentrates on overcoming the real-world limitations that hinder research and clinical applications of MRI. Strategies to overcome these challenges include hardware and software solutions, alternative data acquisition and reconstruction methods, novel MRI pulse sequences, quantitative imaging methods and associated post-processing tools. Based on more than 20 years of experience in MRI and 6 years of work experience as the on-site Philips Healthcare MR clinical scientist supporting research projects at Vanderbilt University, Dr. Welch acquired deep knowledge of the capabilities of the 3T and 7T human scanners housed at the Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science (VUIIS). Dr. Welch applied that experience and knowledge to his own independent research programs as a Vanderbilt faculty member with contributions in the areas of fat-water MRI, human brown adipose tissue imaging, and continuously moving table MRI. Most recently, Dr. Welch joined the startup company Hyperfine in 2017 as the Director of Clinical Science with the goal of validating the clinical utility of the world's first portable point-of-care bedside MRI scanner.

    Host: Prof. Krishna Nayak, knayak@usc.edu

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Talyia White

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  • Medical Imaging Seminars - Part 2 of 2

    Medical Imaging Seminars - Part 2 of 2

    Wed, Feb 19, 2020 @ 04:30 PM - 05:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Houchun Harry Hu, Ph.D., Clinical Scientist, Hyperfine, Guilford, CT

    Talk Title: Fat to Water in Pediatric MRI

    Series: Medical Imaging Seminar Series

    Abstract: I will share my experience and career path/choices as a MRI physicist working in three large children's hospitals, from Los Angeles (2011-2014), to Phoenix (2014-2017), to Columbus (2017-2019). I will highlight several projects, including my interests in childhood obesity, my work with spiral MRI in the clinical setting, my foray into non-Gadolinium angiography techniques and arterial spin labeling in children, and my interest in non-Cartesian free-breathing techniques. I will conclude with my thoughts on the promises of a portable point of care MRI system in pediatric settings.

    Biography: Houchun Harry Hu, Ph.D., Clinical Scientist, Hyperfine, Guilford, CT Talk Title: Fat to Water in Pediatric MRI Series: MHI Distinguished Visitor Seminar Series Abstract: I will share my experience and career path/choices as a MRI physicist working in three large children's hospitals, from Los Angeles (2011-2014), to Phoenix (2014-2017), to Columbus (2017-2019). I will highlight several projects, including my interests in childhood obesity, my work with spiral MRI in the clinical setting, my foray into non-Gadolinium angiography techniques and arterial spin labeling in children, and my interest in non-Cartesian free-breathing techniques. I will conclude with my thoughts on the promises of a portable point of care MRI system in pediatric settings. Biography: Harry has been working in the domain of pediatric MRI over the last 12 years. He obtained his undergraduate degree (B.S., BME/BMEC) from USC in 2001, and went on to earn a PhD (2006) in BME / MRI from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. From 2006-2011, he spent time in Professor Krishna Nayak's laboratory at USC working primarily on water-fat imaging. From 2011-2014, he transitioned to Children's Hospital Los Angeles to work on NIH-funded projects in brown adipose tissue. From 2014-2017, Harry moved to Arizona to work as a clinical MRI physicist at Phoenix Children's Hospital, collaborating with Dr. James Pipe from the Barrow Neurological Institute on spiral acquisitions in pediatric brain applications. In June 2017, Harry was recruited to Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, as the Director of Imaging Research. In late 2019, Harry joined Hyperfine as a Clinical Scientist as a member of Dr. E. Brian Welch's team to focus on the deployment of the company's point-of-care portable MRI systems in pediatric centers. Harry has served as a Deputy Editor for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (2012-2017) and is currently an Associate Editor for Radiology and the Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

    Host: Prof. Krishna Nayak, knayak@usc.edu

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Talyia White

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  • Talent Show

    Wed, Feb 19, 2020 @ 06:00 PM - 07:30 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Receptions & Special Events


    KIUEL will be hosting a Talent Show on February 19th, 2020 from 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM! Come out and celebrate Engineers Week with your fellow peers and see all the different talents they have! For those interested in performing in the Talent Show, submit your act at:
    USC Viterbi KIUEL Talent Show

    Location: Ground Zero

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Viterbi Undergraduate Programs

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  • Spotlight Panel- Computer Science & Computer Engineering

    Wed, Feb 19, 2020 @ 07:00 PM - 08:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    The Viterbi Alumni & Industry Spotlight Series is your opportunity to hear directly from USC alumni and industry professionals from all engineering disciplines. Learn more about a potential career, meet alumni in your field, and come have free dinner on us!

    Computer Science and Computer Engineering Alumni & Industry Panel

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

    Audiences: Undergrad

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day (WIE)

    Thu, Feb 20, 2020 @ 09:00 AM - 02:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Receptions & Special Events


    Students will come to campus and participate in fun, interactive science engineering activities facilitated by USC students.

    Location: Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience (MCB) - 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Viterbi Undergraduate Programs

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  • Limits of the quantitative approach, or why parallel and distributed system energy management needs to move on

    Limits of the quantitative approach,  or why parallel and distributed  system energy management needs to move on

    Thu, Feb 20, 2020 @ 10:15 AM - 11:30 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Kirk W. Cameron, Virginia Tech

    Talk Title: Limits of the quantitative approach, or why parallel and distributed system energy management needs to move on

    Abstract: In this talk, we begin with the progression of parallel computer system power management over the last two decades. In particular, we focus on the evolution of quantitative design approaches and the emergence of effective parallel and distributed system runtime power management. We observe that the growing complexity of today's machines limits the effectiveness of traditional quantitative approaches. The Compute-Overlap-Stall (COS) model of parallel computation is proposed to accurately capture the effects of emergent orchestrated power management of processor, memory, and thread throttling. The implication of our findings is that as power management techniques pervade, new machine-learning performance evaluation and prediction approaches will be essential to future computer system designs.

    Biography: Professor Kirk W. Cameron directs the stack@cs Center for Computer Systems at Virginia Tech. He pioneered Green HPC (PowerPack, Green500, SPECPower, grano.la) and his software has been downloaded by more than 500,000 people in 160+ countries. His accolades include both NSF and DOE Career Awards, IBM and AMD Faculty Awards, best papers (e.g., HPDC 2017) and the LLNL Science/Technology Excellence Award. His internationally acclaimed SeeMore cluster has been visited by tens of thousands and was named the second best RPi project of all time by MagPi Magazine. In 2017 he was named an ACM Distinguished Scientist and in 2018-2019 he held a Distinguished Visiting Fellowship from the UK Royal Academy of Engineering.

    Host: Xuehai Qian, xuehai.qian@usc.edu

    More Information: 200220_Kirk Cameron_CENG.pdf

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Brienne Moore

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  • CS Colloquium: Jiapeng Zhang (Harvard) - Sunflowers and Their Applications in Computer Science and Mathematics

    Thu, Feb 20, 2020 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Jiapeng Zhang, Harvard University

    Talk Title: Sunflowers and Their Applications in Computer Science and Mathematics

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: The sunflower is a simple notion in combinatorics, originally invented and studied by Erdos and Rado in 1960. Surprisingly, it has deep connections to fundamental problems in computer science, such as matrix multiplication, efficient data structures, computational complexity and cryptography. In my talk, I will explain our new results on sunflowers, how ideas emerging from computer science were critical in the proof, and how our new techniques can help shed light on some central problems in computer science and mathematics.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium

    Biography: Jiapeng Zhang is a postdoc at Harvard with Prof. Salil Vadhan. He did his PhD at UC San Diego with Prof. Shachar Lovett. His research focuses on boolean function analysis, computational complexity, learning theory and cryptography.

    Host: Shaddin Dughmi

    Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • IEEE Xplore Tabling

    Thu, Feb 20, 2020 @ 12:30 PM - 02:30 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Receptions & Special Events


    IEEE Client Services Manager, Craig Griffith will be at USC providing IEEE swag and brochures, and informing students about the IEEE Xplore database.

    Location: Robert Glen Rapp Engineering Research Building (RRB) - Courtyard

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Viterbi Undergraduate Programs

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  • ECE Seminar: Ad-Mageddon: The Next Frontier in Online Privacy

    ECE Seminar: Ad-Mageddon: The Next Frontier in Online Privacy

    Thu, Feb 20, 2020 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Prof. Zubair Shafiq, University of Iowa

    Talk Title: Ad-Mageddon: The Next Frontier in Online Privacy

    Abstract: While online advertising supports the "free" web, it relies on a complex and opaque tracking ecosystem that surveils users across the web. Hundreds of millions of users rely on ad-blocking and anti-tracking tools to counter the negative externalities of online advertising and tracking. Perhaps unsurprisingly, advertisers are increasingly retaliating against the users of such tools -- prompting an arms race.

    In this talk, I will first discuss the pain points of the state-of-the-art ad-blocking and anti-tracking tools. I will then describe our recent work on building effective and robust countermeasures against online advertising and tracking using machine learning techniques. I will highlight the unique challenges and opportunities in deploying ad-blocking and anti-tracking tools in web browsers as well as mobile and IoT systems. I will conclude with a discussion of my future research vision for a privacy-respecting web.

    Biography: Zubair Shafiq is an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Iowa. Prior to this, he received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 2014. His research focuses on building privacy-enhancing tools to counter online tracking and surveillance. More broadly, his work takes a data-driven approach to addressing emerging online privacy and security threats. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award (2018), Andreas Pfitzmann PETS Best Student Paper Award (2018), ACM IMC Best Paper Award (2017), NSF CRII Award (2015), Fitch-Beach Outstanding Graduate Research Award (2013), IEEE ICNP Best Paper Award (2012), and the Dean's Plaque of Excellence for undergraduate research (2007, 2008). More information at https://cs.uiowa.edu/~mshafiq

    Host: Professor Konstantinos Psounis, kpsounis@usc.edu

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Mayumi Thrasher

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  • MASCLE Machine Learning Seminar: Rose Yu (Northeastern University) - Physics Guided AI for Learning Spatiotemporal Dynamics

    Thu, Feb 20, 2020 @ 04:00 PM - 05:20 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Rose Yu, Northeastern University

    Talk Title: Physics Guided AI for Learning Spatiotemporal Dynamics

    Series: Machine Learning Seminar Series hosted by USC Machine Learning Center

    Abstract: Applications such as sports, climate science, and aerospace engineering require learning complex dynamics from large-scale spatiotemporal data. Such data is often non-linear, non-Euclidean, high-dimensional, and demonstrates complicated dependencies. Existing machine learning frameworks are still insufficient to learn spatiotemporal dynamics as they often fail to exploit the underlying physics principles. I will demonstrate how to inject physical knowledge in AI to deal with challenges such as non-linear dynamics, non-Euclidean geometry, and multi-resolution structure. I will showcase the application of these methods to problems such as accelerating turbulence simulations, imitating basketball gameplay and combating ground effect in quadcopter landing.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium.


    Biography: Dr. Yu is an Assistant Professor in the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University. Previously, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Caltech Computing and Mathematical Sciences. She earned her Ph.D. in Computer Sciences at the University of Southern California. Her research focuses on advancing machine learning techniques for large-scale spatiotemporal data, with a particular emphasis on physics-guided AI. Among her awards, she has won Google Faculty Research Award, the NSF CRII award, best dissertation award in USC, best paper award at the NeurIPS time series workshop, and was nominated as one of the 'MIT Rising Stars in EECS'.


    Host: Yan Liu

    Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Computer Science Department

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  • Astani Civil and Environmental Engineering Seminar

    Thu, Feb 20, 2020 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Subhayan De , Postdoctoral Associate, Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder

    Talk Title: Design Optimization under Uncertainty using a Stochastic Gradient Approach

    Abstract: Design optimization of complex engineering systems requires understanding and modeling the underlying physical phenomena and their interactions. In addition, uncertainties and their influences on both the design objective and the design constraints must be considered to achieve a robust design. Such uncertainties are typically due to intrinsic variabilities in the system or manufacturing processes, as well as the lack of knowledge in precisely describing the governing physics in terms of mathematical/computational models. However, accounting for uncertainty in the optimization process requires, for example, computing the statistical moments of the objective, which may lead to high computational costs. For example, a Monte Carlo approach based on random sampling in such cases requires many forward and adjoint solves, thus requiring significant computational resources. To alleviate this computational burden, in this talk, a stochastic gradient-based approach will be discussed. In this approach, stochastic approximations of the gradients, using only a handful of random samples of the uncertainty, are constructed at every design optimization iteration. Popular variants of stochastic gradient descent algorithms (e.g., AdaGrad and Adam) are used with this approach. In practical engineering settings, often models with different levels of fidelity are employed to describe the problem at hand. Lower-fidelity models (e.g., using coarser grid discretizations) can be simulated cheaply but may lead to inaccurate solutions relative to high-fidelity models (e.g., using fine grid discretizations) that are often expensive to simulate. To reduce the design optimization cost further, these low-fidelity models are incorporated in the optimization process to propose bi-fidelity versions of stochastic gradient descent algorithms with a linear rate of convergence. The stochastic gradient approach for design optimization is illustrated using numerical examples from shape and topology optimizations. These examples show that the use of stochastic gradients along with bi-fidelity approaches can reduce the computational cost of design optimization under uncertainty significantly. In the presence of uncertainty in the microscale properties of the structure, homogenization methods like FE2 require solving boundary value problems to quantify the effect of microscopic heterogeneity at the macroscale for all random samples in a Monte Carlo approach. Instead, the stochastic gradient-based approach is applied to this multiscale optimization problem to reduce the computational effort of design under microstructural uncertainty. The design of a fiber composite beam with uncertain microstructural properties is used to illustrate the proposed stochastic gradient approach. Ongoing work will introduce the application of this approach to 3D structural components with microstructural uncertainty and the limitations applying it to large-scale realistic aerospace structures, such as solid rocket fuel design.

    Biography: Bio: Dr. Subhayan De is a postdoctoral associate in the Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU-Boulder). His research at CU focuses on design optimization under uncertainty and physics-based machine learning. Subhayan received his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Southern California in 2018, where he was supported by a Viterbi Ph.D. Fellowship, a Gammel Scholarship and several NSF grants. At USC, he worked on probabilistic model validation, machine learning, uncertainty quantification, and structural control design. Subhayan also holds an MS in Electrical Engineering from USC and an MEng in Structural Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He received his B.Eng. in Civil Engineering from Jadavpur University, Kolkata.

    Host: Dr. Erik Johnson

    Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Evangeline Reyes

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  • ASTE Seminar Announcement

    Thu, Feb 20, 2020 @ 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM

    Astronautical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Aloissia Russo and David Bernachia, Masters Candidates

    Talk Title: LEAPFROG: USC's FLlight Testbed re-thinking Planetary Landers for Next Generation Exploration

    Abstract: The SERCS LEAPFROG project will be presented and key technologies being developed to re-architecture how a lunar lander is used on the moons surface.

    Host: Astronautical Engineering Department

    Location: Grace Ford Salvatori Hall Of Letters, Arts & Sciences (GFS) - 222

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Dell Cuason

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  • SMASH Tournament

    Thu, Feb 20, 2020 @ 06:30 PM - 11:59 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Receptions & Special Events


    Join the first official E-week Smash Tournament for food, competition, and prizes. Free entry for all USC students with $500 in gifts given away to the victors. Sign up with the link
    USC E-Week Smash Tournament

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Viterbi Undergraduate Programs

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  • Escape Room

    Fri, Feb 21, 2020 @ 06:30 AM - 09:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Receptions & Special Events


    Engineer your way to an epic escape! You only have 30 minutes to get out, so you and your team of 4-6 people better give it your all!

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 526

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Viterbi Undergraduate Programs

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  • Discover Engineering Day (SHPE)

    Fri, Feb 21, 2020 @ 09:00 AM - 02:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Receptions & Special Events


    SHPE Jr. is a biweekly mentorship program in which student volunteers at USC mentor high school students from Augustus Hawkins High School. Each meeting is around three hours long, during which we touch on topics like time management, leadership, or mental health (to name a few), followed by academic tutoring sessions and college preparation. Our curriculum and focus is dependent on grade level.

    Location: Epstein Family Plaza (E-Quad)

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Viterbi Undergraduate Programs

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  • Repeating EventGrammar Tutoring

    Fri, Feb 21, 2020 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Workshops & Infosessions


    INDIVIDUAL GRAMMAR TUTORIALS
    Need help refining your grammar skills in your academic and professional writing? Meet one-on-one with professors from the Engineering Writing Program, work together on your grammar skills, and take your writing to the next level!

    ALL VITERBI UNDERGRADUATE AND GRADUATE STUDENTS WELCOME!
    Sign up here: http://bit.ly/grammaratUSC

    All sessions will be via Zoom.

    Questions? Contact helenhch@usc.edu

    Location: ZOOM

    Audiences: Graduate and Undergraduate Students

    View All Dates

    Contact: Helen Choi

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  • Open Alpha Preliminary Playtest!

    Open Alpha Preliminary Playtest!

    Fri, Feb 21, 2020 @ 04:00 PM - 06:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations

    Student Activity


    For Viterbi's E-Week, OA will be hosting an open playtest of our first playable version of the first cohort's game! A vertical slice, as called in industry. Attendees will be able to sign up for a mailing list for upcoming Pizza & Playtesting events, as well as head information about our Final Release Demo in May!

    Location: E-Quad

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Open Alpha USC

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  • CS Colloquium: Michael Everett (MIT) - Fully Autonomous Robot Navigation in Human Environments

    Mon, Feb 24, 2020 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Michael Everett, MIT

    Talk Title: Fully Autonomous Robot Navigation in Human Environments

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: Today's robots are still quite limited in their ability to process information about multiple other objects in order to plan safe and efficient motions through previously unseen environments. Major technical challenges are currently sidestepped by restrictive engineering solutions (e.g., preventing humans from working alongside factory robots, collecting detailed prior maps in every intended operating environment). This talk will present frameworks that enable long-term autonomy for robots embedded among pedestrians and context-guided exploration in new environments. Furthermore, it will discuss future research directions toward safely training and deploying robots in our society.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium

    Biography: Michael Everett is a final-year PhD Candidate at MIT working with Prof. Jonathan How. He received the SM degree (2017) and the SB degree (2015) from MIT in Mechanical Engineering. His research addresses fundamental gaps in the connection of machine learning and real mobile robotics, with recent emphasis on developing the theory of safety/robustness of learned modules. His works have won the Best Paper Award on Cognitive Robotics at IROS 2019, the Best Student Paper Award and finalist for the Best Paper Award on Cognitive Robotics at IROS 2017, and finalist for the Best Multi-Robot Systems Paper Award at ICRA 2017. He has been interviewed live on the air by BBC Radio and his robots were featured by Today Show, Reuters, and the Boston Globe.

    Host: Nora Ayanian

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 109

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • ByteDance Trojan Talk

    Mon, Feb 24, 2020 @ 07:00 PM - 09:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    ByteDance is hiring at USC Viterbi! During the presentation you are expected to learn about our corporate culture, technology, growth path, positions, etc.

    Target group:
    - Full-Time: Class of 2020 graduates (Graduation time:2019.9-2020.8)
    - Summer intern:Class of 2021 graduates (Graduation time:after 2020.8~)
    Working location: Mountain View, Los Angeles, Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore, etc.

    ByteDance is one of the first companies to launch mobile-first products powered by smart recommendation technology and we are aiming to build the best Global Creation and Interaction Platform. Come to join us, Inspire Creativity, Enrich Life!

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • CS Colloquium: Robin Jia (Stanford University) - Building Robust Natural Language Processing Systems

    Tue, Feb 25, 2020 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Robin Jia, Stanford University

    Talk Title: Building Robust Natural Language Processing Systems

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: While modern NLP systems have achieved outstanding performance on static benchmarks, they often fail catastrophically when presented with inputs from different sources or inputs that have been adversarial perturbed. This lack of robustness exposes troubling gaps in current models' understanding capabilities, and poses challenges for deployment of NLP systems in high-stakes situations. In this talk, I will demonstrate that building robust NLP systems requires reexamining all aspects of the current model building paradigm. First, I will show that adversarially constructed test data reveals vulnerabilities that are left unexposed by standard evaluation methods. Second, I will demonstrate that active learning, in which data is adaptively collected based on a model's current predictions, can significantly improve the ability of models to generalize robustly, compared to the use of static training datasets. Finally, I will show how to train NLP models to produce certificates of robustness---guarantees that for a given example and combinatorially large class of possible perturbations, no perturbation can cause a misclassification.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium

    Biography: Robin Jia is a sixth-year Ph.D. student at Stanford University advised by Percy Liang. His research interests lie broadly in building natural language processing systems that can generalize to unexpected test-time inputs. Robin's work has received an Outstanding Paper Award at EMNLP 2017 and a Best Short Paper Award at ACL 2018. He has been supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

    Host: Xiang Ren

    Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Job Offer and Salary Negotiation Workshop

    Tue, Feb 25, 2020 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Considering multiple internship/job offers? Want to negotiate your salary?

    Viterbi students and alumni are in-demand, and many of you receive multiple competing offers for internships and full-time jobs. But what do you do when you have already accepted an offer and then get one from your dream company? How do you leverage your offers to negotiate a better salary or increased benefits? Attend our upcoming Job Offer & Salary Negotiation workshop to get guidance on the process.

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211

    Audiences: All Viterbi Students

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Job Offer and Salary Negotiation Workshop

    Tue, Feb 25, 2020 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Considering multiple internship/job offers? Want to negotiate your salary?

    Viterbi students and alumni are in-demand, and many of you receive multiple competing offers for internships and full-time jobs. But what do you do when you have already accepted an offer and then get one from your dream company? How do you leverage your offers to negotiate a better salary or increased benefits? Attend our upcoming Job Offer & Salary Negotiation workshop to get guidance on the process.

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211

    Audiences: All Viterbi Students

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • VIP Reflection Session

    Tue, Feb 25, 2020 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Receptions & Special Events


    Monthly reflection sessions for students to come together and give meaning to their experiences.

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211

    Audiences: Undergrad

    Contact: Viterbi Undergraduate Programs

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  • ECE Seminar

    Tue, Feb 25, 2020 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Junsong Yuan, PhD, State University of New York

    Talk Title: Beyond Deep Recognition: Discovering Visual Patterns in Big Visual Data

    Abstract: Thanks to the success of deep learning, many computer vision tasks nowadays are formulated as regression problems. However, often times one has to rely on large amounts of annotated training data to make the high-dimensional regression successful. In this talk, we will discuss a complementary yet overlooked problem beyond deep visual recognition and regression. We will discuss why and how to discover visual patterns in images and videos that are not annotated, e.g., unsupervised and weakly-supervised visual learning and pattern discovery, and explore how to utilize them to better model, search, and interpret big visual data. Applications in visual search, object detection, action recognition, and video analytics will also be discussed.

    Biography: Junsong Yuan is an Associate Professor and Director of Visual Computing Lab of CSE Department, State University of New York at Buffalo. Before that he was an Associate Professor at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He received his PhD from Northwestern University and M.Eng. from National University of Singapore. He is currently Associate Editor of IEEE Trans. on Image Processing (T-IP) and Machine Vision and Applications (MVA), and Senior Area Editor of Journal of Visual Communication and Image Representation (JVCI), and served as program co-chair for ICME 2018 and area chair for CVPR/ACM MM/WACV/ACCV/ICIP/ICPR etc. He received Best Paper Award from IEEE Trans. on Multimedia, Nanyang Assistant Professorship from NTU, and Outstanding EECS Ph.D. Thesis award from Northwestern University. He is a Fellow of International Association of Pattern Recognition (IAPR).

    Host: Dr. C.-C. Jay Kuo

    More Information: Yunsong Yuan Seminar 2.25.20.pdf

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Gloria Halfacre

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  • ISE 651 - Epstein Seminar

    ISE 651 - Epstein Seminar

    Tue, Feb 25, 2020 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM

    Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Daniel Kuhn, Chair, Risk Analytics and Optimization - The Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)

    Talk Title: Wasserstein Distributionally Robust Optimization: Theory and Applications in Machine Learning

    Host: Dr. Phebe Vayanos

    More Information: February 25, 2020.pdf

    Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Grace Owh

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  • Trojan Talk - LegalZoom

    Trojan Talk - LegalZoom

    Tue, Feb 25, 2020 @ 06:00 PM - 08:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Presentation about LegalZoom and the Data Analytics function.

    LegalZoom currently has job opportunities available within the Data Analytics' team, so we would like to share information as to our organization, culture, and how the Analytics function plays a key role in understanding our customers with insights and assist in key business decisions.

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Computer Science General Faculty Meeting

    Wed, Feb 26, 2020 @ 12:00 PM - 02:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Receptions & Special Events


    Bi-Weekly regular faculty meeting for invited full-time Computer Science faculty only. Event details emailed directly to attendees.

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 526

    Audiences: Invited Faculty Only

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • AME Seminar

    Wed, Feb 26, 2020 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Garrett Reisman, USC

    Talk Title: Human Spaceflight-“Recent Past, Near Future and Educational Activities at Viterbi

    Abstract: The presentation will highlight his personal experiences flying on the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station while serving as a NASA Astronaut from 1998 to 2011. After describing these unique experiences he will discuss his transition to SpaceX and the state of the commercial human spaceflight industry. Finally, the human spaceflight graduate coursework which has recently been established in Viterbi ASTE department will be presented.

    Host: AME Department

    More Info: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/

    Location: 159

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Tessa Yao

    Event Link: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/

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  • CS Colloquium: Minjoon Seo (University of Washington) - Web-Scale Neural Memory towards Universal Knowledge Interface

    Thu, Feb 27, 2020 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Minjoon Seo, University of Washington

    Talk Title: Web-scale Neural Memory towards Universal Knowledge Interface

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: Modern natural language tasks are increasingly dependent on external world knowledge. My PhD study has particularly focused on three challenges in this literature: handling unstructured knowledge, being scalable, and reasoning over knowledge data. I will mainly discuss my recent and on-going work on a web-scale neural memory that tackles all of the three challenges, and show how it serves as an effective interface for interacting with the world knowledge. I will conclude with an argument that designing a seamless and universal knowledge interface is a crucial research goal that can better address knowledge-dependency problem in machine learning tasks.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium

    Biography: Minjoon Seo is a final-year Ph.D. student in the Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington, advised by Hannaneh Hajishirzi and Ali Farhadi. His research interest has been mostly in the learning model for the extraction of (IE), the access to (QA), and the interplay of (Reasoning) knowledge in various forms of language data. He is supported by Facebook Fellowship and AI2 Key Scientific Challenges Award. He co-organizes the Workshop on Machine Reading for Question Answering (MRQA) and the Workshop on Representation Learning for NLP (RepL4NLP).

    Host: Xiang Ren

    Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Tabling | Civil Engineering | Bachelors & Masters

    Tabling | Civil Engineering | Bachelors & Masters

    Thu, Feb 27, 2020 @ 12:00 PM - 04:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Tabling Session - For future engineers

    Los Angeles County is hiring Civil Engineering Assistants and Civil Engineering Students! Recruiting for bachelors and masters Civil Engineering students.

    Stop by the Engineering Quad to learn more about both opportunities, drop your resume, and chat with recruiters. Stop by anytime between 12 pm and 4 pm.

    Start your engineering journey at Public Works and enjoy a rewarding career in public service. As an LA County engineer, you will have an opportunity to join a dynamic team and play a meaningful role in enriching the lives of the 10 million residents we serve.

    Location: E-Quad

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • ECE-EP Seminar - Maiken Mikkelsen, Thursday, February 27th at 2pm in EEB 132

    Thu, Feb 27, 2020 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Maiken Mikkelsen, Duke University

    Talk Title: Atomic-scale Engineering for On-chip Photonic Devices

    Abstract: Nano- and quantum materials with unique optical properties hold the potential for breakthroughs in a wide range of areas from ultrafast optoelectronics and on-chip components for quantum information science to improve bio-sensing. An exciting opportunity to realize such new materials lies in controlling the local electromagnetic environment on the atomic- and molecular-scale (~1-10 nm), which enables extreme local field enhancements and drastically modified local density of states. We use creative nanofabrication techniques at the interface between chemistry and physics to realize this new regime together with ultrafast optical techniques to probe the emerging phenomena. Here, I will provide an overview of our recent research where we sculpt the electromagnetic fields on the atomic scale to realize ultrafast single photon sources, high-speed thermal photodetectors with on-chip spectral filters and metasurface-enhanced biosensors.

    Biography: Maiken H. Mikkelsen is the James N. and Elizabeth H. Barton Associate Professor at Duke University in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, and by courtesy, in the Departments of Physics and Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science. She received her B.S. in Physics from the University of Copenhagen in 2004, her Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2009 and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley before joining Duke University in 2012. Her research explores nanophotonics and new quantum materials to enable transformative breakthroughs for optoelectronics, quantum science, the environment and human health. Her awards include the Maria Goeppert Mayer Award from the American Physical Society, the NSF CAREER award, the Moore Inventor Fellow award from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Young Investigator Program Awards from the Office of Naval Research, the Army Research Office and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Cottrell Scholar Award from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, the Early Career Achievement Award from SPIE - the International Society for Optics and Photonics, and is the recipient of an RO1 award from the National Institute of Health.

    Host: ECE-Electrophysics

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Marilyn Poplawski

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  • VIP Lecture Series 1

    Thu, Feb 27, 2020 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: DJ Kast, STEM PROGRAMS -JEP

    Abstract: VIP Guest Speaker - DJ Kast (STEM PROGRAMS -JEP)
    USC Faculty, staff, and community members discuss the societal impacts of engineering. Also, volunteer opportunities will be discussed.


    Host: Viterbi Impact Program

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 306

    Audiences: Undergrad

    Contact: Viterbi Undergraduate Programs

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  • Sonny Astani Civil and Environmental Engineering Seminar

    Thu, Feb 27, 2020 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Emily Grubert, Ph.D., Georgia Tech

    Talk Title: Conventional Hydroelectricity and the Energy Transition

    Abstract: See attached Abstract and Bio.

    Host: Dr. Kelly Sanders

    More Information: E. Grubert Abstract_ 02-27-2020.pdf

    Location: Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience (MCB) - 102

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Evangeline Reyes

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  • IISE Western Regional Conference

    Fri, Feb 28, 2020

    Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, USC Viterbi School of Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Various, Various

    Talk Title: IISE Western Regional Conference

    Abstract: The Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers at the University of Southern California is hosting the 2020 IISE Western Regional Conference February 28 - March 1, 2020.

    Please register here: https://ise.usc.edu/iise-student-conference

    This conference is a unique opportunity for students and professionals in the field of Industrial Engineering to network, explore industry trends, and compete for a chance to present their work at the IISE Annual Conference and Expo 2020 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

    The conference will be held on the main campus and includes the technical paper competition, keynote speakers, expert panels, plant tours, and other activities.

    Host: Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    More Info: https://ise.usc.edu/iise-student-conference/

    More Information: ConferenceFlyer.pdf

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Greta Harrison

    Event Link: https://ise.usc.edu/iise-student-conference/

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  • Repeating EventGrammar Tutoring

    Fri, Feb 28, 2020 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Workshops & Infosessions


    INDIVIDUAL GRAMMAR TUTORIALS
    Need help refining your grammar skills in your academic and professional writing? Meet one-on-one with professors from the Engineering Writing Program, work together on your grammar skills, and take your writing to the next level!

    ALL VITERBI UNDERGRADUATE AND GRADUATE STUDENTS WELCOME!
    Sign up here: http://bit.ly/grammaratUSC

    All sessions will be via Zoom.

    Questions? Contact helenhch@usc.edu

    Location: ZOOM

    Audiences: Graduate and Undergraduate Students

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    Contact: Helen Choi

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  • Machine Learning for Performance and Power Modeling/Prediction

    Machine Learning for Performance and Power Modeling/Prediction

    Fri, Feb 28, 2020 @ 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Prof. Lizy Kurian John, UT Austin

    Talk Title: Machine Learning for Performance and Power Modeling/Prediction

    Abstract: Estimating the power and thermal characteristics of SoCs is essential for designing its power delivery system, packaging, cooling, and power/thermal management schemes. Power models that estimate the power consumption of each functional unit/hardware component from first principles are slow and tedious to build. Machine learning can be used to create power models that are fast and reasonably accurate. Machine learning can also be used to calibrate analytical models that estimate power. In this talk, I will present some examples of performance and power modeling using machine learning.
    Another application for machine learning has been to create max power stressmarks. Manually developing and tuning so called stressmarks is extremely tedious and time-consuming while requiring an intimate understanding of the processor. In our past research, we created a framework that uses machine learning for the automated generation of stressmarks. In this talk, the methodology of the creation of automatic stressmarks will be explained. Experiments on multiple platforms validating the proposed approach will be described.
    Yet another application for machine learning is in cross-platform performance and power prediction. If one model is slow to run real-world benchmarks/workloads, is it possible to predict/estimate the performance/power by using runs on another platform? Are there correlations that can be exploited using machine learning to make cross-platform performance and power predictions? A methodology to perform cross-platform performance/power predictions will be presented in this talk.

    Biography: Lizy Kurian John is Cullen Trust for Higher Education Endowed Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her Ph. D in Computer Engineering from Pennsylvania State University. Her research interests include workload characterization, performance evaluation, memory systems, reconfigurable architectures, and high-performance architectures for emerging workloads. She is a recipient of many awards including The Pennsylvania State University Outstanding Engineering Alumnus 2011, the NSF CAREER award, UT Austin Engineering Foundation Faculty Award, Halliburton, Brown and Root Engineering Foundation Young Faculty Award 2001, University of Texas Alumni Association (Texas Exes) Teaching Award 2004, etc. She has co-authored books on Digital Systems Design using VHDL (Cengage Publishers, 2007, 2017), a book on Digital Systems Design using Verilog (Cengage Publishers, 2014) and has edited 4 books including a book on Computer Performance Evaluation and Benchmarking. In the past, she has served as Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Computers, IEEE Transactions on VLSI, IEEE Computer Architecture Letters, ACM Transactions on Architecture and Code Optimization, and IEEE Micro. She is currently the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Micro. She holds 12 US patents and is an IEEE Fellow (Class of 2009).

    Host: Xuehai Qian, xuehai.qian@usc.edu

    More Information: 200228_Lizy John_CENG.pdf

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 105

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Brienne Moore

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  • Virtual Graduate Mixer

    Fri, Feb 28, 2020 @ 01:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Alumni

    Receptions & Special Events


    Don't miss out on this chance to chat with participants from all around the world! Share your experiences, exchange career tips and build your professional network -- all online, from any device.

    Current Viterbi Students, Viterbi Alumni, Engineering Professionals, and Employers hiring Engineers are all encouraged to attend. Don't wait, register now!

    WebCast Link: Please register for more information.

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Kristy Ly

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  • PhD Defense - Ayush Jaiswal

    Fri, Feb 28, 2020 @ 01:30 PM - 03:30 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    University Calendar


    PhD Candidate: Ayush Jaiswal
    Date: Friday, February 28, 2020
    Time: 1:30 PM - 3:30 PM
    Location: SAL 213
    Committee: Premkumar Natarajan (Chair), Ram Nevatia, Cauligi S. Raghavendra

    Title: Invariant Representation Learning for Robust and Fair Predictions

    Abstract:

    Learning representations that are invariant to nuisance factors of data improves robustness of machine learning models, and promotes fairness for factors that represent biasing information. This view of invariance has been adopted for deep neural networks (DNNs) recently as they learn latent representations of data by design. Numerous methods for invariant representation learning for DNNs have emerged in recent literature, but the research problem remains challenging to solve: existing methods achieve partial invariance or fall short of optimal performance on the prediction tasks that the DNNs need to be trained for.

    This thesis presents novel approaches for inducing invariant representations in DNNs by effectively separating predictive factors of data from undesired nuisances and biases. The presented methods improve the predictive performance and the fairness of DNNs through increased invariance to undesired factors. Empirical evaluation on a diverse collection of benchmark datasets shows that the presented methods achieve state-of-the-art performance.

    Application of the invariance methods to real-world problems is also presented, demonstrating their practical utility. Specifically, the presented methods improve nuisance-robustness in presentation attack detection and automated speech recognition, fairness in face-based analytics, and generalization in low-data and semi-supervised learning settings.

    Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 213

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Lizsl De Leon

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  • Repeating EventIISE Regional Conference

    Sat, Feb 29, 2020

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: ,

    Talk Title:

    Host:

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

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    Contact: Viterbi Undergraduate Programs

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