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  • CS Colloquium: Hengshuang Zhao (University of Oxford) - Advancing Visual Intelligence via Neural System Design

    Mon, Mar 01, 2021 @ 09:00 AM - 10:00 AM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Hengshuang Zhao, University of Oxford

    Talk Title: Advancing Visual Intelligence via Neural System Design

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: Building intelligent visual systems is essential for the next generation of artificial intelligence systems. It is a fundamental tool for many disciplines and beneficial to various potential applications such as autonomous driving, robotics, surveillance, augmented reality, to name a few. An accurate and efficient intelligent visual system has a deep understanding of the scene, objects, and humans. It can automatically understand the surrounding scenes. In general, 2D images and 3D point clouds are the two most common data representations in our daily life. Designing powerful image understanding and point cloud processing systems are two pillars of visual intelligence, enabling the artificial intelligence systems to understand and interact with the current status of the environment automatically. In this talk, I will first present our efforts in designing modern neural systems for 2D image understanding, including high-accuracy and high-efficiency semantic parsing structures, and unified panoptic parsing architecture. Then, we go one step further to design neural systems for processing complex 3D scenes, including semantic-level and instance-level understanding. Further, we show our latest works for unified 2D-3D reasoning frameworks, which are fully based on self-attention mechanisms. In the end, the challenges, up-to-date progress, and promising future directions for building advanced intelligent visual systems will be discussed.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium.

    Biography: Dr. Hengshuang Zhao is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford. Before that, he obtained his Ph.D. degree from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His general research interests cover the broad area of computer vision, machine learning and artificial intelligence, with special emphasis on building intelligent visual systems. He and his team won several champions in competitive international challenges like ImageNet Scene Parsing Challenge. He is recognized as outstanding/top reviewers in ICCV'19 and NeurIPS'19. He receives the rising star award at the world artificial intelligence conference 2020. Some of his research projects are supported by Microsoft, Adobe, Uber, Intel, and Apple. His works have been cited for about 5,000+ times, with 5,000+ GitHub credits and 80,000+ YouTube views.

    Host: Ramakant Nevatia

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Central Intelligence Agency Career Opportunities Info Session

    Mon, Mar 01, 2021 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    University Calendar


    Log in and learn about career opportunities at the Central Intelligence Agency!

    All degree levels and Viterbi majors welcome.

    Hear about different career paths, and get the chance to ask a Central Intelligence Agency recruiter about what it is like to work there, the hiring process, what opportunities they have, and more.

    You will also be able to sign up for one-on-one office hour phone calls with Central Intelligence Agency recruiters taking place next week, March 8th.

    Registration: Link Coming soon!

    NOTE: The Central Intelligence Agency cannot sponsor international candidates.

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • PhD Defense - Kan Qi

    Mon, Mar 01, 2021 @ 12:00 PM - 02:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    University Calendar


    PhD Candidate: Kan Qi

    Committee:
    Prof. Barry Boehm (chair)
    Prof. Paul Adler (outside)
    Prof. Chao Wang

    Title: Incremental Effort Estimation via Transaction Analysis

    Accurate software cost and effort estimation is particularly important for many classes of software projects. Examples are projects with fixed budget, competitive bidding on prospective projects, or prioritization of candidate projects. Many organizations primarily rely on commercial or open-source cost estimation models, which have been calibrated on the actual sizes and costs of previous projects. Their key size parameter is generally the number of lines of code in the projects. This can be accurately determined via a code-count system on the previous projects, but there is no counterpart for estimating the lines of code in the system to be developed. One can try to break the system into pieces and estimate the lines of code in each piece but doing this accurately will generally require additional time and effort to design the system. Alternative early effort estimation methods such as story points, use case points, and function points involve determining the system's numbers and complexities of user stories, use cases, inputs, outputs, queries, and logical files, which again typically require additional time and effort to analyze the functionality and architecture. In summary, there are two limitations that prevent the existing effort estimation methods from being effectively used for early effort estimation. First, the existing methods require extensive manual analysis effort to acquire system information as their input. This makes it costly to apply the existing methods at the early stage of a software project. Secondly, the system information that the existing methods rely on as the input can usually only be retrieved from certain types of system specifications. This makes the existing methods only applicable at the development phases where the required types of system specifications are produced.

    To address the first limitation, an automated transaction analysis method is proposed, which can be used to automatically retrieve transactional information from the typical early-phase artifacts produced in a software project; To address the second limitation, three phase-based effort estimation models are proposed, which utilize the retrieved transactional information to provide effort estimates at all the typical early phases of a software project. The evaluation results have shown that the automated transaction analysis method can be an effective replacement of manual transaction analysis with high transaction identification accuracy, and the phase-based effort estimation models can provide considerable estimation accuracy improvements over the existing effort estimation models and the later-phase effort estimation models can provide significant accuracy improvements over the earlier-phase effort estimation models.






    WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/98532742081?pwd=a2VLK1NEQUNKK3BWOWdLN01ZUUNrZz09

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Lizsl De Leon

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  • Tour de L.A. Viterbi Wellness Challenge

    Mon, Mar 01, 2021 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Student Activity


    Tour de L.A. is a Viterbi Wellness Challenge promoting health of the mind, body, and soul in a safe, virtual, but still engaging, environment. This month-long adventure is designed after the Tour de France, and highlights attractions in Los Angeles. Starting on March 1, 2021 and continuing the whole month of March, participants can walk, run, or bike from wherever they are to progress through the challenge. Although these activities are often solitary and people are scattered all over the world, there are plenty of communal and social opportunities to come together virtually. The Tour de L.A. is open to the entire Viterbi community, in an effort to promote health and well-being. Let's do this together! #WellnessOn

    https://viterbigrad.usc.edu/tour-de-l-a-viterbi-wellness-challenge/

    Location: Online - Zoom

    WebCast Link: https://viterbigrad.usc.edu/tour-de-l-a-viterbi-wellness-challenge/

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Viterbi Graduate Student Association (VGSA)

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  • Virtual Networking 101

    Mon, Mar 01, 2021 @ 04:00 PM - 04:30 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Increase your career and internship knowledge on networking by attending this professional development Q&A moderated by Viterbi Career Connections staff or Viterbi employer partners.

    To access this workshop:
    Log into Viterbi Career Gateway>> Events>>Workshops: https://shibboleth-viterbi-usc-csm.symplicity.com/sso/

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

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • ACM Debugging Competition

    Mon, Mar 01, 2021 @ 07:00 PM - 08:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Student Activity


    Debugging Competition - Monday, March 1st at 7pm - Do you enjoy programming? Want to practice your debugging skills and compete for prizes? Join ACM on Monday, March 1, 2021, from 7-8 PM for some friendly competition, as you put to test your debugging skills and make new friends. The competition is open to people of all levels! There will also be exciting prizes.
    We hope to see you there!
    RSVP Link: https://forms.gle/tnhGPTJ4WY2WUJTZ9
    Zoom Link - https://usc.zoom.us/j/97205032289

    To hear about more of ACM's events, sign up for our newsletter here: https://uscacm.typeform.com/to/D5igbqTP

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Undergraduate and Graduate Students

    Contact: Caitlin Swanson

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  • Virtual Networking 101

    Tue, Mar 02, 2021 @ 08:00 AM - 08:30 AM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Increase your career and internship knowledge on networking by attending this professional development Q&A moderated by Viterbi Career Connections staff or Viterbi employer partners.

    To access this workshop:
    Log into Viterbi Career Gateway>> Events>>Workshops: https://shibboleth-viterbi-usc-csm.symplicity.com/sso/

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

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • CS Colloquium: Leilani Gilpin (MIT CSAIL) - Anomaly Detection Through Explanations

    Tue, Mar 02, 2021 @ 09:00 AM - 10:00 AM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Leilani Gilpin, MIT CSAIL

    Talk Title: Anomaly Detection Through Explanations

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: Under most conditions, complex systems are imperfect. When errors occur, as they inevitably will, systems need to be able to (1) localize the error and (2) take appropriate action to mitigate the repercussions of that error. In this talk, I present new methodologies for detecting and explaining errors in complex systems.
    My novel contribution is a system-wide monitoring architecture, which is composed of introspective, overlapping committees of subsystems.
    Each subsystem is encapsulated in a "reasonableness" monitor, an adaptable framework that supplements local decisions with commonsense data and reasonableness rules. This framework is dynamic and introspective: it allows each subsystem to defend its decisions in different contexts: to the committees it participates in and to itself. For reconciling system-wide errors, I developed a comprehensive architecture: "Anomaly Detection through Explanations (ADE)." The ADE architecture contributes an explanation synthesizer that produces an argument tree, which in turn can be traced and queried to determine the support of a decision, and to construct counterfactual explanations. I have applied this methodology to detect incorrect labels in semi-autonomous vehicle data, and to reconcile inconsistencies in simulated, anomalous driving scenarios.

    My work has opened up the new area of explanatory anomaly detection, towards a vision in which: complex machines will be articulate by design; dynamic, internal explanations will be part of the design criteria, and system-level explanations will be able to be challenged in an adversarial proceeding.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium


    Biography: Leilani H. Gilpin is a research scientist at Sony AI and a collaborating researcher at MIT CSAIL. Her research focuses on enabling opaque autonomous systems to explain themselves for robust decision-making, system debugging, and accountability. Her current work integrates explainability into reinforcement learning for game-playing agents.

    She received her PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 2020, and holds an M.S. in Computational and Mathematical Engineering from Stanford University, and a B.S. in Mathematics (with honors), B.S. in Computer Science (with highest honors), and a music minor from UC San Diego. Outside of research, Leilani enjoys swimming, cooking, and rowing.


    Host: Yan Liu

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Seminar

    Tue, Mar 02, 2021 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Hadi Meidani, Assistant Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

    Talk Title: Scientific Machine Learning for Efficient Computational Design of Engineering Systems

    Abstract:
    The focus of this talk is on using deep neural networks (DNNs) to approximate the response of engineering systems and facilitate their design and control. DNNs can be trained using supervised learning approaches which require large datasets of input-output samples. In engineering applications, these input-output samples are typically obtained from high-fidelity Finite Element or Finite Difference solvers. In applications where these samples are costly to obtain, supervised learning may be prohibitively slow. In this talk, I will present our recent contributions in this domain, which includes (1) using DNNs to accelerate robust topology optimization via a lower-dimensional representation and (2) developing a PDE-based simulation-free deep learning approach that directly exploit the physical laws in an efficient way.




    Biography: Hadi Meidani is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He earned his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering and his M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California in 2012. Prior to joining UIUC, he was a postdoctoral research associate at USC in (2012-2013) and in the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute at the University of Utah (2013-2014). He is the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award to study fast computational models for infrastructure systems. His research interests are uncertainty quantification, scientific machine learning, and design under uncertainty.

    Host: Dr. Roger Ghanem

    Location: Zoom: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97228056404; Meeting ID: 972 2805 6404: Passcode: 864779

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Evangeline Reyes

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  • Repeating EventUndergraduate Advisement Drop-in Hours

    Tue, Mar 02, 2021 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Workshops & Infosessions


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

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Undergrad

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    Contact: USC Computer Science

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  • ISE 651 - Epstein Seminar

    Tue, Mar 02, 2021 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM

    Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Meisam Razaviyayn, Assistant Professor, Epstein Dept. of Industrial & Systems Engineering, USC

    Talk Title: Does Your Training Data Violate My Privacy? A Near-Optimal Model Discrimination Method With Non-Disclosure

    Host: Prof. Jong-Shi Pang

    More Information: March 2, 2021.pdf

    Location: Online/Zoom

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Grace Owh

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  • Mork Family Department Spring Virtual Seminars - Ilya Levental

    Tue, Mar 02, 2021 @ 04:00 PM - 05:20 PM

    Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Ilya Levental, University of Virginia

    Talk Title: DESIGN PRINCIPLES OF LIVING MEMBRANES

    Abstract: ZOOM MEETING INFO:
    https://usc.zoom.us/j/98225952695?pwd=d0NMenhCNkliR1ZIR1lBamRpZHh1UT09
    Meeting ID: 982 2595 2695 • Passcode: 322435

    Host: Wade Zeno

    More Info: https://usc.zoom.us/j/98225952695?

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Greta Harrison

    Event Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/98225952695?

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  • Healthcare Tech Industry Discussion - RSVP

    Tue, Mar 02, 2021 @ 05:30 PM - 06:30 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Student Activity


    Healthcare Technology and Analytics at USC, will be hosting a speaker event on March 2nd, 2021 at 5:30 PM PST. Ben Nguyen, MD will be speaking about the healthcare technology industry. Dr. Nguyen graduated from the Keck School of Medicine and now works at a health tech company that uses artificial intelligence to improve patient care. He will be sharing about his experience in the industry as well as his insight on where the field is heading.

    To RSVP for the event, please use the following Google Form:

    https://bit.ly/2NvNECq

    A zoom link will be sent out prior to the event to all who RSVP.


    HCTA at USC is a new organization at USC seeking to bring together students of all disciplines who are interested in the future of healthcare. If you are interested in learning more about our organization, you can visit our website (https://hctausc.weebly.com/) or fill out this short application (https://forms.gle/J1snLavU53YuEQr29)!

    Thank you and we hope to see you all there!

    --
    Healthcare Technology and Analytics at USC
    Visit us at: https://hctausc.weebly.com/

    Location: Online - Zoom

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: HCTA at USC

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  • CS Colloquium: Zhuoran Yang (Princeton University) - Demystifying (Deep) Reinforcement Learning: The Pessimist, The Optimist, and Their Provable Efficiency

    Wed, Mar 03, 2021 @ 09:00 AM - 10:00 AM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Zhuoran Yang, Princeton University

    Talk Title: Demystifying (Deep) Reinforcement Learning: The Pessimist, The Optimist, and Their Provable Efficiency

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: Coupled with powerful function approximators such as deep neural networks, reinforcement learning (RL) achieves tremendous empirical successes. However, its theoretical understandings lag behind. In particular, it remains unclear how to provably attain the optimal policy with a finite regret or sample complexity. In this talk, we will present the two sides of the same coin, which demonstrates an intriguing duality between pessimism and optimism.

    - In the offline setting, we aim to learn the optimal policy based on a dataset collected a priori. Due to a lack of active interactions with the environment, we suffer from the insufficient coverage of the dataset. To maximally exploit the dataset, we propose a pessimistic least-squares value iteration algorithm, which achieves a minimax-optimal sample complexity.

    - In the online setting, we aim to learn the optimal policy by actively interacting with an environment. To strike a balance between exploration and exploitation, we propose an optimistic least-squares value iteration algorithm, which achieves a \sqrt{T} regret in the presence of linear, kernel, and neural function approximators.


    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium.

    Biography: Zhuoran Yang is a final-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering at Princeton University, advised by Professor Jianqing Fan and Professor Han Liu. Before attending Princeton, He obtained a Bachelor of Mathematics degree from Tsinghua University. His research interests lie in the interface between machine learning, statistics, and optimization. The primary goal of his research is to design a new generation of machine learning algorithms for large-scale and multi-agent decision-making problems, with both statistical and computational guarantees. Besides, he is also interested in the application of learning-based decision-making algorithms to real-world problems that arise in robotics, personalized medicine, and computational social science.

    Host: Haipeng Luo

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Spring 2021 Viterbi Industry Networking Event

    Wed, Mar 03, 2021 @ 01:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    University Calendar


    The Virtual Viterbi Industry Networking Events connect students with Viterbi Alumni and industry professionals from across the world in an online networking event.

    The event will have twelve different booths, organized by industry. Move between booths to connect randomly with a Viterbi Alumni or organization rep based on the booth you enter. This approach will help you network with industry professionals and make new connections with people from various backgrounds. There will also be a Viterbi Career Connections booth with advisors to answer your career or event-related questions.

    This event is open to all Viterbi Students including current Bachelors, Masters & Doctoral students.

    Registration coming soon!

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Repeating EventUndergraduate Advisement Drop-in Hours

    Wed, Mar 03, 2021 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Workshops & Infosessions


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

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Undergrad

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    Contact: USC Computer Science

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

    Wed, Mar 03, 2021 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Gabor Orosz, Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan

    Talk Title: Safety Verification and Conflict Analysis for Connected Automated Vehicles

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

    Abstract: We demonstrate how wireless vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication can be utilized to improve safety and prevent conflicts between road participants in mixed traffic scenarios where connected automated vehicles (CAVs) interact with connected human-driven vehicles (CHVs). The key idea is to find boundaries in state space that allow CAVs to make safe decisions far away from the conflict zone. This way CAVs are able to maintain safety while using mild control actions that benefit both the CAVs as well as the surrounding human-dominated traffic. Requirements for the quality of V2V communications are determined to ensure the performance of the decision making and control algorithms. The results are demonstrated experimentally using real automobiles and class-8 trucks.


    Biography: Gabor Orosz received the M.Sc. degree in Engineering Physics from the Budapest University of Technology, Hungary, in 2002 and the Ph.D. degree in Engineering Mathematics from University of Bristol, UK, in 2006. He held postdoctoral positions at the University of Exeter, UK, and at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 2010, he joined the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor where he is currently an Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering and in Civil and Environmental Engineering. During 2017-2018 he was a Visiting Professor in Control and Dynamical Systems at the California Institute of Technology. His research interests include nonlinear dynamics and control, time delay systems, and machine learning with applications to connected and automated vehicles, traffic flow, and biological networks. He served as the Program Chair of the 2015 IFAC Workshop on Time Delay Systems and served as the General Chair of the 2019 IAVSD Workshop on Dynamics of Road Vehicles: Connected and Automated Vehicles. Since 2018 he has been serving as an editor for the journal Transportation Research Part C and since 2021 he has been serving as an editor for the IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology.

    Host: Pierluigi Nuzzo, nuzzo@usc.edu

    Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Qk4-7AthThudso7LXs2OiA

    Location: Online

    WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Qk4-7AthThudso7LXs2OiA

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Talyia White

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  • AME Seminar

    Wed, Mar 03, 2021 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Samantha Daly, University of California at Santa Barbara

    Talk Title: Machine Learning for High-Throughput Experiment and Analysis of Processing-Property Relationships

    Abstract: Materials have hierarchical and heterogeneous structures that drive their deformation and failure mechanisms. The relationship between structure and behavior -- such as the impact of the microstructure of a polycrystalline metal on twinning, dislocation slip, grain boundary sliding, and multi-crack systems -- includes complex stochastic and deterministic factors whose interactions are under active debate. In this talk, the application of data-driven approaches to microscale displacement data for the high-throughput segmentation, identification, and analysis of twinning in magnesium (a deformation mechanism that is critical to its ductility and forming) will be discussed. This will include an analysis of deformation twinning over thousands of grains per test, including an analysis of the impact of microstructure on the relative activity of specific twin variants (automatically identified from microscale strain fields) and their evolution under load. The newly developed experimental and analytical approaches are length scale independent and material agnostic, and can be modified to identify a range of deformation and failure mechanisms.

    Biography: Samantha (Sam) Daly is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California at Santa Barbara. She received her Ph.D. from Caltech in 2007 and subsequently joined the University of Michigan, where she was on the faculty until 2016 prior to her move to UCSB. The Daly group investigates the mechanics of materials, with a focus on fatigue, fracture, creep, composites, multi-functional materials, and new experimental and data-driven approaches for the characterization of processing -“ structure -“ property relationships. Her recognitions include the Experimental Mechanics Best Paper of the Year Award, IJSS Best Paper of the Year Award, DOE Early Career Award, NSF CAREER Award, AFOSR-YIP Award, ASME Eshelby Mechanics Award, Journal of Strain Analysis Young Investigator Award, ASME Orr Award, and Caddell Award. She currently serves on the Executive Board of the Society of Experimental Mechanics, and as an Associate Editor of the journals Applied Mechanics Reviews, Experimental Mechanics, and Strain.

    Host: AME Department

    More Info: https://usc.zoom.us/j/92448962089

    Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/92448962089

    Location: Online event

    WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/92448962089

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Tessa Yao

    Event Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/92448962089

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  • NL Seminar-LIGHT: Training agents that can act and speak with other models and humans in a rich text adventure game world

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

    Information Sciences Institute

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Jason Weston , Fair/NYU

    Talk Title: LIGHT: Training agents that can act and speak with other models and humans in a rich text adventure game world

    Abstract: LIGHT is a rich fantasy text adventure game environment featuring dialogue and actions between agents in the world, which consist of both models and humans. I will summarize work on building this research platform, including crowdsourcing and machine learning to build the rich world environment, training agents to speak and act within it, and deploying the game for lifelong learning of agents by interacting with humans. See
    LIGHT Learning in Interactive Games with Humans and Text. The LIGHT project is a large scale fantasy text adventure game research platform for training agents that can both talk and act, interacting either with other models or with humans.
    parl. ai and the talk! for more.



    Biography: Jason Weston is a research scientist at Facebook, NY and a Visiting Research Professor at NYU. He earned his PhD in machine learning at Royal Holloway, University of London and at AT and T Research in Red Bank, NJ advisors: Alex Gammerman, Volodya Vovk and Vladimir Vapnik in 2000. From 2000 to 2001, he was a researcher at Biowulf technologies. From 2002 to 2003 he was a research scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tuebingen, Germany. From 2003 to 2009 he was a research staff member at NEC Labs America, Princeton. From 2009 to 2014 he was a research scientist at Google, NY. His interests lie in statistical machine learning, with a focus on reasoning, memory, perception, interaction and communication. Jason has published over 100 papers, including best paper awards at ICML and ECML, and a Test of Time Award for his work, A Unified Architecture for Natural Language Processing: Deep Neural Networks with Multitask Learning, ICML 2008 with Ronan Collobert. He was part of the YouTube team that won a National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Emmy Award for Technology and Engineering for Personalized Recommendation Engines for Video Discovery. He was listed as the 16th most influential machine learning scholar at AMiner and one of the top 50 authors in Computer Science in Science

    Host: Jon May and Mozhdeh Gheini

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

    Webcast: This talk will be live streamed only, it will Not Be recorded.

    Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - Virtual Only

    WebCast Link: This talk will be live streamed only, it will Not Be recorded.

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Petet Zamar

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

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  • CS Colloquium: Abhinav Verma (University of Texas - Austin) - Neurosymbolic Reinforcement Learning

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

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Abhinav Verma, University of Texas - Austin

    Talk Title: Neurosymbolic Reinforcement Learning

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have been driven by deep neural networks. However, neural networks have certain well-known flaws: they are difficult to interpret and verify, have high variability, and lack domain awareness. These issues create a deficiency of trust and are hence a significant impediment to the deployment of AI in safety-critical applications. In this talk, I will present work that addresses these drawbacks via neurosymbolic learning in the reinforcement learning paradigm. Neurosymbolic agents combine experience based neural learning with partial symbolic knowledge expressed via programs in a Domain Specific Language (DSL). Using a DSL provides a principled mechanism to leverage high-level abstractionsfor machine learning models, and establishes a synergistic relationship between machine learning and program synthesis.

    To overcome the challenges of policy search in non-differentiable program space we introduce a meta-algorithm that is based on mirror descent, program synthesis, and imitation learning. This approach interleaves the use of synthesized symbolic programs to regularize neural learning with the imitation of gradient-based learning to improve the quality of synthesized programs. This perspective allows us to prove robust expected regret bounds and finite-sample guarantees for this algorithm. The theoretical results guaranteeing more reliable learning are accompanied by promising empirical results on complex tasks such as learning autonomous driving agents and generating interpretable programs for behavior annotation.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium

    Biography: Abhinav Verma is a PhD Candidate at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is advised by Swarat Chaudhuri. His research lies at the intersection of machine learning and formal methods, with a focus on building intelligent systems that are reliable, transparent, and secure. His work builds connections between the symbolic reasoning and inductive learning paradigms of artificial intelligence. He is currently supported by a JP Morgan AI Research PhD Fellowship.

    Host: Mukund Raghothaman / Bistra Dilkina

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Repeating EventUndergraduate Advisement Drop-in Hours

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

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Workshops & Infosessions


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

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Undergrad

    View All Dates

    Contact: USC Computer Science

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  • Career Conversations: How to Impress Employers

    Thu, Mar 04, 2021 @ 04:00 PM - 04:30 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Will your skill set stand out to employers? Join our 2-part series of Career Conversations to gain an inside look at employer feedback for Viterbi students. During this session, learn practices to develop the key professionalism and communication skills employers want to see more of.

    To access this workshop:

    Log into Viterbi Career Gateway>> Events>>Workshops: https://shibboleth-viterbi-usc-csm.symplicity.com/sso/

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

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • A Virtual Chat with Professor Zeno from the Mork Family Department

    Thu, Mar 04, 2021 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Masters Programs

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Wade Zeno, Mork Family Professor

    Talk Title: A Virtual Chat with Professor Zeno

    Abstract: Sure, they're distinguished and renowned experts in their fields, but Viterbi faculty were once students too. Learn valuable life lessons as they share their professional and personal stories! Together, VGSA and the VASE office presents the Virtual Chat with a Professor Series! These are meant to be informal conversations that you might have with a professor after class or in the hallways. Each session is open to all Viterbi graduate students. Join in to chat with Prof. Mike Gruntman!

    Host: VGSA & VASE

    More Info: https://usc.zoom.us/j/92173930953?pwd=K2pBUDZrQWh4NDBqdWxzSUFKT1NDQT09

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Juli Legat

    Event Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/92173930953?pwd=K2pBUDZrQWh4NDBqdWxzSUFKT1NDQT09

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  • Virtual Chat with Prof. Mike Gruntman from Department of Astronautical Engineering

    Thu, Mar 04, 2021 @ 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Masters Programs

    Student Activity


    Sure, they're distinguished and renowned experts in their fields, but Viterbi faculty were once students too. Learn valuable life lessons as they share their professional and personal stories! Together, VGSA and the VASE office presents the Virtual Chat with a Professor Series! These are meant to be informal conversations that you might have with a professor after class or in the hallways. Each session is open to all Viterbi graduate students. Join in to chat with Prof. Mike Gruntman!

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Juli Legat

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  • Boeing Freshman Design Challenge

    Thu, Mar 04, 2021 @ 06:00 PM - 09:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    University Calendar


    Challenge Details: As the world's leading aerospace company, Boeing is the world's largest manufacturer of commercial airplanes and military aircraft. To continue this dominance, Boeing needs the young minds of tomorrow to provide innovative, new perspectives. For this reason, Boeing will be putting on a design challenge for the Freshmen class of USC. In this competition, teams of three or four freshmen will have two hours to work together and design a solution to a typical, real-world engineering problem.

    During this unique, resume-building experience, students will also have the opportunity to network with Boeing engineers and executives, who will be available to act as mentors and judges.

    Despite being virtual, food will be provided in the form of dining gift cards for participants. Prizes are provided to top participants!

    To RSVP log into Viterbi Career Gateway>> Events>> Information Sessions:
    https://shibboleth-viterbi-usc-csm.symplicity.com/sso

    Audiences: All Viterbi Students

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • ACM Facebook Engineers Panel

    Thu, Mar 04, 2021 @ 07:00 PM - 08:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Student Activity


    Facebook Engineers Panel:

    Want to learn about the opportunities Facebook has for you? Join ACM on Thursday, March 4, from 7-8 PM for a tech talk hosted by us and Facebook! Engineers and recruiters will be discussing their projects and experiences working at Facebook.

    Please fill out the RSVP form linked below. We will send the zoom link out to students who RSVP, so if you'd like to attend you must fill it out. Space is limited and will be filled on a first come first serve basis. This event is only open to undergraduate students. We hope to see you there!

    RSVP at https://forms.gle/q9qXY9UPVUv55MYa8

    Learn more at https://www.facebook.com/events/167553678371060/

    Location: Online - Zoom

    Audiences: Undergrad

    Contact: ACM

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  • CS Colloquim: TBA

    Fri, Mar 05, 2021 @ 09:00 AM - 10:00 AM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: TBA, TBA

    Talk Title: TBA

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: TBA

    Biography: TBA

    Host: Ramakant Nevatia

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • CSU@USC Day 1

    Fri, Mar 05, 2021 @ 10:00 AM - 01:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Graduate Admission

    Workshops & Infosessions


    The University of Southern California-Viterbi School of Engineering is proud to present the first annual CSU at USC virtual workshop series!

    Over the course of two days, this program will take an overall look at the engineering graduate school experience. Participants will have the opportunity to engage with current students, faculty and staff, and will walk away with an understanding of Masters & PhD programs in engineering and computer science. Our goal is to provide the pathways and tools needed for CSU students to pursue advanced studies and their academic careers.

    Eligibility
    *MUST Currently attend a California State University (CSU)*

    We encourage students majoring in engineering, computer science, applied mathematics, or physical sciences (biology, chemistry, physics) to join. Students with backgrounds outside of science and engineering are also welcome to join to learn more about our interdisciplinary data science programs.

    More information available here: https://viterbigradadmission.usc.edu/csu-at-usc/

    Register here:
    https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ydygqKKEQbuFBzX4HBpWrA

    More Information: CSU USC 2021 flyer.pdf

    Location: Zoom

    WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ydygqKKEQbuFBzX4HBpWrA

    Audiences: CSU Undergraduate Students

    Contact: camila tabar

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  • CS Colloquium: Daniel Fried (UC Berkeley) - Learning Grounded Pragmatic Communication

    Fri, Mar 05, 2021 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Daniel Fried, UC Berkeley

    Talk Title: Learning Grounded Pragmatic Communication

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: To generate language, natural language processing systems predict what to say---why not also predict how listeners will respond? We show how language generation and interpretation across varied grounded domains can be improved through pragmatic inference: explicitly reasoning about the actions and intents of the people that the systems interact with. We train neural generation and interpretation models which ground language into a world context, then layer a pragmatic inference procedure on top of these models. This pragmatic procedure predicts how human listeners will interpret text generated by the models, and reasons counterfactually about why human speakers produced the text they did. We find that this approach improves models' success at generating and interpreting instructions in real indoor environments, as well as in a challenging spatial reference dialogue task.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium

    Biography: Daniel Fried is a final-year PhD candidate at UC Berkeley in natural language processing, advised by Dan Klein. His research focuses on language grounding: tying language to world contexts, for tasks like visual- and embodied-instruction following, text generation, and dialogue. Previously, he graduated with an MPhil from the University of Cambridge and a BS from the University of Arizona. His work has been supported by a Google PhD Fellowship, an NDSEG Fellowship, and a Churchill Scholarship.

    Host: Xiang Ren

    Audiences: By invitation only.

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Instagram Live Q & A with VCC

    Fri, Mar 05, 2021 @ 12:45 PM - 01:15 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Instagram Live Q & A with Viterbi Career Connections

    Hello fellow Trojans, join Viterbi Career Connections Staff on Friday, March 5th from 12:45-1:15 pm for quick professional tips and career advice via Instagram @viterbicareers.

    Location: Instagram @viterbicareers

    Audiences: All Viterbi Students

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Deloitte Consulting + Case Workshop

    Fri, Mar 05, 2021 @ 01:00 PM - 03:30 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    ** This is an external event hosted by Deloitte and you must RSVP to receive Zoom Meeting details **

    RSVP to learn valuable insights into the consulting world at our Case Workshop and Networking event!

    This is a great opportunity to learn more about our consulting practice, why we do case interviews, plus how your background and experiences could flourish at Deloitte.

    This event will be broken up into two parts; an interactive case workshop (where practitioners will walk you thru a sample case study in which you will have an opportunity to practice and ask questions) and a networking session with various consultants (to answer any questions you may have about the firm, our culture, recruiting process, and how you could start your career with us!).

    1:00 - 2:15pm PT = Case Workshop
    2:15 - 3:30pm PT = Networking Session

    To RSVP: Viterbi Career Gateway > Events > Information Sessions

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Repeating EventAthenaHacks

    Sat, Mar 06, 2021

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Student Activity


    Happening for a fifth year, from March 6-7 virtually, AthenaHacks is open to all levels of experience, majors, and backgrounds (undergraduate and graduate students both welcome).

    At AthenaHacks you'll have the opportunity to learn, network, and build through project building, technical and professional workshops, and speaker series.

    Everything is free! Our sponsors at the event will include Microsoft, Zynga, Facebook, Disney, and Bloomberg and we'll have thousands of dollars worth of prizes to compete for!


    Email any questions to AthenaHacks@gmail.com, join the event page: https://tinyurl.com/athenahacks21, and find us on Instagram on @athena_hacks.

    Applications are due Saturday 2/27/21 at 11:59pm PST!
    Apply at http://www.athenahacks.com/.

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Undergraduate and Graduate Students

    View All Dates

    Contact: AthenaHacks

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  • CSU@USC Day 2

    Sat, Mar 06, 2021 @ 10:00 AM - 12:30 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Graduate Admission

    Workshops & Infosessions


    The University of Southern California-Viterbi School of Engineering is proud to present the first annual CSU at USC virtual workshop series!

    Over the course of two days, this program will take an overall look at the engineering graduate school experience. Participants will have the opportunity to engage with current students, faculty and staff, and will walk away with an understanding of Masters & PhD programs in engineering and computer science. Our goal is to provide the pathways and tools needed for CSU students to pursue advanced studies and their academic careers.

    Eligibility
    *MUST Currently attend a California State University (CSU)*

    We encourage students majoring in engineering, computer science, applied mathematics, or physical sciences (biology, chemistry, physics) to join. Students with backgrounds outside of science and engineering are also welcome to join to learn more about our interdisciplinary data science programs.

    More information available here: https://viterbigradadmission.usc.edu/csu-at-usc/

    Register here:
    https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_TwUSaOPqRvyby2YXVnRN5A

    More Information: CSU USC 2021 flyer.pdf

    Location: Zoom

    WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_TwUSaOPqRvyby2YXVnRN5A

    Audiences: CSU Undergraduate Students

    Contact: camila tabar

    OutlookiCal
  • Repeating EventAthenaHacks

    Sun, Mar 07, 2021

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Student Activity


    Happening for a fifth year, from March 6-7 virtually, AthenaHacks is open to all levels of experience, majors, and backgrounds (undergraduate and graduate students both welcome).

    At AthenaHacks you'll have the opportunity to learn, network, and build through project building, technical and professional workshops, and speaker series.

    Everything is free! Our sponsors at the event will include Microsoft, Zynga, Facebook, Disney, and Bloomberg and we'll have thousands of dollars worth of prizes to compete for!


    Email any questions to AthenaHacks@gmail.com, join the event page: https://tinyurl.com/athenahacks21, and find us on Instagram on @athena_hacks.

    Applications are due Saturday 2/27/21 at 11:59pm PST!
    Apply at http://www.athenahacks.com/.

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Undergraduate and Graduate Students

    View All Dates

    Contact: AthenaHacks

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  • CS Colloquium: Mariya Toneva (Carnegie Mellon University) - Data-Driven Transfer of Insight between Brains and AI Systems

    Mon, Mar 08, 2021 @ 09:00 AM - 10:00 AM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Mariya Toneva, Carnegie Mellon University

    Talk Title: Data-Driven Transfer of Insight between Brains and AI Systems

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: Several major innovations in artificial intelligence (AI) (e.g. convolutional neural networks, experience replay) are based on findings about the brain. However, the underlying brain findings took many years to first consolidate and many more to transfer to AI. Moreover, these findings were made using invasive methods in non-human species. For cognitive functions that are uniquely human, such as natural language processing, there is no suitable model organism and a mechanistic understanding is that much farther away.

    In this talk, I will present my research program that circumvents these limitations by establishing a direct connection between the human brain and AI systems with two main goals: 1) to improve the generalization performance of AI systems and 2) to improve our mechanistic understanding of cognitive functions. Lastly, I will discuss future directions that build on these approaches to investigate the role of memory in meaning composition, both in the brain and AI. This investigation will lead to methods that can be applied to a wide range of AI domains, in which it is important to adapt to new data distributions, continually learn to perform new tasks, and learn from few samples.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium

    Biography: Mariya Toneva is a Ph.D. candidate in a joint program between Machine Learning and Neural Computation at Carnegie Mellon University, where she is advised by Tom Mitchell and Leila Wehbe. She received a B.S. in Computer Science and Cognitive Science from Yale University. Her research is at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Neuroscience. Mariya works on bridging language in machines with language in the brain, with a focus on building computational models of language processing in the brain that can also improve natural language processing systems.

    Host: Yan Liu

    Audiences: By invitation only.

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Central Intelligence Agency Office Hours | Pre-Signup Required

    Mon, Mar 08, 2021 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    University Calendar


    Sign Up For a Time Slot: Link Coming soon!

    Schedule a one-on-one phone call with a recruiter to discuss career opportunities at the Central Intelligence Agency!

    All degree levels and Viterbi majors welcome.
    NOTE: The Central Intelligence Agency cannot sponsor international candidates.
    All times are in local Los Angeles time (PST)

    Talk one-on-one with a CIA Representative to explore career and paid internship opportunities and life at the CIA. These are informal sessions--not job interviews--but please be prepared with questions about positions found on cia.gov/careers.

    If you sign up for a "waitlist" slot, you will be called if the first student signed up for that time does not answer their phone.

    We recommend going to the website, taking the short survey through the website's Job Fit Tool and having your results for our conversation. We can discuss resume style, cover letters, preparing for any interview, or anything else regarding working at the CIA. Undergraduates and Graduates of all academic disciplines are encouraged to attend. All CIA positions require US citizenship and relocation to the Washington, DC metropolitan area.

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • CS Colloquium: Saiph Savage (University of Washington) - The Future of A.I. for Social Good

    Mon, Mar 08, 2021 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Saiph Savage, University of Washington

    Talk Title: The Future of A.I. for Social Good

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: The A.I. industry has powered a futuristic reality of self-driving cars and voice assistants to help us with almost any need. However, the A.I. Industry has also created systematic challenges. For instance, while it has led to platforms where workers label data to improve machine learning algorithms, my research has uncovered that these workers earn less than minimum wage. We are also seeing the surge of A.I. algorithms that privilege certain populations and racially exclude others. If we were able to fix these challenges we could create greater societal justice and enable A.I. that better addresses people's needs, especially groups we have traditionally excluded.

    In this talk, I will discuss some of these urgent global problems that my research has uncovered from the A.I. Industry. I will present how we can start to address these problems through my proposed "A.I. For Good" framework. My framework uses value sensitive design to understand people's values and rectify harm. I will present case-studies where I use this framework to design A.I. systems that improve the labor conditions of the workers operating behind the scenes in our A.I. industry; as well as how we can use this framework to safeguard our democracies. I conclude by presenting a research agenda for studying the impact of A.I. in society; and researching effective socio-technical solutions in favor of the future of work and countering techno-authoritarianism.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium

    Biography: Saiph Savage conducts research in the intersection of Human Computer Interaction, A.I., and Civic Technology. She is one of the 35 Innovators under 35 by the MIT Technology Review, a Google Anita Borg Scholarship recipient, and a fellow at the Center for Democracy & Technology. Her work has been covered in the BBC, Deutsche Welle, and the New York Times, as well as published in top venues such as ACM CHI, CSCW, and AAAI ICWSM, where she has also won honorable mention awards. Dr. Savage has been awarded grants from the National Science Foundation, the United Nations, industry, and has also formalized new collaborations with Federal and local Governments where she is driving them to adopt Human Centered Design and A.I. to deliver better experiences and government services to citizens. Dr. Savage has opened the research area of Human Computer Interaction at West Virginia University, and Saiph's students have obtained fellowships and internships in industry (Facebook Research, Twitch Research, and Microsoft Research) as well as academia (Oxford Internet Institute). Saiph holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and a master's and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Dr. Savage currently works at the University of Washington; previously she was a Visiting Professor at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). Additionally, Dr. Savage has been a tech worker at Microsoft Bing, Intel Labs, and a crowd research worker at Stanford.

    Host: Bistra Dilkina

    Audiences: By invitation only.

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • CS Colloquium: Sanghamitra Dutta (Carnegie Mellon University) - Reliable Machine Learning for High-Stakes Applications: Approaches Using Information Theory

    Mon, Mar 08, 2021 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Sanghamitra Dutta , Carnegie Mellon University

    Talk Title: Reliable Machine Learning for High-Stakes Applications: Approaches Using Information Theory

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: How do we make machine learning (ML) algorithms not only ethical, but also intelligible, explainable, and reliable? This is particularly important today as ML enters high-stakes applications such as hiring and education, often adversely affecting people's lives with respect to gender, race, etc. Identifying bias/disparity in a model's decision is often insufficient. We really need to dig deeper and bring in an understanding of anti-discrimination laws. For instance, Title VII of the US Civil Rights Act includes a subtle and important aspect that has implications for the ML models being used today: Disparities in hiring that can be explained by a business necessity are exempt. E.g., disparity arising due to code-writing skills may be deemed exempt for a software engineering job, but the disparity due to an aptitude test may not be (e.g. Griggs v. Duke Power '71). This leads us to a question that bridges the fields of fairness, explainability, and law: How can we identify and explain the sources of disparity in ML models, e.g., did the disparity arise due to the critical business necessities or not? In this talk, I propose the first systematic measure of "non-exempt disparity," i.e., the illegal bias which cannot be explained by business necessities. To arrive at a measure for the non-exempt disparity, I adopt a rigorous axiomatic approach that brings together concepts in information theory, in particular, an emerging body of work called Partial Information Decomposition, with causal inference tools. This quantification allows one to audit a firm's hiring practices, to check if they are compliant with the law. This may also allow one to correct the disparity by better explaining the source of the bias, also providing insights into accuracy-bias tradeoffs.

    My research bridges reliability in learning with reliability in computing, which has led to an emerging interdisciplinary area called "coded computing". Towards the end of this talk, I will also provide an overview of some of my results on coded reliable computing that addresses long-standing computational challenges in large-scale distributed machine learning (namely, stragglers, faults, failures) using tools from coding theory, optimization, and queueing.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium


    Biography: Sanghamitra Dutta (B. Tech. IIT Kharagpur) is a Ph.D. candidate at Carnegie Mellon University, USA. Her research interests revolve around machine learning, information theory, and statistics. She is currently focused on addressing the emerging reliability issues in machine learning concerning fairness, explainability, and law with recent publications at AAAI'20, ICML'20 (also featured in New Scientist and CMU Engineering News). In her prior work, she has also examined problems in reliable computing, proposing novel algorithmic solutions for large-scale distributed machine learning in the presence of faults and failures, using tools from coding theory (an emerging area called "coded computing"). Her results on coded computing address problems that have been open for several decades and have received substantial attention from across communities (published at IEEE Transactions on Information Theory'19,'20, NeurIPS'16, AISTATS'18, IEEE BigData'18, ICML Workshop Spotlight'19, ISIT'17,'18, Proceedings of IEEE'20 along with two pending patents). She is a recipient of the 2020 Cylab Presidential Fellowship, 2019 K&L Gates Presidential Fellowship, 2019 Axel Berny Presidential Graduate Fellowship, 2017 Tan Endowed Graduate Fellowship, 2016 Prabhu and Poonam Goel Graduate Fellowship, the 2015 Best Undergraduate Project Award at IIT Kharagpur, and the 2014 HONDA Young Engineer and Scientist Award. She has also pursued research internships at IBM Research and Dataminr.

    Host: Bistra Dilkina

    Audiences: By invitation only.

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • ACM Front End Web Dev Workshop

    Mon, Mar 08, 2021 @ 07:00 PM - 08:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Student Activity


    Want to learn more about front-end Web Development? Join ACM on Monday, March 8, from 7-8 PM for a web dev workshop.

    During this workshop, ACM will teach you about HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. If you're not familiar with those terms or if you need to brush up on your front-end web developing skills, this workshop is your calling!

    Learn more at https://www.facebook.com/events/758195448435348/

    Location: Online - Zoom

    Audiences: Undergraduate and Graduate Students

    Contact: ACM

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  • Internship/Job Search Open Forum

    Tue, Mar 09, 2021 @ 08:00 AM - 08:30 AM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Increase your career and internship knowledge on the job/internship search by attending this professional development Q&A moderated by Viterbi Career Connections staff or Viterbi employer partners.

    To access this workshop:

    Log into Viterbi Career Gateway>> Events>>Workshops: https://shibboleth-viterbi-usc-csm.symplicity.com/sso/

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

    Location: Online

    Audiences: All Viterbi Students

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • CS Colloquium: Dani Yogatama (DeepMind) - Learning General Language Processing Agents

    Tue, Mar 09, 2021 @ 09:00 AM - 10:00 AM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dani Yogatama, DeepMind

    Talk Title: Learning General Language Processing Agents

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: The ability to continuously learn and generalize to new problems quickly is a hallmark of general intelligence. Existing machine learning models work well when optimized for a particular benchmark, but they require many in-domain training examples (i.e., input-output pairs that are often costly to annotate), overfit to the idiosyncrasies of the benchmark, and do not generalize to out-of-domain examples. In contrast, humans are able to accumulate task-agnostic knowledge from multiple modalities to facilitate faster learning of new skills.

    In this talk, I will argue that obtaining such an ability for a language model requires significant advances in how we acquire, represent, and store knowledge in artificial systems. I will present two approaches in this direction: (i) an information theoretic framework that unifies several representation learning methods used in many domains (e.g., natural language processing, computer vision, audio processing) and allows principled constructions of new training objectives to learn better language representations; and (ii) a language model architecture that separates computation (information processing) in a large neural network and memory storage in a key-value database. I will conclude by briefly discussing a series of future research programs toward building a general linguistically intelligent agent.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium

    Biography: Dani Yogatama is a staff research scientist at DeepMind. His research interests are in machine learning and natural language processing. He received his PhD from Carnegie Mellon University in 2015. He grew up in Indonesia and was a Monbukagakusho scholar in Japan prior to studying at CMU.

    Host: Xiang Ren

    Audiences: By invitation only.

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Seminar

    Tue, Mar 09, 2021 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Arghavan Louhghalam, Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

    Talk Title: Physics-based and Data-driven Modeling from eco-friendly roadway network to infrastructure resilience analytics

    Abstract: Development of sustainable and resilient infrastructure systems requires novel frameworks that leverage the explosion of data available through advances in sensors, internet, mobility as well as computational models to design for and respond to the challenges of 21st century. In this talk, I will showcase how physics-constrained data-driven modeling enables development of quantitative platforms for identification, monitoring and projection of infrastructure performance. In the first part of the presentation I will describe a citizen-enabled framework to monitor, in real-time, road surface condition, vehicle excess energy consumption, and the related environmental impact at network scale. Unlike the widely used approaches for road infrastructure monitoring that rely solely on data and empirical models, this framework integrates physics-compatible models of road-vehicle interaction with crowdsourced data to characterize the parameters of system. The proposed data-centric platform has the potential to not only help transportation authorities make optimal decisions in the allocation of resources to road maintenance but also guide route selection by individual drivers or fleet owners. This will be a key player in a rapidly evolving world where an accelerating climate change is pressing for dramatic measures to reduce carbon footprint and GHG emissions. The second part of this talk will be focused on modeling damage using an energy-based formulation of lattice element method (LEM). I will describe the potential of mean force (PMF) approach, widely used in statistical physics and introduce a hybrid PMF formulation of LEM to efficiently model fracture and crack growth in heterogenous media. The framework is validated and utilized for meso-scale simulations to estimate the effective fracture properties of heterogeneous materials. The hybrid approach is shown to be a viable choice due to its flexibility in modeling discontinuity and its computational efficiency and reliable results. Finally, I will discuss our efforts to leverage the versatility of this framework and adapt the formulation as a means for efficient characterization of failure and damage in structural systems to establish an efficient quantitative tool for resilience analytics.






    Biography: Arghavan Louhghalam is an assistant professor in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering with a joint appointment in Mechanical Engineering Department at University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. She also holds a research affiliate position in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT. Prior to that she was a postdoctoral research associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She earned her PhD in Engineering Mechanics from the Department of Civil Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University. Her research interests lie in the area of engineering mechanics, physics-constrained data-driven modeling, and applied statistics with particular emphasis on development of smart solutions for resilient and sustainable built environment. Dr Louhghalam is a recipient of NSF early CAREER award and her research on citizen-enabled crowdsourced monitoring of transportation infrastructure has been recognized nationally and featured in media outlets such as the New York Times.



    Host: Dr. Roger Ghanem

    Location: Zoom: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97228056404; Meeting ID: 972 2805 6404: Passcode: 864779

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Evangeline Reyes

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  • CS Colloquium: Ranjay Krishna (Stanford University) - Visual Intelligence from Human Learning

    Tue, Mar 09, 2021 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Ranjay Krishna , Stanford University

    Talk Title: Visual Intelligence from Human Learning

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: At the core of human development is the ability to adapt to new, previously unseen stimuli. We comprehend new situations as a composition of previously seen information and ask one another for clarification when we encounter new concepts. Yet, this ability to go beyond the confounds of their training data remains an open challenge for artificial intelligence agents. My research designs visual intelligence to reason over new compositions and acquire new concepts by interacting with people. My talk will explore these challenges and present the two following lines of work:
    First, I will introduce scene graphs, a cognitively-grounded, compositional visual representation. I will discuss how to integrate scene graphs into a variety of computer vision tasks, enabling models to generalize to novel compositions from a few training examples. Since our introduction of scene graphs, the Computer Vision community has developed hundreds of scene graph models and utilized scene graphs to achieve state-of-the-art results across multiple core tasks, including object localization, captioning, image generation, question answering, 3D understanding, and spatio-temporal action recognition.
    Second, I will introduce a framework for socially situated learning. This framework pushes agents beyond traditional computer vision training paradigms and enables learning from human interactions in online social environments. I will showcase a real-world deployment of our agent, which learned to acquire new visual concepts by asking people targeted questions on social media. By interacting with over 230K people over 8 months, our agent learned to recognize hundreds of new concepts. This work demonstrates the possibility for agents to adapt and self-improve in real-world social environments.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium


    Biography: Ranjay Krishna is a 5th-year Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University, where he is co-advised by Fei-Fei Li and Michael Bernstein. His research lies at the intersection of computer vision and human-computer interaction; it draws on ideas from behavioral and social sciences to improve visual intelligence. His work has been recognized by the Christofer Stephenson Memorial award, as an Accell Innovation Scholar and by two Brown Institute for Media Innovation grants. His work has also been featured in Forbes magazine and in a PBS NOVA documentary. During his Ph.D., he re-designed Stanford's undergraduate Computer Vision course and currently also instructs the graduate Computer Vision course, Stanford's second largest course. He has a M.Sc. from Stanford University. Before that, he conferred a B.Sc. with a double major in Electrical Engineering and in Computer Science from Cornell University. In the past, he has interned at Google AI, Facebook AI Research, and Yahoo Research.

    Host: Ramakant Nevatia

    Audiences: By invitation only.

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Oracle: NetSuite Diversity Lunch & Learn

    Tue, Mar 09, 2021 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    University Calendar


    Please join the Oracle NetSuite Diversity Team at one of our upcoming virtual open houses to learn more about NetSuite and explore a career in sales or consulting within the Tech industry.

    The sessions will discuss the following:
    - Our commitment to diversity & inclusion in the workplace
    - Available full-time opportunities
    - Q&A with sales and consulting business leaders

    Register Here: https://apexapps.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=10412:1::::RP,1:P1_EVENT_ID:DSLBELYBMT&cs=1GOoqZbXxpvWGcUP20T8rOOzikdq1kk0ISQS8-RJhPtPdN6OnOpDDqr5pMFKqSMrphkOSDWXsqwwOzUSQVNHM4w

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Amazon SDE 101

    Tue, Mar 09, 2021 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    University Calendar


    *This is an external event hosted by Amazon*

    For people who like to invent, there's no better place to explore opportunities than at Amazon! Come learn more about our Software Development Engineer (SDE) full-time and internship opportunities, our culture, the recruitment process and interview tips.

    Please register for our upcoming info session and submit your questions in advance. (we will select the most frequent pre-submitted questions to answer at the end of the session).

    Register through Viterbi Career Gateway > Events > Information Sessions

    Join our team and help us build the future!

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Optomechanical Manipulation Enabled by Photonic Metasurfaces

    Tue, Mar 09, 2021 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Ognjen Ilic, Professor University of Minnesota

    Talk Title: Optomechanical Manipulation Enabled by Photonic Metasurfaces

    Series: Photonics Seminar

    Host: Electrical and Computer Engineering: Wade Hsu, Mercedeh Khajavikhan, Michelle Povinelli, Constantine Sideris, and Wei Wu

    More Info: https://usc.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEqcuuprD4oE9ZVf6lwC_KIX9-3i55nMAMV

    More Information: Photonics Seminar _Ognjen Ilic 3-9-21.png

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Jennifer Ramos/Electrophysics

    Event Link: https://usc.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEqcuuprD4oE9ZVf6lwC_KIX9-3i55nMAMV

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  • Repeating EventUndergraduate Advisement Drop-in Hours

    Tue, Mar 09, 2021 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Workshops & Infosessions


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

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Undergrad

    View All Dates

    Contact: USC Computer Science

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  • ISE 651 - Epstein Seminar

    Tue, Mar 09, 2021 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM

    Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Junyi Liu, Postdoctoral Associate, Epstein Dept. of Industrial & Systems Engineering, USC

    Talk Title: Nonconvex and Nonsmooth Stochastic Optimization With Modern Applications

    Host: Prof. Jong-Shi Pang

    More Information: March 9, 2021.pdf

    Location: Online/Zoom

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Grace Owh

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  • CS Distinguished Lecture: Jure Leskovec (Stanford University) - Mobility Networks for Modeling the Spread of COVID-19: Explaining Inequities and Informing Reopening

    Tue, Mar 09, 2021 @ 04:00 PM - 05:20 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Jure Leskovec, Stanford University

    Talk Title: Mobility Networks for Modeling the Spread of COVID-19: Explaining Inequities and Informing Reopening

    Series: Computer Science Distinguished Lecture Series

    Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically changed human mobility patterns, necessitating epidemiological models which capture the effects of changes in mobility on virus spread. We introduce a metapopulation SEIR model that integrates fine-grained, dynamic mobility networks to simulate the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in 10 of the largest US metropolitan statistical areas. Derived from cell phone data, our mobility networks map the hourly movements of 98 million people from neighborhoods (census block groups, or CBGs) to points of interest (POIs) such as restaurants and religious establishments, connecting 57k CBGs to 553k POIs with 5.4 billion hourly edges. We show that by integrating these networks, a relatively simple SEIR model can accurately fit the real case trajectory, despite substantial changes in population behavior over time. Our model predicts that a small minority of "superspreader" POIs account for a large majority of infections and that restricting maximum occupancy at each POI is more effective than uniformly reducing mobility. Our model also correctly predicts higher infection rates among disadvantaged racial and socioeconomic groups solely from differences in mobility: we find that disadvantaged groups have not been able to reduce mobility as sharply, and that the POIs they visit are more crowded and therefore higher-risk. By capturing who is infected at which locations, our model supports detailed analyses that can inform more effective and equitable policy responses to COVID-19.

    Register in advance for this webinar at:

    https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_UD7zYBdETsCyLBOiv2DoLw

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

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium.


    Biography: Jure Leskovec is Associate Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, Chief Scientist at Pinterest, and investigator at Chan Zuckerberg Biohub. Dr. Leskovec was the co-founder of a machine learning startup Kosei, which was later acquired by Pinterest. His research focuses on machine learning and data mining large social, information, and biological networks. Computation over massive data is at the heart of his research and has applications in computer science, social sciences, marketing, and biomedicine. This research has won several awards including a Lagrange Prize, Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship, the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, and numerous best paper and test of time awards. It has also been featured in popular press outlets such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Leskovec received his bachelor's degree in computer science from University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, PhD in machine learning from Carnegie Mellon University and postdoctoral training at Cornell University. You can follow him on Twitter at @jure.


    Host: Xiang Ren

    Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_UD7zYBdETsCyLBOiv2DoLw

    Location: Online Zoom Webinar

    WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_UD7zYBdETsCyLBOiv2DoLw

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Computer Science Department

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  • Mork Family Department Spring Virtual Seminars - Jiefei Zhang

    Tue, Mar 09, 2021 @ 04:00 PM - 05:20 PM

    Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Jiefei Zhang, University of Southern California

    Talk Title: A NEW PARADIGM FOR ON-CHIP SCALABLE QUANTUM PHOTONICS

    Abstract: ZOOM MEETING INFO:
    https://usc.zoom.us/j/98225952695?pwd=d0NMenhCNkliR1ZIR1lBamRpZHh1UT09
    Meeting ID: 982 2595 2695 • Passcode: 322435

    Host: Andrea Hodge

    More Info: https://usc.zoom.us/j/98225952695?pwd=d0NMenhCNkliR1ZIR1lBamRpZHh1UT09

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Greta Harrison

    Event Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/98225952695?pwd=d0NMenhCNkliR1ZIR1lBamRpZHh1UT09

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  • CS Colloquium: Hongyang Zhang (Toyota Technological Institute) - New Advances in (Adversarially) Robust and Secure Machine Learning

    Wed, Mar 10, 2021 @ 09:00 AM - 10:00 AM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Hongyang Zhang , Toyota Technological Institute

    Talk Title: New Advances in (Adversarially) Robust and Secure Machine Learning

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: Deep learning models are often vulnerable to adversarial examples. In this talk, we will focus on robustness and security of machine learning against adversarial examples. There are two types of defenses against such attacks: 1) empirical and 2) certified adversarial robustness.

    In the first part of the talk, we will see the foundation of our winning system, TRADES, in the NeurIPS'18 Adversarial Vision Challenge in which we won 1st place out of 400 teams and 3,000 submissions. Our study is motivated by an intrinsic trade-off between robustness and accuracy: we provide a differentiable and tight surrogate loss for the trade-off using the theory of classification-calibrated loss. TRADES has record-breaking performance in various standard benchmarks and challenges, including the adversarial benchmark RobustBench, the NLP benchmark GLUE, the Unrestricted Adversarial Examples Challenge hosted by Google, and has motivated many new attacking methods powered by our TRADES benchmark.

    In the second part of the talk, to equip empirical robustness with certification, we study certified adversarial robustness by random smoothing. On one hand, we show that random smoothing on the TRADES-trained classifier achieves SOTA certified robustness when the perturbation radius is small. On the other hand, when the perturbation is large, i.e., independent of inverse of input dimension, we show that random smoothing is provably unable to certify L_infty robustness for arbitrary random noise distribution. The intuition behind our theory reveals an intrinsic difficulty of achieving certified robustness by "random noise based methods", and inspires new directions as potential future work.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium

    Biography: Hongyang Zhang is a Postdoc fellow at Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago, hosted by Avrim Blum and Greg Shakhnarovich. He obtained his Ph.D. from CMU Machine Learning Department in 2019, advised by Maria-Florina Balcan and David P. Woodruff. His research interests lie in the intersection between theory and practice of machine learning, robustness and AI security. His methods won the championship or ranked top in various competitions such as the NeurIPS'18 Adversarial Vision Challenge (all three tracks), the Unrestricted Adversarial Examples Challenge hosted by Google, and the NeurIPS'20 Challenge on Predicting Generalization of Deep Learning. He also authored a book in 2017.

    Host: David Kempe

    Audiences: By invitation only.

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • CANCELLED - Computer Science General Faculty Meeting

    Wed, Mar 10, 2021 @ 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: TBD

    Audiences: Invited Faculty Only

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • DEN@Viterbi: How to Apply Virtual Info Session

    Wed, Mar 10, 2021 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM

    DEN@Viterbi, Viterbi School of Engineering Graduate Admission

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Join USC Viterbi representatives for a step-by-step guide and tips for how to apply for formal admission into a Master's degree or Graduate Certificate program. The session is intended for individuals who wish to pursue a graduate degree program completely online via USC Viterbi's flexible online DEN@Viterbi delivery method.

    Attendees will have the opportunity to connect directly with USC Viterbi representatives and ask questions about the admission process throughout the session.

    Register Now!

    WebCast Link: https://uscviterbi.webex.com/uscviterbi/onstage/g.php?MTID=e25087b2d448ff393d7feb8469c8e8e30

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Corporate & Professional Programs

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  • Repeating EventUndergraduate Advisement Drop-in Hours

    Wed, Mar 10, 2021 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Workshops & Infosessions


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

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Undergrad

    View All Dates

    Contact: USC Computer Science

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

    Wed, Mar 10, 2021 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Somil Bansal, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley

    Talk Title: Safe and Data-efficient Learning for Robotics

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

    Abstract: For successful integration of autonomous systems such as drones and self-driving cars in our day-to-day life, they must be able to quickly adapt to ever-changing environments, and actively reason about their safety and that of other users and autonomous systems around them. Even though control-theoretic approaches have been used for decades now for the control and safety analysis of autonomous systems, these approaches typically operate under the assumption of a known system dynamics model and the environment in which the system is operating. To overcome these challenges, machine learning approaches have been explored to operate autonomous systems intelligently and reliably in unpredictable environments based on prior data. However, learning techniques widely used today are extremely data inefficient, making it challenging to apply them to real-world physical systems. Moreover, they lack the necessary mathematical framework to provide guarantees on correctness, causing safety concerns as data-driven physical systems are integrated in our society.

    In this talk, we will present a toolbox of methods combining robust optimal control with data-driven techniques inspired by machine learning, to enable performance improvement while maintaining safety. In particular, we design modular architectures that combine system dynamics models with modern learning-based perception approaches to solve challenging perception and control problems in a priori unknown environments in a data-efficient fashion. These approaches are demonstrated on a variety of ground robots navigating in unknown buildings around humans based only on onboard visual sensors. Next, we discuss how we can use optimal control methods not only for data-efficient learning, but also to monitor and recognize the learning system's failures, and to provide online corrective safe actions when necessary. This allows us to provide safety assurances for learning-enabled systems in unknown and human-centric environments, which has remained a challenge to date.

    Biography: Somil Bansal completed his MS and PhD in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department at the University of California, Berkeley in 2014 and 2020 respectively, and received his B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 2012. He is currently spending a year as a research scientist at Waymo. In Fall 2021, he will join as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. His research interests include developing mathematical tools and algorithms for control and analysis of autonomous systems, with a focus on bridging learning and control-theoretic approaches for safety-critical autonomous systems. Somil has received several awards, most notably the Eli Jury award and the outstanding graduate student instructor award at UC Berkeley, and the academic excellence award at IIT Kanpur.

    Host: Pierluigi Nuzzo, nuzzo@usc.edu

    Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Qk4-7AthThudso7LXs2OiA

    Location: Online

    WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Qk4-7AthThudso7LXs2OiA

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Talyia White

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  • AME Seminar

    Wed, Mar 10, 2021 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: George Park, University of Pennsylvania

    Talk Title: Toward Predictive Yet Affordable Computations of Practical Wall-Bounded Turbulent Flows

    Abstract: Kinetic energy of turbulence is generated at large scales controlled by boundary conditions, but it is dissipated into heat at the smallest scales. The ratio of these two length scales increases rapidly with Reynolds number. Solid walls add another dimension in this scale landscape, where the scale separation gets progressively less pronounced toward the wall. This has significant ramifications on the cost of scale-resolving simulation of practical engineering flows, such as those found in aircraft, wind turbines, and ship hydrodynamics. Direct approaches with full resolution of length and times scales close to the wall are still infeasible with current computing power. The demand for superior designs at reduced cost has led researchers to explore alternative computational approaches that have potential to be predictive yet affordable. Large-eddy simulation (LES) is one such approach where only the energy-containing scales are resolved directly, and the effect of the unresolved motions are modeled. In practical LES calculations, subgrid-scale (SGS) models are used in conjunction with wall models to augment the turbulent shear stress, which otherwise is underpredicted on coarse grids and leads to inaccurate prediction of mean and turbulence quantities.
    In this talk, I will discuss the research in my group on this wall-modeled LES approach. Widely used wall-modeling techniques will be discussed with their applications to canonical and complex wall-bounded flows. Challenges in robust and efficient implementation of the models in flow solvers for handling practical geometries will be discussed. I will also highlight recent work to predict flow over realistic aircraft geometries at flight conditions and a boundary layer with mean three dimensionality.

    Biography: George Park is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering (ME) from Stanford University in 2014 and 2011, respectively, and his B.S. in ME from Seoul National University, South Korea in 2009. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow and an engineering research associate at the Center for Turbulence Research (Stanford) prior to joining UPenn as a faculty member in 2018. His research interests include high-fidelity numerical simulation of complex wall-bounded turbulent flows, computational methods with unstructured grids, non-equilibrium turbulent boundary layers, and fluid-structure interaction.

    Host: AME Department

    More Info: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97491401429

    Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97491401429

    Location: Online event

    WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97491401429

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Tessa Yao

    Event Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97491401429

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  • Key Virtual Job Search Tips with Northrop Grumman

    Wed, Mar 10, 2021 @ 04:00 PM - 04:30 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    University Calendar


    Hear from Northrop Grumman recruiter (and USC alumni) Anjali Chopra about how to navigate your job search in a virtual world. This workshop will include tips for virtual networking events/job fairs, security tips, virtual interviewing preparation, how to succeed in an online interview.

    RSVP through Viterbi Career Gateway > Events > Workshops

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • CS Colloquium: Vered Shwartz (University of Washington) - Commonsense Knowledge and Reasoning in Natural Language

    Wed, Mar 10, 2021 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Vered Shwartz, University of Washington

    Talk Title: Commonsense Knowledge and Reasoning in Natural Language

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: Natural language understanding models are trained on a sample of the situations they may encounter. Commonsense and world knowledge, and language understanding and reasoning abilities can help them address unknown situations sensibly. This talk will discuss several lines of work addressing commonsense knowledge and reasoning in natural language. First, I will introduce a new paradigm for commonsense reasoning tasks with introspective knowledge discovery through a process of self-asking information seeking questions ("what is the definition of...") and answering them. Second, I will present work on nonmonotonic reasoning in natural language, a core human reasoning ability that has been studied in classical AI but mostly overlooked in modern NLP, including abductive reasoning (reasoning about plausible explanations), counterfactual reasoning (what if?) and defeasible reasoning (updating beliefs given additional information). Next, I will discuss how generalizing existing knowledge can help language understanding, and demonstrate it for noun compound paraphrasing (e.g. olive oil is "oil made of olives"). I will conclude with open problems and future directions in language, knowledge, and reasoning.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium.

    Biography: Vered Shwartz is a postdoctoral researcher at the Allen Institute for AI (AI2) and the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington, working with Yejin Choi. Vered's research interests are in NLP, AI, and machine learning, particularly focusing on commonsense knowledge and reasoning, computational semantics, discourse and pragmatics. Previously, Vered completed her PhD in Computer Science from Bar-Ilan University, under the supervision of Ido Dagan. Vered's work has been recognized with several awards, including The Eric and Wendy Schmidt Postdoctoral Award for Women in Mathematical and Computing Sciences, the Clore Foundation Scholarship, and an ACL 2016 outstanding paper award.

    Host: Xiang Ren

    Audiences: By invitation only.

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • CS Colloquium: Gedas Bertasius (Facebook AI) - Designing Video Models for Human Behavior Understanding

    Thu, Mar 11, 2021 @ 09:00 AM - 10:00 AM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Gedas Bertasius, Facebook AI

    Talk Title: Designing Video Models for Human Behavior Understanding

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: Many modern computer vision applications require extracting core attributes of human behavior such as attention, action, or intention. Extracting such behavioral attributes requires powerful video models that can reason about human behavior directly from raw video data. To design such models we need to answer the following three questions: how do we (1) model videos, (2) learn from videos, and lastly, (3) use videos to predict human behavior?

    In this talk I will present a series of methods to answer each of these questions. First, I will introduce TimeSformer, the first convolution-free architecture for video modeling built exclusively with self-attention. It achieves the best reported numbers on major action recognition benchmarks while also being more efficient than state-of-the-art 3D CNNs. Afterwards, I will present COBE, a new large-scale framework for learning contextualized object representations in settings involving human-object interactions. Our approach exploits automatically-transcribed speech narrations from instructional YouTube videos, and it does not require manual annotations. Lastly, I will introduce a self-supervised learning approach for predicting a basketball player's future motion trajectory from an unlabeled collection of first-person basketball videos.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium

    Biography: Gedas Bertasius is a postdoctoral researcher at Facebook AI working on computer vision and machine learning problems. His current research focuses on topics of video understanding, first-person vision, and multi-modal deep learning. He received his Bachelors Degree in Computer Science from Dartmouth College, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania. His recent work was nominated for the CPVR 2020 best paper award.

    Host: Ramakant Nevatia

    Audiences: By invitation only.

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Repeating EventVirtual First-Year Admission Information Session

    Thu, Mar 11, 2021 @ 09:00 AM - 10:00 AM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Our virtual information session is a live presentation from a USC Viterbi admission counselor designed for high school students and their family members to learn more about the USC Viterbi undergraduate experience. Our session will cover an overview of our undergraduate engineering programs, the application process, and more on student life. Guests will be able to ask questions and engage in further discussion toward the end of the session.

    Please Register Here!

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    View All Dates

    Contact: Viterbi Admission

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  • CS Colloquium: Jiaming Song (Stanford University) - Beyond Function Approximation: Compression, Inference, and Generation via Supervised Learning

    Thu, Mar 11, 2021 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Jiaming Song, Stanford University

    Talk Title: Beyond Function Approximation: Compression, Inference, and Generation via Supervised Learning

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: Supervised learning methods have advanced considerably thanks to deep function approximators. However, important problems such as compression, probabilistic inference, and generative modeling cannot be directly addressed by supervised learning. At the core, these problems involve estimating (and optimizing) a suitable notion of distance between two probability distributions, which is challenging in high-dimensional spaces. In this talk, I will propose techniques to estimate and optimize divergences more effectively by leveraging advances in supervised learning. I will describe an algorithm for estimating mutual information that approaches a fundamental limit of all valid lower bound estimators and can empirically compress neural networks by up to 70% without losing accuracy. I will also show how these techniques can be used to accelerate probabilistic inference algorithms that have been developed for decades by nearly 10x, improve generative modeling and infer suitable rewards for sequential decision making.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium

    Biography: Jiaming Song is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University, advised by Stefano Ermon. His research focuses on learning and inference algorithms for deep probabilistic models with applications in unsupervised representation learning, generative modeling, and inverse reinforcement learning. He received his B.Eng degree in Computer Science from Tsinghua University in 2016. He was a recipient of the Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship.

    Host: Bistra Dilkina

    Audiences: By invitation only.

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Repeating EventUndergraduate Advisement Drop-in Hours

    Thu, Mar 11, 2021 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Workshops & Infosessions


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

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Undergrad

    View All Dates

    Contact: USC Computer Science

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  • Sage Corps Summer Program Info Session: Intern with Global Startup

    Thu, Mar 11, 2021 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Join our Founder and CEO, Matt Meltzer for an info session to learn about Sage Corps' unique program that has helped over 900 top college students accelerate their career development. 93% of Sage Corps alumni land full-time jobs within 3 months of graduating from college.

    In our program, you'll:

    - Complete 50+ hours of professional skill training in a selected vertical (marketing, business development & analysis; UX/UI & graphic design; software development; data analytics)
    - Intern with a global startup for 12 weeks this summer
    - Attend professional networking events
    - Connect with some of our 900+ alumni now at top global companies like Nike, Google, IBM, Accenture, and JP Morgan

    Sage Corps accepts all majors and any year in school, as well as non-US citizens. All are welcome to attend our info session.

    For more information about Sage Corps, visit www.sagecorps.com. For real-time updates about Sage Corps programs, job opportunities, and other relevant news, follow Sage Corps on Instagram (@sagecorps) or LinkedIn.

    To RSVP: Viterbi Career Gateway > Events > Information Sessions

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Career Conversations: How to Impress Employers

    Thu, Mar 11, 2021 @ 04:00 PM - 04:30 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Will your skill set stand out to employers? Join our 2-part series of Career Conversations to gain an inside look at employer feedback for Viterbi students. During this session, learn practices to develop the key leadership and problem-solving skills employers want to see more of.

    To access this workshop:

    Log into Viterbi Career Gateway>> Events>>Workshops: https://shibboleth-viterbi-usc-csm.symplicity.com/sso/

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

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • CS Colloquium: Swabha Swayamdipta (Allen Institute for AI) - Addressing Biases for Robust, Generalizable AI

    Thu, Mar 11, 2021 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Swabha Swayamdipta, Allen Institute for AI

    Talk Title: Addressing Biases for Robust, Generalizable AI

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: Artificial Intelligence has made unprecedented progress in the past decade. However, there still remains a large gap between the decision-making capabilities of humans and machines. In this talk, I will investigate two factors to explain why. First, I will discuss the presence of undesirable biases in datasets, which ultimately hurt generalization. I will then present bias mitigation algorithms that boost the ability of AI models to generalize to unseen data. Second, I will explore task-specific prior knowledge which aids robust generalization, but is often ignored when training modern AI architectures. Throughout this discussion, I will focus my attention on language applications, and will show how certain underlying structures can provide useful inductive biases for inferring meaning in natural language. I will conclude with a discussion of how the broader framework of dataset and model biases will play a critical role in the societal impact of AI, going forward.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium

    Biography: Swabha Swayamdipta is a postdoctoral investigator at the Allen Institute for AI, working with Yejin Choi. Her research focuses on natural language processing, where she explores dataset and linguistic structural biases, and model interpretability. Swabha received her Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University, under the supervision of Noah A. Smith and Chris Dyer. During most of her Ph.D. she was a visiting student at the University of Washington. She holds a Masters degree from Columbia University, where she was advised by Owen Rambow. Her research has been published at leading NLP and machine learning conferences, and has received an honorable mention for the best paper at ACL 2020.

    Host: Xiang Ren

    Audiences: By invitation only.

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • ACM Social Game Night

    Thu, Mar 11, 2021 @ 07:00 PM - 08:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Student Activity


    Stressed about midterms? Want to meet some of your classmates? Join ACM on Thursday, March 11, from 7-8 PM for our second social of the semester. We will be playing Codenames!

    Find out if you have what it takes to be the ultimate -spymaster-.

    Learn more at https://www.facebook.com/events/281047960107761/

    Location: Online - Zoom

    Audiences: Undergraduate and Graduate Students

    Contact: ACM

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  • AME PhD Student Seminar

    Fri, Mar 12, 2021 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Samuel Goldman, USC AME PhD Student

    Talk Title: A Case Study of the Failure of a Compression Spring in a Lunar Percussion Mechanism

    Abstract: The Regolith and Ice Drill for the Exploration of New Terrains (TRIDENT) is a rotary-percussive drill being used on several upcoming Lunar exploration programs. Life testing of this drill resulted in the unexpected early failure of a critical compression spring, which cannot be explained by quasi-static analysis. The purpose of this work is to determine if transient dynamic behavior resulting from percussion can explain this failure. An experiment is conducted comparing the effect of various types of spacers, and it is found that a neoprene spacer allows the spring to survive more than twice as many cycles compared to metallic spacers. Additionally, the dynamic response of this system to impact is modeled using the Distributed Transfer Function Method (DTFM), and is compared to FEA and discrete element techniques. It is found that DTFM is capable of bounding the response as computed by FEA, while the discrete element model underestimates peak shear stress by more than 25% in boundary coils. FEA and DTFM both show that wave propagation within the spring could result in peak shear stresses in boundary coils that are over 20% higher than middle coils. These results suggest that percussive wave propagation can explain the early failure of this spring.

    Biography: Sam Goldman is a Ph.D. student under Dr. Flashner. His research focus is primarily in modeling and experimentation of percussion mechanisms used in extraterrestrial geotechnical tools. Sam has a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from The Ohio State University, and an M.S. in Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering from USC.


    Host: AME Department

    More Info: https://usc.zoom.us/s/96549200347

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Christine Franks

    Event Link: https://usc.zoom.us/s/96549200347

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  • laytest Open Alpha's Game! --- OPE 2

    Sat, Mar 13, 2021 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Student Activity


    Hello!

    Open Alpha has THE SECOND PROTOTYPE of our newest game! Come playtest our prototype this Saturday March 13th, 10am-12pm PST!

    To sign up for a time slot, please RSVP by Friday 3/12! There's more information about the event at bit.ly/oaplaytest, but here's the gist of it:
    -On Friday, if you RSVPed, we'll let you know your time slot. Let us know if your plans change and you can't make it.
    -When you show up, we'll set you up in a breakout room with an OA member who will be running your playtest. It'll take about 20 minutes.
    -This playtest event is OPEN, meaning invite your friends! We want to get feedback from as many people as possible!
    See you Saturday 10am-12pm! For more information, check out our website here!

    RSVP form: https://forms.gle/RHhxwxxvgfBwtJ39A
    Zoom link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/8745829211

    Best,
    The OA Team

    Location: Online - Zoom

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Open Alpha

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  • CS Colloquium: Amy Zhang (McGill University) - Exploiting latent structure and bisimulation metrics for better generalization in reinforcement learning

    Mon, Mar 15, 2021 @ 09:00 AM - 10:00 AM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Amy Zhang, McGill University

    Talk Title: Exploiting latent structure and bisimulation metrics for better generalization in reinforcement learning

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: The advent of deep learning has shepherded unprecedented progress in various fields of machine learning. Despite recent advances in deep reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms, however, there is no method today that exhibits anywhere near the generalization that we have seen in computer vision and NLP. Indeed, one might ask whether deep RL algorithms are even capable of the kind of generalization that is needed for open-world environments. This challenge is fundamental and will not be solved with incremental algorithmic advances.

    In this talk, we propose to incorporate different assumptions that better reflect the real world and allow the design of novel algorithms with theoretical guarantees to address this fundamental problem. We first present how state abstractions can accelerate reinforcement learning from rich observations, such as images, without relying either on domain knowledge or pixel-reconstruction. Our goal is to learn state abstractions that both provide for effective downstream control and invariance to task-irrelevant details. We use bisimulation metrics to quantify behavioral similarity between states, and learn robust latent representations which encode only the task-relevant information from observations. We provide theoretical guarantees for the learned approximate abstraction and extend this notion to families of tasks with varying dynamics.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium


    Biography: I am a final year PhD candidate at McGill University and the Mila Institute, co-supervised by Profs. Joelle Pineau and Doina Precup. I am also a researcher at Facebook AI Research. My work focuses on bridging theory and practice through learning approximate state abstractions and learning representations for generalization in reinforcement learning. I previously obtained an M.Eng. in EECS and dual B.Sci. degrees in Mathematics and EECS from MIT.

    Host: Sven Koenig

    Audiences: By invitation only.

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • CS Colloquium: Mai ElSherief (Georgia Institute of Technology) - Computational Methods for Identifying Deviant Content in Online Media Ecosystems

    Mon, Mar 15, 2021 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Mai ElSherief, Georgia Institute of Technology

    Talk Title: Computational Methods for Identifying Deviant Content in Online Media Ecosystems

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: In recent years, the pervasive adoption of social media has created an ecosystem populated by a pandemonium of opinion, true and false information, and an unprecedented quantity of data on many topics. While online information ecosystems provide freedom of expression and give voice to individuals, they have also suffered a wave of disorder due to the prevalence of malevolent online misuse, manifested as online harassment, cyberbullying, and hate speech; and online misinformation, such as fake news and medical misinformation movements. In this talk, I will present language-centric approaches for improving online hate speech detection and characterization. I will then showcase a human-machine mixed-initiative that aims at investigating and detecting online misinformation surrounding Opioid Use Disorders in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium

    Biography: Mai ElSherief is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. Her research interests lie at the intersection of Social Computing, Natural Language Processing, and Online Social Networks, specifically causes of social good. In her research, she adopts Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning methods to examine human behavior pertaining to online abuse, biases, public health intelligence, and community wellbeing. Prior to her Postdoctoral Fellowship, she received Ph.D. from the Computer Science department at UC, Santa Barbara within the Mobility Management and Networking (MOMENT) Lab along with a Certificate in College and University Teaching (CCUT) to demonstrate superior competence and experience in preparation for teaching at the university or college level.

    Her research on computationally understanding the psychological impacts of active shooting drills on K-12 school communities received press coverage by NBC, the Hill, and 11Alive. She has been a summer research intern at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University understanding anti-immigration sentiment and the discursive practices of online hate groups. She has been selected as a 2020 UC Berkley EECS Rising Stars Participant. She was also awarded the UCSB 2019 CS Outstanding Graduate Student and the 2017 Fiona and Michael Goodchild Graduate mentoring award for her distinguished research mentoring of undergraduate students.


    Host: Bistra Dilkina

    Audiences: By invitation only.

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Executive Coffee with Verizon

    Mon, Mar 15, 2021 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Student Activity


    This event is hosted by the USC Entertainment Technology Center and CS students are encouraged to attend.

    The -Executive Coffee with- program at the USC Entertainment Technology Center connects USC students interested in media and entertainment issues with media & entertainment industry executives.

    It is a win-win. The students have a structured low-pressure discussion with a senior industry executive. The executive explores the perspective and ideas of students with an interest in a topic that they care about.

    Monday, March 15, 12:00pm-1:00pm

    Lead Executive: Serhad Doken, Executive, Innovation and Product Realization for the Verizon Consumer Group, Verizon
    Student/Executive Discussion Topic: Expectations for the Future of Entertainment and UI/UX

    What kind of UX/UI do you expect in the future for communicating with friends and colleagues (ex. messaging, business presentations and analytics), being entertained (ex. video, gaming, immersion, social media), and performing mundane tasks (ex. housework)? Assuming that they are fashionable, what kinds of wearables would you want, what would you like the UI/UX to be like, and what functions/applications do you want them to perform?

    Students should go to https://bit.ly/37MLDsF for more information and to fill out the sign-up application.

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Undergraduate and Graduate Students

    Contact: USC ETC

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  • CS Colloquium: Dhanya Sridhar (Columbia University) - Beyond prediction: NLP for causal inference

    Tue, Mar 16, 2021 @ 09:00 AM - 10:00 AM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dhanya Sridhar, Columbia University

    Talk Title: Beyond prediction: NLP for causal inference

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: Why do some misleading articles go viral? Does partisan speech affect how people behave? Many pressing questions require understanding the effects of language. These are causal questions: did an article's writing style cause it to go viral or would it have gone viral anyway? With text data from social media and news sites, we can build predictors with natural language processing (NLP) techniques but these methods can confuse correlation with causation. In this talk, I discuss my recent work on NLP methods for making causal inferences from text. Text data present unique challenges for disentangling causal effects from non-causal correlations. I present approaches that address these challenges by extending black box and probabilistic NLP methods. I outline the validity of these methods for causal inference, and demonstrate their applications to online forum comments and consumer complaints. I conclude with my research vision for a data analysis pipeline that bridges causal thinking and machine learning to enable better decision-making and scientific understanding.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium

    Biography: Dhanya Sridhar is a postdoctoral researcher in the Data Science Institute at Columbia University. She completed her PhD at the University of California Santa Cruz. Her current research is at the intersection of machine learning and causal inference, focusing on applications to social science. Her thesis research focused on probabilistic models of relational data.

    Host: Fei Sha

    Audiences: By invitation only.

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Seminar

    Tue, Mar 16, 2021 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Wenjing (Angela) Zhang, Associate Professor, Executive MBA in Management of Technology, Department of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Denmark

    Talk Title: Shaping our water technology by functional materials and electrospinning

    Abstract: With the ever-increasing growth of population and advancements in medical treatments, a growing number of contaminants are entering the aqueous environment from human activity. In particular, for industrialized countries, the concerns for public health and environmental impact are exemplified by the widespread use of pharmaceuticals and their significance as contaminants of emerging concerns (CECs). Some of CECs with highly persistent could lead to detrimental effects on survival and growth of aquatic organisms. Conventional municipal wastewater treatment technologies based on activated sludge remains ineffective. Thus, there is an urgent need for a sustainable and effective wastewater treatment technology to remediate water.

    In this talk, I would like to introduce the research projects where we combine functional material synthesis and electrospinning to structure the adsorbents/catalysts into a hiarchiary 3-dimentional reactor. By harvesting solar or mechanical energies, we are able to capture and degrade the contaminants while the clean water flows through.









    Biography: Dr. Wenjing (Angela) Zhang is an Associate Professor and leader of Advanced material and membrane research group in the Department of Environmental Engineering at Technical University of Denmark (DTU). Currently she has 9 Postdoc/PhD students in her research group with state-of-art facilities in the fields of catalyst synthesis, electrospinning, solution plasma, electrochemistry, photocatalytic chemistry and membrane filtration. She received her MSc in Mechanical Engineering in 2005 and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering in 2009 at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). Prior to joining DTU, she was a Research Associate at Vanderbilt University in the United States for 3 years, where she obtained substantial experience in conducting independent award-winning research, mentoring PhD and undergraduate students, writing successful government subsidy proposals (US Department of Energy) and collaborating on research projects with renowned global companies (3M Corporation and Merck KGaA).

    Host: Dr. Amy Childress

    Location: Zoom: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97228056404; Meeting ID: 972 2805 6404: Passcode: 864779

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Evangeline Reyes

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  • CS Colloquium: Aloni Cohen (Boston University) - Bridging the Divide Between Computer Science and Law

    Tue, Mar 16, 2021 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Aloni Cohen , Boston University

    Talk Title: Bridging the Divide Between Computer Science and Law

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: Seriously engaging with law and policy exposes new computer science research directions that also have policy consequences. My work aims to understand and resolve the tensions between the theory of privacy and cryptography on the one hand and the privacy laws that govern its eventual real-world context. In this talk, I'll describe work that tackles three broad questions: How can we bridge the basic concepts of data privacy in computer science and law? How can privacy theory have a positive impact on policy? How can we incorporate legal powers and constraints into our cryptographic threat models for better cryptography?

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium.


    Biography: Aloni Cohen a Postdoctoral Associate at Boston University, with a joint appointment at the Hariri Institute for Computing and the School of Law. His research explores the interplay between theoretical cryptography, privacy, law, and policy. Aloni earned his PhD in electrical engineering and computer science at MIT where he was advised by Shafi Goldwasser and supported by a Facebook Fellowship and an NSF Graduate Student Fellowship. Aloni is a former affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and a Fellow at the Aspen Tech Policy Hub.

    Host: Aleksandra Korolova

    Audiences: By invitation only.

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Repeating EventUndergraduate Advisement Drop-in Hours

    Tue, Mar 16, 2021 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Workshops & Infosessions


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

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Undergrad

    View All Dates

    Contact: USC Computer Science

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  • ISE 651 - Epstein Seminar

    Tue, Mar 16, 2021 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM

    Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Suvrajeet Sen, Professor

    Talk Title: TBD

    Host: Prof. Jong-Shi Pang

    Location: Online/Zoom

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Grace Owh

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  • Repeating EventVirtual First-Year Admission Information Session

    Tue, Mar 16, 2021 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Our virtual information session is a live presentation from a USC Viterbi admission counselor designed for high school students and their family members to learn more about the USC Viterbi undergraduate experience. Our session will cover an overview of our undergraduate engineering programs, the application process, and more on student life. Guests will be able to ask questions and engage in further discussion toward the end of the session.

    Please Register Here!

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    View All Dates

    Contact: Viterbi Admission

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  • How to Guide: Informational Interviews

    Tue, Mar 16, 2021 @ 04:00 PM - 04:30 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Are you unsure which career path to take or how to connect with employers? Interested in learning how to create meaningful connections? Attend the "How To Guide: Informational Interviews" workshop to learn tips on how to request informational interviews, best practices for preparing, and how to follow-up and create meaningful relationships.

    To RSVP: Log into Viterbi Career Gateway > Events > Workshops

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • VIP Workshop: Choosing STEM Activities for Online Learning

    Tue, Mar 16, 2021 @ 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs, Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations

    Student Activity


    Join your fellow peers in the Viterbi Impact Program (VIP) at the upcoming workshop: Choosing STEM Activities for Online Learning on Tuesday, March 16th from 5:00 - 6:00 pm PST. This interactive workshop focuses on how to identify high-quality online STEM activities using easily available resources and tools. Attendees will go on virtual scavenger hunts to find high-quality STEM activities. In small groups, attendees will also explore how they would modify the STEM activity for online learning. Open to all students!

    Please email Viterbi.UnderGradProg@vsoe.usc.edu for the Zoom link/more information. See you then!

    More Information: Choosing stem activities for online learning (1).png

    Audiences: Undergrad

    Contact: Viterbi Undergraduate Programs

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  • Repeating EventUndergraduate Advisement Drop-in Hours

    Wed, Mar 17, 2021 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Workshops & Infosessions


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

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Undergrad

    View All Dates

    Contact: USC Computer Science

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

    Wed, Mar 17, 2021 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Hamed Mohsenian-Rad, Electrical & Computer Engineering and Bourns Family Faculty Fellow, University of California, Riverside

    Talk Title: Data-Driven Analysis of Events in Power Distribution Synchrophasors

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

    Abstract: Synchrophasor measurements offer an unprecedented level of visibility in power distribution infrastructure. These are time-synchronized single-phase or three-phase voltage and current phasor measurements on medium and low voltage distribution circuits. However, data availability alone is not enough to enhance operational intelligence. In this talk, we make the case that the analysis of "events" is a key to translate the data from distribution synchrophasors into useful high-level information. An event in this study is defined rather broadly to include any major change in any component across the distribution feeder. The real data that is used in this study is obtained from a pilot distribution feeder in Riverside, CA. The goal is to enhance situational awareness in distribution grid by keeping track of the operation (or misoperation) of various grid equipment, assets, distribution energy resources, loads, etc. A combination of data-driven machine learning tools and hybrid model-based methodologies are discussed to automatically (and often remotely) detect, classify, and identify the causes of events and their characteristics in power distribution systems. Use cases are diverse and may include asset monitoring, non-intrusive load modeling, analysis of system dynamics, cybersecurity, etc.

    Biography: Dr. Hamed Mohsenian-Rad is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a Bourns Family Faculty Fellow at the University of California, Riverside. His research interests include developing hybrid data-driven and model-based techniques for monitoring, control, and optimization of power systems and smart grids. He has received the NSF CAREER Award, a Best Paper Award from the IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) General Meeting, and a Best Paper Award from the IEEE International Conference on Smart Grid Communications. Two of his papers are currently ranked as the two most cited articles in the IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid. Dr. Mohsenian-Rad is the author of a new textbook, Smart Grid Sensors: Principles and Applications by Cambridge University Press. He is the founding Director of the UC-National Lab Center for Power Distribution Cyber Security, a multi-disciplinary cyber-security research initiative across four University of California (UC) campuses and two Department of Energy (DoE) National Labs. He also serves as the Associate Director of the Winston Chung Global Energy Center, an endowed research center in the area of energy and sustainability at UC Riverside. He has served as the PI for over $10 million smart grid research projects. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada in 2008. Dr. Mohsenian-Rad is a Fellow of the IEEE.

    Host: Pierluigi Nuzzo, nuzzo@usc.edu

    Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Qk4-7AthThudso7LXs2OiA

    Location: Online

    WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Qk4-7AthThudso7LXs2OiA

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Talyia White

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  • AME Seminar

    Wed, Mar 17, 2021 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Morteza Gharib, Caltech

    Talk Title: Vortex in the Eye: Thermal Effects on Fluid Mixing in the Eye

    Abstract: Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of central vision loss in the developed world. Wet AMD can be managed through serial intravitreal injections of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) agents. However, sometimes the treatment is ineffective. Given that the half-life of the drug is limited, inefficient mixing of the injected drug in the vitreous chamber of the eye may contribute to the ineffectiveness. Here, we introduce thermal heating as a means of enhancing the mixing-process in the vitreous chamber and investigate parameters that potentially influence its effectiveness. Our in-vitro studies point to the importance of the location of the heating on the eye. A significant increase in the mixing and delivery of drugs to the targeted area (the macula) could be achieved by placing heating pads so that a current against gravity is induced in the vitreous. The presented results can potentially help in the development of a better strategy for intravitreal injection and improve the quality of patient care.

    Biography: Mory Gharib is Hans W. Liepmann Professor of Aeronautics and Bioinspired Engineering; Chair of Graduate Aerospace Department (GALCIT); Director of Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies. He received his B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tehran University (1975) and his M.S. 1978, in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering from Syracuse University and his Ph.D.1983, in Aeronautics from Caltech. He joined Caltech as a professor of Aeronautics.

    Professor Gharib's current research interests in conventional fluid dynamics and aeronautics include Vortex dynamics, active and passive flow control, autonomous flight, and underwater systems. His Biological flows research includes cardiovascular and ophthalmology, and medical devices.

    Dr. Gharib's honors and affiliations include: Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Member, National Academy of Engineering; Charter Fellow, National Academy of Inventors; Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science; Fellow, American Physical Society; Fellow, American Society of Mechanical EngineeringHe has received the G.I. Taylor Medal from the Society of Engineering Sciences, The Fluid Dynamics Prize from the American Physical Society and five new technology recognition awards from NASA in the fields of advanced laser imaging and nanotechnology. In 2008 he received R&D Magazine's "R&D 100 innovation award" for one of the year's best inventions for his 3-D imaging camera system. Additionally, Dr. Gharib has published more than 250 papers in refereed journals and has been issued 120 U.S. Patents.

    Host: AME Department

    More Info: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97398164359

    Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97398164359

    WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97398164359

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Tessa Yao

    Event Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97398164359

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  • DEN@Viterbi - Online Graduate Engineering Virtual Information Session

    Thu, Mar 18, 2021 @ 06:00 AM - 07:00 PM

    DEN@Viterbi, Viterbi School of Engineering Graduate Admission

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Join USC Viterbi School of Engineering for a virtual information session via WebEx, providing an introduction to DEN@Viterbi, our top ranked online delivery system. Discover the 40+ graduate engineering and computer science programs available entirely online.

    Attendees will have the opportunity to connect directly with USC Viterbi representatives during the session to discuss the admission process, program details and the benefits of online delivery for the working professional.

    Register Today!

    WebCast Link: https://uscviterbi.webex.com/uscviterbi/onstage/g.php?MTID=eff21e3ece316d0b2aa6fc1c47dbbb7de

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Corporate & Professional Programs

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  • How to Guide: Informational Interviews

    Thu, Mar 18, 2021 @ 08:00 AM - 08:30 AM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Are you unsure which career path to take or how to connect with employers? Interested in learning how to create meaningful connections? Attend the "How To Guide: Informational Interviews" workshop to learn tips on how to request informational interviews, best practices for preparing, and how to follow-up and create meaningful relationships.

    To RSVP: Log into Viterbi Career Gateway > Events > Workshops

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • CS Colloquium: Amy Pavel (Carnegie Mellon University / AI/ML Apple) - Human-AI Systems for Creating and Understanding Videos

    Thu, Mar 18, 2021 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Amy Pavel, Carnegie Mellon University / AI/ML Apple

    Talk Title: Human-AI Systems for Creating and Understanding Videos

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: Video is becoming a core medium for communicating a wide range of content, including educational lectures, vlogs, and how-to tutorials. While videos are engaging and informative, they lack the familiar and useful affordances of text for browsing, skimming,and flexibly transforming information. This severely limits who can interact with video content and how they can interact with it, makes editing a laborious process, and means that much of the information in videos is not accessible to everyone.

    But, what future systems will make videos useful for all users?

    In this talk, I'll share my work creating interactive Human-AI systems that combine the benefits of multiple mediums of communication (e.g., text, video, and audio) in two key areas: 1) helping domain experts find content of interest in videos, and 2) making videos accessible to people who are blind or have visual impairments. First, I'll discuss core challenges of finding information in videos from interviews with domain experts and people with disabilities. Then, I will present new systems that leverage AI, and the results of technical and user evaluations that demonstrate system efficacy. I will conclude with how hybrid HCI-AI breakthroughs will make digital communication more effective and accessible in the future, and how new interactions can help us to realize the full potential of recent AI/ML advances.


    Biography: Amy Pavel is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University and a Research Scientist in AI/ML at Apple. Her research explores AI-driven interactive techniques for making digital communication effective and accessible for all. Her work creating Human-AI systems to improve communication has appeared at ACM/IEEE conferences including UIST, CHI, ASSETS, and VR. She recently served as an associate chair for the UIST and CHI program committees, received 2 best paper nominations at CHI, and was selected as a Rising Star in EECS. She previously received her Ph.D. in Computer Science at UC Berkeley, where her work developing interactive video abstractions was supported by an NDSEG fellowship and an EECS Excellence Award. Read more about her research at: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://amypavel.com/__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!_kp1txvo_2fY97o1Ag_-lE6oKo_wqfl1jqPYTl7GDZDnH5NsjUdzasIfRnuxsBo$



    Host: Heather Culbertson / Bistra Dilkina

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • NL Seminar Leave No Question Behind! Broadening the Scope of Machine Comprehension

    Thu, Mar 18, 2021 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Information Sciences Institute

    University Calendar


    Abstract
    Despite remarkable progress in building Question Answering QA models, the scope of progress remains limited to niche dataset specific domains. How can we expand the scope of the problems that our models can address? In this talk, I discuss two instances of QA system design that cover a broader range of problems. In the first part, I introduce UnifiedQA, a single model that generalizes to multiple different QA formats multiple choice QA, extractive QA, abstractive QA, yes no QA. Then I will introduce ModularQA, a single system that addresses multiple multi hop reasoning datasets by leveraging existing single hop modules systems. For each system, I present empirical evidence on their better generalization and stronger robustness across datasets and domains.

    BIO
    Daniel Khashabi is a Young Investigator at Allen Institute for AI, Seattle. His interests lie at the intersection of artificial intelligence and natural language processing. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and his undergraduate degree from Amirkabir University of Technology Tehran Polytechnic.

    Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - Virtual Only

    WebCast Link: https://youtu.be/O-ttj6CCb44

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Petet Zamar

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  • A Conversation with Visa's Leading Women: Celebrating Potential

    Thu, Mar 18, 2021 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    University Calendar


    *This is an external event hosted by Visa*

    Visa Inc., Girls in Tech at USC and the USC Career Center invite you to hear from some of Visa's leaders in honor of International Women's Day. As an attendee, hear from an amazing panel about their career journey and prepare to be the future leaders of the workforce!

    To RSVP: Viterbi Career Gateway > Events > Information Sessions

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Repeating EventUndergraduate Advisement Drop-in Hours

    Thu, Mar 18, 2021 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Workshops & Infosessions


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

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Undergrad

    View All Dates

    Contact: USC Computer Science

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  • ACM presents Computer Science Subfields

    Thu, Mar 18, 2021 @ 07:00 PM - 08:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Student Activity


    Computer Science Subfields - Thursday, 3/18 7pm

    Did you know of the plenty subfields that lie within computer science? Learn more about these subfields including data science, cybersecurity, AI and machine learning today!

    ACM will present on the different subfields of computer science so that you can learn more about the careers you can pursue with computer science. There's more than just software developing!

    RSVP Link:https://forms.gle/3ZCtvUza2VSkgh2j9

    Zoom Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97205032289

    Location: Online - Zoom

    WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97205032289

    Audiences: Undergraduate and Graduate Students

    Contact: ACM

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  • USC KSEA State of the Industry: COVID-19

    Thu, Mar 18, 2021 @ 08:00 PM - 09:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Student Activity


    USC KSEA is hosting State of the Industry: COVID-19, a panel event focused on COVID-19's impact on the medical field. Our panelists will include doctors from a wide range of specializations, including oncology and anesthesiology. This event is perfect for those interested in the healthcare industry, as it will provide firsthand insights on how medicine has changed and how we can be prepared to adapt to these changes. We encourage all students to join, regardless of whether you want to pursue a medical profession. Come and witness how COVID-19 is personally impacting your health now and in the future.

    Featured Speakers:
    Susie Nam, MS, CCC-SLP - Speech-Language Pathologist
    Irene Kang, MD - Medical Oncologist at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center
    Dae Ik Yi, MD - Anesthesiology Resident at Stanford Medicine
    Justin Lee - MD/PhD Student / PhD3 Bioengineering at UCLA-Caltech MSTP

    State of the Industry: COVID-19 Event Details
    Date: THURSDAY, March 18th
    Time: 8:00 - 9:00PM (PDT)

    RSVP: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScJfIBVq2VP0zAY58OEdE7gcLE03tYOaVnYpNMgBYiqXH93mg/viewform

    Zoom Link: tinyurl.com/ksea2021

    Please direct any questions to uscksea@usc.edu

    See you there!

    Location: Online - Zoom

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: USC KSEA

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  • Repeating EventGrammar Tutorials

    Fri, Mar 19, 2021 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Workshops & Infosessions


    INDIVIDUAL GRAMMAR TUTORING FOR VITERBI UNDERGRADUATE AND GRADUATE STUDENTS
    Need help refining your grammar skills for academic and professional communication?
    Meet one-on-one with faculty from the Engineering Writing Program, build your grammar skills, and take your writing to the next level!

    Viterbi writing faculty will help you identify and correct recurring grammatical errors in your writing assignments, cover letters, resumes, articles, and dissertations.

    Tutorials are on alternate Friday mornings. Sign up here: http://bit.ly/grammaratUSC


    If you have questions, please contact helenhch@usc.edu.

    Location: ZOOM

    Audiences: Graduate and Undergraduate Students

    View All Dates

    Contact: Helen Choi

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  • DEN@Viterbi - Online Graduate Engineering Virtual Information Session

    Fri, Mar 19, 2021 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM

    DEN@Viterbi, Viterbi School of Engineering Graduate Admission

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Join USC Viterbi School of Engineering for a virtual information session via WebEx, providing an introduction to DEN@Viterbi, our top ranked online delivery system. Discover the 40+ graduate engineering and computer science programs available entirely online.

    Attendees will have the opportunity to connect directly with USC Viterbi representatives during the session to discuss the admission process, program details and the benefits of online delivery for the working professional.

    Register Today!

    WebCast Link: https://uscviterbi.webex.com/uscviterbi/onstage/g.php?MTID=e202ebdb05217b5980ebd5005a1c06dcf

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Corporate & Professional Programs

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  • Advanced Manufacturing Seminar

    Fri, Mar 19, 2021 @ 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Ming C. Leu, Keith and Pat Bailey Distinguished Professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Missouri University of Science and Technology

    Talk Title: Additive Manufacturing of Advanced Ceramics: Technologies, Applications and Opportunities

    Abstract: Ceramics are important engineering materials due to their unique properties such as high hardness, high-temperature resistance, and high-corrosion resistance. Additive manufacturing (AM) of ceramic material is difficult and challenging because of the high melting temperature and flaw-sensitive nature of ceramics. However, through intensive research over the past two decades, significant progress on AM of ceramics has been made. This talk will first review different categories of ceramic AM processes and recent technology advances in each category. Comparisons will be made on the advantages and limitations of each ceramic AM process category in terms of part quality, dimensional accuracy, surface finish, and material flexibility. The practical applications of various ceramic AM processes in relation to the characteristics of each process category will be described. A novel extrusion-based AM process, called Ceramic On-Demand Extrusion (CODE), which was developed in recent years by the seminar speakers research group for fabricating ceramic components with near theoretical density will be presented, including choice of support material and part fabrication with multiple and graded materials. Finally, future research needs and innovation opportunities of ceramic AM will be discussed.

    Biography: The research interests of Dr Leu include additive manufacturing, 3D printing, intelligent robotics and automation, and cyber-physical manufacturing. He has published over 480 papers in referred professional journals and conference proceedings. Dr. Leu has received numerous professional awards including, among others, the International Freeform and Additive Manufacturing Excellence (FAME) Award (2020), ASME Milton C. Shaw Manufacturing Research Medal (2018), University of Missouri President Leadership Award (2017), ASME Blackall Machine Tool and Gage Award (2014), ISFA Hideo Hanafusa Outstanding Investigator Award (2008), ASME Distinguished Service Award (2004), SME University Lead Award (1994), NJIT Harlan J. Perlis Research Award (1993), NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award (1985), SAE Ralph R. Teetor Education Award (1985), as well as several best paper awards.

    Host: Center for Advanced Manufacturing

    More Info: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-jklT28WSJ2J7rGF-jptng

    Webcast: Please register for this webinar at: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-jklT28WSJ2J7rGF-jptng

    More Information: Adv Mfg Seminar S21_Ming Leu.pdf

    Location: Online event

    WebCast Link: Please register for this webinar at: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-jklT28WSJ2J7rGF-jptng

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Tessa Yao

    Event Link: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-jklT28WSJ2J7rGF-jptng

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  • Instagram Live Q & A with VCC

    Fri, Mar 19, 2021 @ 10:30 AM - 11:00 AM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Join Viterbi Career Connections Staff on Friday, March 19th at 10:30 am for quick professional tips and career advice via Instagram @viterbicareers.

    Location: Instagram @viterbicareers

    Audiences: All Viterbi Students

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Transfer Information Session

    Fri, Mar 19, 2021 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Our virtual information session is a live presentation from a USC Viterbi admission counselor designed for prospective transfer students and their family members to learn more about the USC Viterbi undergraduate experience. Our session will cover an overview of our undergraduate engineering programs, the application process, and more on student life. Guests will be able to ask questions and engage in further discussion toward the end of the session.

    Please Register Here!

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Viterbi Admission

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  • MEGA Student Speaker Series #10: Jasmine Persephone Jupiter

    Fri, Mar 19, 2021 @ 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Student Activity


    Are you a student in the games industry and want to learn about unionization? This Friday, March 19 at 5:00 PM PST, Jasmine Persephone Jupiter will be explaining the basics of labor organizing as well as giving a brief overview of the history of the movement for a games union. Jasmine will be presenting alongside Robin Trach, a fellow organizer with Game Workers of Southern California, former head of MEGA, and a representative from Code-CWA (the initiative that recently organized the union at Google!).

    Why is unionization important? If you're looking to work in the games industry, you may already be familiar with the expectations of 100-hour crunch weeks, high turnover, and pay gaps. The unionization effort aims to protect workers in the game industry and push for better working conditions. The Game Workers of Southern California is one such group dedicated to this cause.

    Game Workers of Southern California (GWSC) is a volunteer-based group of game workers and labor organizers in Los Angeles, Orange County, and the greater Southern California region.

    Zoom link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97822819137?pwd=ZXg1MjRNK29MeEw4UjlVWlZkelZ1QT09
    Meeting ID: 978 2281 9137
    Passcode: 031921

    For any questions, please email megamesusc@gmail.com or reach out to us via our socials:
    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/USCMEGA
    Discord: https://discord.gg/4rDUD6H
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/MEGA_USC
    Website: www.uscmega.org

    Best,
    MEGA

    Location: Online - Zoom

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: USC MEGA

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  • Career Conversation with Associate Dean, Candace Teixeira

    Mon, Mar 22, 2021 @ 02:30 PM - 04:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Career Conversation: Learn about Career Connections events, activities, and recruitment strategies to find internship and full time positions. Sessions will be held with Associate Dean, Candace Teixeira.

    RSVP to this workshop on Gateway Viterbi Career Gateway to join small group discussions from 2:30 -“ 3:00, 3:00 -“ 3:30, or 3:30 -“ 4:00pm. Limit of 9 students per discussion.

    Important: Please arrive during your reserved 30-minute window. You will be unable to join earlier or later sessions.

    Location: Engineering-Quad

    Audiences: All Viterbi Students

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • All-Epitaxial Plasmonic Optoelectronics

    Tue, Mar 23, 2021 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dan Wasserman, University of Texas Austin

    Talk Title: All-Epitaxial Plasmonic Optoelectronics

    Series: Photonics Seminar

    Host: Electrical and Computer Engineering: Wade Hsu, Mercedeh Khajavikhan, Michelle Povinelli, Constantine Sideris, and Wei Wu

    More Info: https://usc.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEqcuuprD4oE9ZVf6lwC_KIX9-3i55nMAMV

    More Information: Photonics Seminar _Dan Wasserman 3-23-21.png

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Jennifer Ramos/Electrophysics

    Event Link: https://usc.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEqcuuprD4oE9ZVf6lwC_KIX9-3i55nMAMV

    OutlookiCal
  • Repeating EventUndergraduate Advisement Drop-in Hours

    Tue, Mar 23, 2021 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Workshops & Infosessions


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

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Undergrad

    View All Dates

    Contact: USC Computer Science

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  • External Event | Ace the Case Workshop!

    Tue, Mar 23, 2021 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    *This is an external event hosted by OnPrem, it is not exclusive to Viterbi engineering students*

    Interested in learning how to start your career as a Consulting Analyst working in Management Consulting? From major entertainment studios to consumer goods companies, our clientele trusts us to strategize, design, develop, and integrate technology solutions.

    Join us on March 23rd at 3PM PST to learn how to critically think through a business case and master your next case interview!

    View Details in Viterbi Career Gateway > Events > Information Sessions

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • **NO ISE 651 Epstein Seminar - USC WELLNESS DAY**

    Tue, Mar 23, 2021 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM

    Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Grace Owh

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  • Repeating EventVirtual First-Year Admission Information Session

    Tue, Mar 23, 2021 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Our virtual information session is a live presentation from a USC Viterbi admission counselor designed for high school students and their family members to learn more about the USC Viterbi undergraduate experience. Our session will cover an overview of our undergraduate engineering programs, the application process, and more on student life. Guests will be able to ask questions and engage in further discussion toward the end of the session.

    Please Register Here!

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    View All Dates

    Contact: Viterbi Admission

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  • External Event | Engineering Intelligent Systems: Artificial Intelligence at Northrop Grumman

    Tue, Mar 23, 2021 @ 05:00 PM - 06:30 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    *This is an external event hosted by Northrop Grumman*

    This Tech Talk will feature Northrop Grummans AI Architect, Jordan James Gosselin, PhD, and his presentation on Engineering Intelligent Systems. There will be an opportunity to learn about the Future Technical Leaders (FTL) program and AI workforce development, all wrapped with a Q&A session!

    View Details in Viterbi Career Gateway > Events > Information Sessions

    Location: Online

    Audiences: All Viterbi Students

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Computer Science General Faculty Meeting

    Wed, Mar 24, 2021 @ 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: TBD

    Audiences: Invited Faculty Only

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Talk with Proterra COO & Viterbi Alum

    Wed, Mar 24, 2021 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Learn About a Career With Proterra!

    At Proterra, our mission is to advance EV technology to deliver the world's best-performing commercial vehicles.

    Our COO and USC Viterbi Alum, Josh Ensign, will be giving a presentation about Proterra Inc. (our mission, what we do, products, etc.), his background and experience, providing what a day in the life looks like at Proterra to provide ideas of what career paths for Engineers can look like. Learn more about Joh here: https://www.proterra.com/team-member/josh-ensign/

    There will be a Q&A session after his short presentation and we welcome students to ask away!

    Target majors: Mechanical, Electrical, and Industrial Engineering

    To RSVP: Viterbi Career Gateway > Events > Information Sessions

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Verizon Executive / USC student discussion - What comes after Zoom and Entertainment Apps

    Wed, Mar 24, 2021 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Student Activity


    This event is hosted by the USC Entertainment Technology Center and CS students are invited to participate.

    The Entertainment Technology Center @ USC's -Executive Coffee with- "series is designed to give students and executives the opportunity to share ideas and to network during this period of distance learning.

    It is a win-win. The students have a structured low-pressure discussion with a senior industry executive. The executive explores the perspective and ideas of students who have expressed an interest in a topic that the executive cares about.
    -------
    Wednesday, March 24, 12:00pm-1:00pm PT
    Lead Executive: Sanyogita Shamsunder, Vice President of Product Strategy, Innovation and Operations, Verizon
    Student/Executive Discussion Topic: What comes after Zoom and Entertainment Apps?

    What comes after Zoom for things like virtual events, watching together with distant friends, and sharing information and ideas? What do you want in an immersive experience like virtual or mixed reality? What do you want the user interface (UI) and experience (UX) to be like? What are your expectations for personal avatar appearance, capabilities, and behavior? What engaging entertainment or information serve experiences do you expect to be available in 3-5 years that don't exist today?

    Students interested and able to participate should go to https://tinyurl.com/5c9vzskt for more information and to fill out the sign-up application.

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: USC ETC

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  • CAIS Seminar: Maria Rodriguez (University at Buffalo) - The Root of Algorithmic Bias and How to Deal With it

    Wed, Mar 24, 2021 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Maria Rodriguez, University at Buffalo

    Talk Title: The Root of Algorithmic Bias and How to Deal With it

    Series: USC Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society (CAIS) Seminar Series

    Abstract: In this talk, Dr. Rodriguez describes what she sees as the central issue undergirding academic conversations concerning bias in algorithmic output. Laying out this cause in plain terms, Dr. Rodriguez offers actionable mitigation strategies for individuals, groups and organizations invested in producing tech solutions for social good.

    Register in advance for this webinar at:

    https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_lgXhhV2zR5ShvC70HyEKUg

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

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium.


    Biography: Dr. Rodriguez is an Assistant Professor at the School of Social Work, University at Buffalo (SUNY); a Faculty Associate at the BerkmanKlein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University; a Faculty Fellow at the Center for Democracy and Technology; as well as a member of the Twitter Academic Research Advisory Board. Her work lies at the intersection of computational social science, demography, and social policy.


    Host: USC Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society (CAIS)

    Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_lgXhhV2zR5ShvC70HyEKUg

    Location: Online Zoom Webinar

    WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_lgXhhV2zR5ShvC70HyEKUg

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Computer Science Department

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  • Repeating EventUndergraduate Advisement Drop-in Hours

    Wed, Mar 24, 2021 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Workshops & Infosessions


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

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Undergrad

    View All Dates

    Contact: USC Computer Science

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  • Career Conversations

    Wed, Mar 24, 2021 @ 02:30 PM - 03:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Learn about Career Connections events, activities, and recruitment strategies to find internship and full-time positions. This session will be held with Associate Director, Lilian Barajas.

    RSVP to this workshop on Viterbi Career Gateway

    Location: Zoom

    Audiences: All Viterbi Students

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • AME Seminar

    Wed, Mar 24, 2021 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Daniel Bodony, Univ. Illinois Urbana-Champaign

    Talk Title: The Fluid Mechanics of Hypersonic Fluid-Structure Interactions

    Abstract: The interaction of high-speed aerodynamics with thermo-mechanically compliant structures is a critical design consideration for single-use and reusable hypersonic vehicles. Historical techniques for predicting fluid-thermal-structure interaction (FTSI) are insufficient for envisioned hypersonic flight systems, leading to a resurgent effort towards understanding, modeling, and predicting FTSI-coupled systems. In this talk, we will present the impact of FTSI on two fundamental scenarios -- boundary layer transition and shock-boundary layer interaction -- informed using a combination of stability analyses and direct numerical simulation techniques. In each scenario, focus will be given to the fluid mechanics involved in the fluid-structure coupling. Supporting details on the relevant theoretical and numerical details required for accurate prediction will also be discussed.

    Biography: Daniel J. Bodony is the Blue Waters Professor, Donald Biggar Willett Faculty Scholar and Associate Head for Graduate Programs in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Illinois. He received his Ph.D. in Aeronautics & Astronautics from Stanford University in 2005. After working at the NASA Ames/Stanford Center for Turbulence Research he joined the University of Illinois in late 2006 as an assistant professor. He received an NSF CAREER award in 2012 in Fluid Dynamics, is an Associate Fellow of the AIAA, and received the University of Illinois' Promotion with Distinction Award in 2020

    Host: AME Department

    More Info: https://usc.zoom.us/j/91084441303

    Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/91084441303

    WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/91084441303

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Tessa Yao

    Event Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/91084441303

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  • Repeating EventYes In My Backyard (YIMBY): Human Subjects Research

    Wed, Mar 24, 2021 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    USC Viterbi School of Engineering

    Workshops & Infosessions


    An online discussion and Q&A about Human Subjects Research at USC by the leaders from the Office for the Protection of Research Subjects (OPRS) at USC.

    When: 4-5 PM, 02/24 (last Wednesday of each month)
    Format: 20-minute talk, followed by a 40-minute Q&A session.
    Where: Online (https://usc.zoom.us/j/92235084129?pwd=ZmRTdHJHemw5ZEs3VWFuYW5SV0o5Zz09)

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    View All Dates

    Contact: Kristen Grace

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  • CS Colloquium: Michał Dereziński (University of California, Berkeley) - Bridging algorithmic and statistical randomness in machine learning

    Thu, Mar 25, 2021 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Michał Dereziński , University of California, Berkeley

    Talk Title: Bridging algorithmic and statistical randomness in machine learning

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: Randomness is a key resource in designing efficient algorithms, and it is also a fundamental modeling framework in statistics and machine learning. Methods that lie at the intersection of algorithmic and statistical randomness are at the forefront of modern data science. In this talk, I will discuss how statistical assumptions affect the bias-variance trade-offs and performance characteristics of randomized algorithms for, among others, linear regression, stochastic optimization, and dimensionality reduction. I will also present an efficient algorithmic framework, called joint sampling, which is used to both predict and improve the statistical performance of machine learning methods, by injecting carefully chosen correlations into randomized algorithms.

    In the first part of the talk, I will focus on the phenomenon of inversion bias, which is a systematic bias caused by inverting random matrices. Inversion bias is a significant bottleneck in parallel and distributed approaches to linear regression, second order optimization, and a range of statistical estimation tasks. Here, I will introduce a joint sampling technique called Volume Sampling, which is the first method to eliminate inversion bias in model averaging. In the second part, I will demonstrate how the spectral properties of data distributions determine the statistical performance of machine learning algorithms, going beyond worst-case analysis and revealing new phase transitions in statistical learning. Along the way, I will highlight a class of joint sampling methods called Determinantal Point Processes (DPPs), popularized in machine learning over the past fifteen years as a tractable model of diversity. In particular, I will present a new algorithmic technique called Distortion-Free Intermediate Sampling, which drastically reduced the computational cost of DPPs, turning them into a practical tool for large-scale data science.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium

    Biography: Michał Dereziński is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Statistics at the University of California, Berkeley. Previously, he was a research fellow at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing (Fall 2018, Foundations of Data Science program). He obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Cruz, advised by professor Manfred Warmuth, where he received the Best Dissertation Award for his work on sampling methods in statistical learning. Michał's current research is focused on developing scalable randomized algorithms with robust statistical guarantees for machine learning, data science and optimization. His work on reducing the cost of interpretability in dimensionality reduction received the Best Paper Award at the Thirty-fourth Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems. More information is available at: https://users.soe.ucsc.edu/~mderezin/.

    Host: David Kempe

    Audiences: By invitation only.

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Repeating EventUndergraduate Advisement Drop-in Hours

    Thu, Mar 25, 2021 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Workshops & Infosessions


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

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Undergrad

    View All Dates

    Contact: USC Computer Science

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  • Career Conversations

    Thu, Mar 25, 2021 @ 05:00 PM - 05:30 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Learn about Career Connections events, activities, and recruitment strategies to find internship and full-time positions. This session will be held with Assistant Director, Brittany Chu.

    RSVP to this workshop on Viterbi Career Gateway.

    Location: Zoom

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • USC Young Alumni SCuppers - Engineering

    Thu, Mar 25, 2021 @ 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Alumni

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Join fellow recent graduates for a virtual Young Alumni SCupper on the topic of Engineering!

    During the SCuppers, young alumni will have the opportunity to network and learn industry advice from previous generations of Trojans. Traditionally held over a meal, alumni hosts share their Trojan stories, discuss their professional journeys, and answer career questions. SCuppers are a great way to make lasting connections with fellow alumni and expand one's Trojan Network.

    Each SCuppers is hosted by impressive alumni working in different aspects of the engineering industry.

    Mark Sahlin MSEE '86, a Model Based System Development Champion at John Deere, will be leading the conversation and sharing his expertise in the engineering world.

    This is a great opportunity to expand your Trojan Network and learn how to excel in your career. Fight On!

    Click here to register!

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Kristy Ly

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  • FBI Cyber and Counterintelligence Needs You!

    Thu, Mar 25, 2021 @ 06:00 PM - 07:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    The FBI uses scientific analysis and technical skills to help keep the nation safe. At the FBI, every STEM opportunity offers a career like no other. STEM professionals at the FBI have opportunities to work with advanced technologies to address unique investigative and intelligence challenges not found in the private sector. Their expertise applies to forensic science, computer technology, cyber security, electronic surveillance, biometrics, encryption and more. STEM professionals also have opportunities to experience a variety of careers within the FBI, such as becoming a Computer Scientist, Data Analyst, Special Agent, or Intelligence Analyst.

    This Trojan Talk will take a look at the FBI's Cyber and Counterintelligence programs and why advanced STEM major graduates are needed to protect the nation.

    To RSVP: Viterbi Career Gateway > Events > Information Sessions

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Young Alumni SCupper - Engineering

    Thu, Mar 25, 2021 @ 06:00 PM - 07:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Alumni

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Join fellow recent graduates for a virtual Young Alumni SCupper on the topic of Engineering!

    During the SCuppers, young alumni will have the opportunity to network and learn industry advice from previous generations of Trojans. Traditionally held over a meal, alumni hosts share their Trojan stories, discuss their professional journeys, and answer career questions. SCuppers are a great way to make lasting connections with fellow alumni and expand one's Trojan Network.

    Each SCuppers is hosted by impressive alumni working in different aspects of the engineering industry.

    Carl Sarrazolla '84, Enterprise Data Architect at Lamb Weston, will be leading the conversation and sharing his expertise in the engineering world.

    This is a great opportunity to expand your Trojan Network and learn how to excel in your career. Fight On!

    Click here to register!

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Kristy Ly

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  • Trojan Talk | Tencent 2021 Internship Program Info Session

    Thu, Mar 25, 2021 @ 07:00 PM - 08:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Join this Trojan Talk with Tencent! This session will be delivered in Chinese.

    We will Focus on how to be fully prepared for Tencent internship application and some interview tips for engineering students. HR from Global Talent Acquisition at Tencent will share details on opportunities from Tencent.

    We would also like to welcome students from USC Viterbi School of engineering to sign up for our Tech Talk held in April through this event. Speakers such as the head of Tencent AI Lab will be invited to share some advanced technology and interview tips to our students during the talk.

    View Details in Viterbi Career Gateway > Events > Information Sessions

    Our internship program are mainly opened to students who will graduate after September,2021. For full-time positions, students who graduate from September,2020 to August,2021 are welcomed.

    We could offer Visa sponsorship if needed. All Engineering majors from Viterbi (Bachelor, Master or PHD) are welcomed, especially students from Computer Science Major (General CS, Data Science, Game Development, Security, Network, Software Engineering, Robotics, Multimedia, High Performance Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Scientist and Engineers).

    For our opening positions in Chinese mainland, please find out more on: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/3RfBwTQ5eaOdrbX_ngxBYA

    For positions in other countries and regions, please apply on https://careers.tencent.com/en-us/campusrecruit.html .

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) Career Panel

    Fri, Mar 26, 2021 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: NRO Professionals, NRO Professionals

    Talk Title: National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) Career Panel

    Host: USC Intelligence Community Center for Academic Excellence (IC CAE)

    More Info: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_zq02dUFSS8-v0hy4nU9G_A

    More Information: 3-26-21 NRO Career Panel.png

    Audiences: Students and Faculty

    Contact: Jennifer Ramos/Electrophysics

    Event Link: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_zq02dUFSS8-v0hy4nU9G_A

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  • USC Machine Learning Workshop

    Fri, Mar 26, 2021 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Student Activity


    ECE and IEEE will be hosting a Machine Learning Workshop this Friday, 3/26 @ 4pm. Professor Rajati will be explaining the fundamentals of machine learning, and discussing introductory modeling techniques and analysis. To sign up please fill in the form down below!

    RSVP Form: https://forms.gle/bWZJMZtLDR7HVWQY9

    Zoom Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/95460824854

    We hope that these events can provide a pleasant distraction for our current students and Alumni during this difficult time!

    If you have any questions please email us at ieee@usc.edu.

    Location: Online - Zoom

    WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/95460824854

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: USC IEEE

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  • Young Alumni SCupper - Engineering

    Fri, Mar 26, 2021 @ 07:00 PM - 08:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Alumni

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Join fellow recent graduates for a virtual Young Alumni SCupper on the topic of Engineering!

    During the SCuppers, young alumni will have the opportunity to network and learn industry advice from previous generations of Trojans. Traditionally held over a meal, alumni hosts share their Trojan stories, discuss their professional journeys, and answer career questions. SCuppers are a great way to make lasting connections with fellow alumni and expand one's Trojan Network.

    Each SCuppers is hosted by impressive alumni working in different aspects of the engineering industry.

    Rajeev Aneja '84, Technical Project Manager at Panasonic Avionics Corporation, will be leading the conversation and sharing his expertise in the engineering world.

    This is a great opportunity to expand your Trojan Network and learn how to excel in your career. Fight On!

    Click here to register!

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Kristy Ly

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  • Career Conversations with Employer Relations Coordinator Maggie Cutler

    Mon, Mar 29, 2021 @ 02:00 PM - 02:30 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    University Calendar


    Career Conversation: Learn about Career Connections events, activities, and recruitment strategies to find internship and full-time positions. Sessions will be held with Employer Relations Coordinator, Maggie Cutler Young.

    Link to join will be shared with those to RSVP.

    Limit of 9 students per discussion.

    To register: Viterbi Career Gateway > Events > Workshops

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • External Event | Women at Bain Panel

    Mon, Mar 29, 2021 @ 02:30 PM - 03:30 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    *This is an external event hosted by Bain & Company*

    Please join us for a panel with senior leadership across our Bain & Company offices to learn more about their time at Bain and participation in Women at Bain (WAB). This event is for all underclassmen who wish to learn more about our WAB community and Bain & Company.

    The Zoom link will be provided to registrants the day of the event; we advise that you login at least five minutes early.

    View Details in Viterbi Career Gateway > Events > Information Sessions

    Location: Online

    Audiences: All Viterbi Students

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Seminar

    Tue, Mar 30, 2021 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Jack W. Baker, Ph.D., Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University

    Talk Title: Simulation of regional post-earthquake recovery for performance-based

    Abstract: State of the art performance-based earthquake engineering (PBEE) procedures such as FEMA P-58 generally treat buildings as islands, with respect to modeling regional impacts and post-earthquake recovery. This talk presents an overview of recent research to advance direct simulation of regional impacts and recovery within a PBEE framework. Specifically, work to scale single-building performance-based assessments to a regional scale is demonstrated. Then, refinements to include the impact of damaged roads and neighboring buildings on repair and recovery timelines is presented. Finally,a coupled assessment of economic and physical impacts is illustrated, in order to account for private-sector decision-making and regional industrial capacity constraints on recovery. Collectively, these developments move us closer to regional-scale performance assessments that can incorporate a broader range of factors in forecasts, and thus can support a broader range of decision-making to increase community resilience.


    Biography: Professor Baker's work focuses on the development and use of probabilistic and statistical tools for managing risk due to extreme loads on the built environment. He studies risk to spatially distributed systems, characterization of earthquake ground motions, and probabilistic risk assessments for a number of types of structures. Professor Baker joined Stanford in 2006 from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich), where he was a visiting researcher in the Department of Structural Engineering. He has degrees in Structural Engineering (Stanford, M.S. 2002,Ph.D. 2005), Statistics (Stanford, M.S. 2004) and Mathematics and Physics(Whitman College, B.A. 2000). His awards include the Shah Family Innovation Prize from the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, the CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation, the Early Achievement Research Award from the International Association for Structural Safety and Reliability, the Walter L. Huber Prize from ASCE, the Helmut Krawinkler Award from the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California, and the Eugene L. Grant Award for excellence in teaching from Stanford.

    Host: Dr. Roger Ghanem

    Location: Zoom: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97228056404; Meeting ID: 972 2805 6404: Passcode: 864779

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Evangeline Reyes

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  • External Event | Adapting to Change: Job Searching in Unprecedented Times

    Tue, Mar 30, 2021 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    University Calendar


    ***EXTERNAL EVENT HOSTED BY NORTHROP GRUMMAN***

    Hear from Northrop Grumman's very own employees that graduated during the 2008 financial crisis. Get tips on how to job search, network yourself, and general advice on how to grow your career in a difficult time.

    Catherine Howard -- Senior Principal Talent Acquisition Business Partner, University Relations & Recruiting
    Keith Bettencourt -- Senior Principal Engineer, Structural
    Coleman Younger -- Manager, Engineering
    Chase Shaver -- Principal Engineer, Manufacturing
    Hoeuth (Lee) Kim -- Senior Principal Engineer, Software

    To RSVP: Viterbi Career Gateway > Events > Information Sessions

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Executive Coffee with Warner Bros

    Tue, Mar 30, 2021 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Student Activity


    This event is hosted by the USC Entertainment Technology Center and CS students are encouraged to attend.

    The -Executive Coffee with- program at the USC Entertainment Technology Center connects USC students interested in media and entertainment issues with media & entertainment industry executives.

    It is a win-win. The students have a structured low-pressure discussion with a senior industry executive. The executive explores the perspective and ideas of students with an interest in a topic that they care about.

    Tuesday March 30, 12:00pm-1:00pm

    Lead Executives:
    Renard Jenkins, VP Content Transmission and Production, WarnerMedia, Warner Bros.
    Michael Zink, VP Emerging and Creative Technologies, WarnerMedia, Warner Bros.

    Student/Executive Discussion Topic: AI and Ethics

    What is the future of Artificial Intelligence and the ethical issues associated with that future? What are the ramifications of the democratization of AI? What does 'diversity' and 'bias' mean in AI development, and can the tests for it transcend regional culture? How will AI coexist with humans, and should digital twins of real people be created?

    Students should go to https://bit.ly/2ZXlgf3 for more information and to fill out the sign-up application.

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Undergraduate and Graduate Students

    Contact: USC ETC

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  • Tour de L.A. Viterbi Wellness Challenge Closing Event

    Tue, Mar 30, 2021 @ 12:30 PM - 01:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Masters Programs

    Student Activity


    Join us for the closing event of Tour de L.A.!

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Juli Legat

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  • Space-Time Optics: A New Frontier for Structured Light

    Tue, Mar 30, 2021 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Prof. Ayman Abouraddy, University of Central Florida

    Talk Title: Space-Time Optics: A New Frontier for Structured Light

    Series: Photonics Seminar

    Host: Electrical and Computer Engineering: Wade Hsu, Mercedeh Khajavikhan, Michelle Povinelli, Constantine Sideris, and Wei Wu

    More Info: https://usc.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEqcuuprD4oE9ZVf6lwC_KIX9-3i55nMAMV

    More Information: Photonics Seminar _Ayman Abouraddy 3-30-21.png

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Jennifer Ramos/Electrophysics

    Event Link: https://usc.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEqcuuprD4oE9ZVf6lwC_KIX9-3i55nMAMV

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  • Repeating EventUndergraduate Advisement Drop-in Hours

    Tue, Mar 30, 2021 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Workshops & Infosessions


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

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Undergrad

    View All Dates

    Contact: USC Computer Science

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  • UPDATED External Event | Ace the Case Workshop!

    Tue, Mar 30, 2021 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    University Calendar


    *This is an external event hosted by OnPrem, it is not exclusive to Viterbi engineering students*

    (This event was originally set for March 23rd and has been postponed to March 30th)

    Interested in learning how to start your career as a Consulting Analyst working in Management Consulting? From major entertainment studios to consumer goods companies, our clientele trusts us to strategize, design, develop, and integrate technology solutions.

    Join us on March 30th at 3PM PST to learn how to critically think through a business case and master your next case interview!

    To register: Viterbi Career Gateway > Events > Information Sessions

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • ISE 651 - Epstein Seminar

    Tue, Mar 30, 2021 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM

    Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Roger G. Ghanem, Gordon S. Marshall Professor of Engineering Technology; Professor, Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering, USC

    Talk Title: Physics, Structure, and Uncertainty: Probabilistic Learning for Risk Mitigation

    Abstract:


    Host: Prof. Jong-Shi Pang

    More Information: March 30, 2021.pdf

    Location: Online/Zoom

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Grace Owh

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  • Mork Family Department Spring Virtual Seminars - Steve May

    Tue, Mar 30, 2021 @ 04:00 PM - 05:20 PM

    Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Steve May, Drexler University

    Talk Title: ANION-BASED APPROACHES TO ENGINEERING FUNCTIONALITY IN PEROVSKITE OXIDE HETEROSTRUCTURES

    Abstract: ZOOM MEETING INFO:
    https://usc.zoom.us/j/98225952695?pwd=d0NMenhCNkliR1ZIR1lBamRpZHh1UT09
    Meeting ID: 982 2595 2695 • Passcode: 322435

    Host: Jay Ravichandran

    More Info: https://usc.zoom.us/j/98225952695?pwd=d0NMenhCNkliR1ZIR1lBamRpZHh1UT09

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Greta Harrison

    Event Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/98225952695?pwd=d0NMenhCNkliR1ZIR1lBamRpZHh1UT09

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  • Repeating EventVirtual First-Year Admission Information Session

    Tue, Mar 30, 2021 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Our virtual information session is a live presentation from a USC Viterbi admission counselor designed for high school students and their family members to learn more about the USC Viterbi undergraduate experience. Our session will cover an overview of our undergraduate engineering programs, the application process, and more on student life. Guests will be able to ask questions and engage in further discussion toward the end of the session.

    Please Register Here!

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    View All Dates

    Contact: Viterbi Admission

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  • External Event | Trojan Talk with OnPrem

    Tue, Mar 30, 2021 @ 06:00 PM - 07:15 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    *This is an external event hosted by OnPrem, it is not exclusive to Viterbi engineering students*

    Come join us for an information session to get to know more about OnPrem, the work we do, and our culture!

    View Details in Viterbi Career Gateway > Events > Information Sessions

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Real Talk: Careers & Internships Financial, Industrial & Systems Engineering and lnformatics Session #1

    Wed, Mar 31, 2021 @ 11:00 AM - 11:30 AM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    University Calendar


    Viterbi Career Connections is Real Talk with VCC to get feedback from Viterbi Students. This is a chance to meet with a Viterbi Career Ambassador to have open dialogue on your well-being and how it's impacting your career goals!. Tell them what is working for you and if there are any barriers to getting the support and resources you need to achieve your career goals. These sessions will be hosted by your peers to provide open and anonymous feedback.

    The session will last 30 minutes and VCC staff can be available after the session to answer any questions or concerns you may have to help you in your career journey.

    To Register: Viterbi Career Gateway > Events > Workshops

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Real Talk: Careers & Internships Financial, Industrial & Systems Engineering and lnformatics Session #2

    Wed, Mar 31, 2021 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    University Calendar


    Viterbi Career Connections is Real Talk with VCC to get feedback from Viterbi Students. This is a chance to meet with a Viterbi Career Ambassador to have open dialogue on your well-being and how it's impacting your career goals!. Tell them what is working for you and if there are any barriers to getting the support and resources you need to achieve your career goals. These sessions will be hosted by your peers to provide open and anonymous feedback.

    The session will last 30 minutes and VCC staff can be available after the session to answer any questions or concerns you may have to help you in your career journey.

    To Register: Viterbi Career Gateway > Events > Workshops

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Computer Science General Faculty Meeting

    Wed, Mar 31, 2021 @ 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: TBD

    Audiences: Invited Faculty Only

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Repeating EventUndergraduate Advisement Drop-in Hours

    Wed, Mar 31, 2021 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Workshops & Infosessions


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

    Location: Online

    Audiences: Undergrad

    View All Dates

    Contact: USC Computer Science

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

    Wed, Mar 31, 2021 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Necmiye Ozay, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan

    Talk Title: Safety for Autonomous Systems with Information Abundance or Scarcity

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

    Abstract: Modern autonomous systems, like self-driving cars, unmanned aerial vehicles, or robots, are equipped with advanced sensing, learning, and perception modules. On one hand these modules render the overall system more informed, possibly providing predictions into the future. On the other hand, they can be unreliable, as in the case of vision-based perception algorithms unexpectedly failing to detect the obstacles. In this talk, I will discuss some of our recent work on problems that deal with synthesizing controllers to ensure safety and invariance in the presence of information imperfections or predictions. I will show problem instances in these different information regimes when control synthesis can be achieved in a scalable way. I will also discuss how these ideas can be extended to develop algorithms for corner case generation for testing and falsification purposes.

    Biography: Necmiye Ozay received the B.S. degree from Bogazici University, Istanbul in 2004, the M.S. degree from the Pennsylvania State University, University Park in 2006 and the Ph.D. degree from Northeastern University, Boston in 2010, all in electrical engineering. She was a postdoctoral scholar at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena between 2010 and 2013. She joined the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2013, where she is currently an associate professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Dr. Ozay's research interests include hybrid dynamical systems, control, optimization and formal methods with applications in cyber-physical systems, system identification, verification & validation, autonomy and dynamic data analysis. Her papers received several awards including a Nonlinear analysis: Hybrid Systems Prize Paper Award for years 2014-2016. She has received the 1938E Award and a Henry Russel Award from the University of Michigan for her contributions to teaching and research, and five young investigator awards, including NSF CAREER.

    Host: pierluigi Nuzzo, nuzzo@usc.edu

    Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Qk4-7AthThudso7LXs2OiA

    Location: Online

    WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Qk4-7AthThudso7LXs2OiA

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Talyia White

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  • Virtual Chat with Prof. Ellis Meng from Department of Biomedical Engineering

    Wed, Mar 31, 2021 @ 02:30 PM - 03:30 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Masters Programs

    Student Activity


    Sure, they're distinguished and renowned experts in their fields, but Viterbi faculty were once students too. Learn valuable life lessons as they share their professional and personal stories! Together, VGSA and the VASE office presents the Virtual Chat with a Professor Series! These are meant to be informal conversations that you might have with a professor after class or in the hallways. Each session is open to all Viterbi graduate students. Join in to chat with Prof. Ellis Meng!

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Juli Legat

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  • Thesis Proposal - Chi Zhang

    Wed, Mar 31, 2021 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    University Calendar


    Title:
    Safe Reinforcement Learning via Offline Learning


    Committee:

    Viktor Prasanna
    Bistra Dilknia
    Pau Bodgan
    Ashutosh Nayyar
    Jyo Deshmukh
    Kannan

    Abstract:

    Reinforcement Learning (RL) is a general learning paradigm to solve sequential decision making problems. They are often modeled as Markov Decision Process (MDP) or Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP). Reinforcement learning aims at learning policies that maximize the expected accumulated rewards with unknown dynamics or transition probabilities. Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) refers to using deep neural networks as a general function approximator when applying RL algorithms.
    Despite recent success of RL algorithms in robotics, games (e.g. AlphaGo), RL algorithms pose particular challenges when applied to real world settings.
    First, it often requires sufficient exploration effort to achieve a reasonable performance; such exploration is either too expensive (e.g. it takes time to gather data in real world) or forbidden due to safety constraints.
    This limits the RL algorithms in the scenarios where an accurate simulator is available.
    In this proposal, we focus on developing reinforcement learning algorithms that can ensure safety during the training phase and the deployment phase. We argue that by leveraging offline learning from a static dataset collected by existing safe policies, safety can be guaranteed.
    However, standard off-policy RL algorithms are prone to overestimations of the values of out-of-distribution (OOD) actions. This may cause the learned policies to visit unexplored and unsafe states at deployment phase. To mitigate this issue, we first mathematically show that by constraining the learned policies within the support set of the offline datasets, the state di stribution of the learned policy also lies within the support set of the offline datasets; hence safety is guaranteed.
    To constrain the learned policies within the support set, we propose i) distribution matching, and ii) model-based OOD actions generalization detection.
    We improve the existing state-of-the-art behavior regularization based approaches and propose BRAC+: Improved Behavior Regularized Actor Critic. We propose two key improvements including an analytical upper bound for the KL divergence as the behavior regularizor to reduce variance associated with sample based estimations, and gradient penalized Q update to avoid out-of-distribution (OOD) actions due to the unbounded gradient of the Q value w.r.t the OOD actions. Distribution matching is too conservative when the dataset is diverse so that the outcomes of the OOD actions can be correctly predicted. We propose to learn the inverse dynamics model as a variational auto-encoder along with the forward dynamics model. We detect OOD actions generalization by the agreement of the both models. Our approach will be evaluated on several benchmarks as well as a simulated building HVAC control testbed. We will gauge the success of our work by i) Whether the safety criteria is met. ii) The performance improvement over existing safe policies used to collect the dataset.


    Zoom Link:

    https://usc.zoom.us/j/2488070010

    WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/2488070010​

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Lizsl De Leon

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  • AME Seminar

    Wed, Mar 31, 2021 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Joanna Austin, Caltech

    Talk Title: Hypervelocity Spherically-Blunted Cone Flows in Mars Entry Ground Testing

    Abstract: The intent to launch larger vehicles in future Mars missions increases the requirements for ground testing in the high-stagnation enthalpy environment encountered by the vehicle during the hypersonic phase of entry, descent and landing. During atmospheric entry, strong shock compression and high post-shock temperatures lead to significant chemical dissociation and vibrational excitation in the shock layer in front of a sphere-cone capsule, particularly near the stagnation region. For Mars missions, accurate thermochemical modeling of carbon dioxide, a principal component of the atmosphere with complex vibrational energy exchange, is particularly important. We examine the shock layer over sphere and spherically-blunted cone geometries through reacting Navier-Stokes simulations and experiments in two facilities capable of high-stagnation enthalpy, hypersonic flows simulating Mars planetary entry conditions: the T5 Reflected Shock Tunnel and the Hypervelocity Expansion Tube. A recently-developed unified model for sphere and sphere-cone behavior is first verified for high-stagnation enthalpy CO2 flows through simulations with thermal and chemical nonequilibrium. Shock standoff distance measurements in both facilities are in good agreement with model predictions. The need to account for the divergence of the streamlines in conical nozzles is highlighted and an existing model is extended to account for changes in shock curvature between parallel and conical flow. The contributions of vibrational and chemical nonequilibrium to the stagnation line density profile are quantified using the simulation results comparing three chemical kinetic models. Experimental measurement of fore- and aftbody MWIR radiation will also be discussed.

    Biography: Joanna Austin is Professor of Aerospace at the Graduate Aerospace Laboratories, California Institute of Technology. She received B.E. (Mechanical and Space Engineering) and B.Sc. (Mathematics) degrees from the University of Queensland, Australia, and M.S. followed by Ph.D. (2003) degrees in Aeronautics from the California Institute of Technology. Austin then joined the faculty in the Aerospace Engineering department at the University of Illinois, becoming Associate Professor and Willett Faculty Scholar, before moving back to Caltech in 2014, where she is a co-PI in the Caltech Hypersonics Group. Austin's research is focused on fundamental problems in reactive, compressible flows across a broad range of applications including hypervelocity flight, supersonic combustion and detonation, bubble dynamics, and explosive geological events.

    Host: AME Department

    More Info: https://usc.zoom.us/j/99638511716

    Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/99638511716

    WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/99638511716

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Tessa Yao

    Event Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/99638511716

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  • Repeating EventCP2K: Running Ab Initio Molecular Dynamics Simulations

    Wed, Mar 31, 2021 @ 04:00 PM - 06:00 PM

    Information Technology Program (ITP)

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Presented by: USC Center for Advanced Research Computing

    An introduction to computational tools implemented within the CP2K program package. The most standard methods as well as some of the more advanced features will be introduced by overviews of background theory and through examples of application, while encouraging modular, flexible, and problem-oriented thinking. Recurring topics in the workshop are the scaling of algorithms, the combination of different levels of theory and of sampling, and tools and strategies for the analysis of results. This ongoing workshop is currently running on Wednesdays during the Spring 2021 semester.

    Location: Zoom

    WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYude2rrTgpE9x5UfcFT-A43bnb0bge6mXQ?_x_zm_rtaid=xZh9bx0ZQj2HvOQk_K22MQ.1617059562291.996419a413f45cbe5cd4cba5bd6ed61c&_x_zm_rhtaid=83

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

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    Contact: Center for Advanced Research Computing

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