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Events for April
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Technology for Business LeadersTue, Apr 01, 2025
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Bhaskar Krishnamachari, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Talk Title: Technology for Business Leaders
Abstract: Technology for Business Leaders provides a comprehensive exploration of digital transformation and its impact on contemporary business landscapes. Through a series of structured modules, participants will delve into the core concepts of digital technologies, Industry 4.0, innovation, and organizational change management. By analyzing case studies and leveraging practical frameworks, learners will develop the necessary insights and skills to drive successful digital transitions within their organizations.
Host: USC Viterbi Corporate and Professional Programs
More Info: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/technology-for-business-leaders/
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: VASE Executive Education
Event Link: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/technology-for-business-leaders/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Technology for Business Leaders
Tue, Apr 01, 2025
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Bhaskar Krishnamachari, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Talk Title: Technology for Business Leaders
Abstract: Technology for Business Leaders provides a comprehensive exploration of digital transformation and its impact on contemporary business landscapes. Through a series of structured modules, participants will delve into the core concepts of digital technologies, Industry 4.0, innovation, and organizational change management. By analyzing case studies and leveraging practical frameworks, learners will develop the necessary insights and skills to drive successful digital transitions within their organizations.
Host: USC Viterbi Corporate and Professional Programs
More Info: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/technology-for-business-leaders/
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: VASE Executive Education
Event Link: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/technology-for-business-leaders/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
DEN@Viterbi - Online Graduate Engineering Virtual Information Session
Tue, Apr 01, 2025 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 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.
WebCast Link: https://events.blackthorn.io/en/2EmK1o6/g/MKmE6J8PaB/denviterbi-information-session-5a2gRP2vZ9Z/overview
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Corporate & Professional Programs
Event Link: https://events.blackthorn.io/en/2EmK1o6/g/MKmE6J8PaB/denviterbi-information-session-5a2gRP2vZ9Z/overview
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Epstein Institute, ISE 651 Seminar Class
Tue, Apr 01, 2025 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Suvrajeet Sen, Emeritus Professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Southern California
Host: Dr. Qiang Huang
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Casi Jones/ ISE
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
PhD Thesis Proposal - Grace Zhang
Tue, Apr 01, 2025 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
Title: Knowledge Transfer for Data Efficient Reinforcement Learning
Committee : Gaurav Sukatme (Chair), Stefanos Nikolaidis, Erdem Biyik, Daniel Seita, Stephen Tu
Abstract: Reinforcement learning and the closely related inverse reinforcement learning problems are general and powerful frameworks to learn sequential decision making tasks with only a reward function or demonstrations and minimal assumptions on the environment. However, the trade-off is that these algorithms can be very data inefficient, in the number of trials required in the training environment or the number of demonstrations required. In my work I explore how to achieve more data efficient learning through knowledge transfer between environments or between tasks. Specifically, on how to transfer behaviors between environments, how to share behaviors between tasks in multi-task RL, and how to utilize multi-task information to do inverse RL from limited demonstrations.
Location: Ginsburg Hall (GCS) - 402C - 4th Floor
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Ellecia Williams
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
WIE Spring Bloom and Boba: April Mentorship Social
Tue, Apr 01, 2025 @ 05:30 PM - 06:30 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Student Activity
A bonding event for mentors and mentees to get together and make flower crowns and enjoy boba!
This program is open to all eligible individuals. Women in Engineering operates all of its programs and activities consistent with the Universityâs Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex [1], ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor.Location: Sign into EngageSC to View Location
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Thelma Federico Zaragoza
Event Link: https://engage.usc.edu/WIE/rsvp?id=403795
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Technology for Business Leaders
Wed, Apr 02, 2025
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Bhaskar Krishnamachari, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Talk Title: Technology for Business Leaders
Abstract: Technology for Business Leaders provides a comprehensive exploration of digital transformation and its impact on contemporary business landscapes. Through a series of structured modules, participants will delve into the core concepts of digital technologies, Industry 4.0, innovation, and organizational change management. By analyzing case studies and leveraging practical frameworks, learners will develop the necessary insights and skills to drive successful digital transitions within their organizations.
Host: USC Viterbi Corporate and Professional Programs
More Info: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/technology-for-business-leaders/
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: VASE Executive Education
Event Link: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/technology-for-business-leaders/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
EiS Communications Hub - Tutoring for Engineering Ph.D. Students
Wed, Apr 02, 2025 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Viterbi Ph.D. students are invited to drop by the Hub for instruction on their writing and speaking tasks! All tutoring is one-on-one and conducted by Viterbi faculty.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 222A
Audiences: Viterbi Ph.D. Students
Contact: Helen Choi
Event Link: https://sites.google.com/usc.edu/eishub/home
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
CS Colloquium: Amir Houmansadr (UMass Amherst) - The Road Not Taken: Towards Proactive Research on Internet Censorship
Wed, Apr 02, 2025 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Amir Houmansadr, UMass Amherst
Talk Title: The Road Not Taken: Towards Proactive Research on Internet Censorship
Abstract: Internet censorship poses a major threat to free speech and open access to information worldwide. While numerous tools exist to bypass censorship, they often fail to provide censored users with effective and reliable solutions. A key reason for this inefficacy is the reactive nature of circumvention tool development—developers modify their tools in response to censorship tactics, allowing censors to maintain the upper hand in this ongoing arms race. In this talk, I will make the case for a proactive approach to censorship circumvention research and share insights from our ongoing efforts towards proactive circumvention.
As AI continues to transform Internet services, I argue that the future of Internet security is inextricably linked to AI. I will also outline my vision for safeguarding online freedom and security in the age of AI, exploring both its potential and the challenges it presents.
This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium
Biography: Amir Houmansadr is an Associate Professor of computer science at UMass Amherst. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin. Amir is broadly interested in the security and privacy of networked/AI systems. To that end, he designs and deploys privacy-enhancing technologies, analyzes network protocols and services (e.g., messaging apps and machine learning APIs) for privacy leakage, and performs theoretical analysis to derive bounds on privacy (e.g., using game theory and information theory). Amir has received several awards including the 2013 IEEE S&P Best Practical Paper Award, a 2015 Google Faculty Research Award, a 2016 NSF CAREER Award, a 2022 DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA), the 2023 Best Practical Paper Award from the FOCI Community, the first place at CSAW 2023 Applied Research Competition, a Distinguished Paper Award from ACM CCS 2023, a 2024 Applied Networking Research Prize (ANRP), and a 2024 DARPA Directors Award.
Host: Harsha V. Madhyastha
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
Audiences: Everyone (USC) is invited
Contact: CS Faculty Affairs
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
PhD Dissertation Defense - Hanchen Xie
Wed, Apr 02, 2025 @ 12:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
Dissertation Title: Mitigating Environment Misalignment And Discovering Intrinsic Relations Via Symbolic Alignment
Date and Time: April 2, 12 pm to 2 pm.
Location: RTH 217
Committee: Yue Wang (Chair), Wael Abd-Almageed, Aram Galstyan, Emilio Ferrara, Peter Beerel
Abstract: Deep learning models have achieved remarkable success on various computer vision tasks. Modern state-of-the-art methods can not only recognize the visual appearance of objects but also discover intrinsic relations of objects (e.g., dynamics or causal relations). However, collecting sufficient training data for the intrinsic relations can be expensive or infeasible in many scenarios, such as car incident videos in the real world. As an alternative, one can generate data in a different environment, such as synthetic data, that depicts the same intrinsic relations. Yet, end-to-end models may suffer from environment misalignment challenges, such as visual domain or environment context shift, so the model generality is limited. To mitigate such misalignment challenges, we propose symbolic alignment, a novel learning strategy that utilizes a common symbolic space to align various environments. We first conduct a case study on dynamics prediction to reveal the environment misalignment challenges on our proposed datasets. Next, to obtain insight into the challenge, we provide an investigation of the implicit position encoding in the dynamics prediction model. Then, we present a learning framework that separates the learning of appearance recognition and dynamics relations discovery to improve the generality of the dynamics prediction model. Then, we generalize the symbolic alignment strategy and introduce a novel framework, Look, Learn, and Leverage L3. L3 decomposes the learning process into three distinct phases and achieves promising results on three intrinsic relations discovery tasks. Finally, we extend the environment misalignment discussion to video classification and demonstrate the potential of symbolic alignment to mitigate the video content inconsistency between training and inference.Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 217
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Hanchen Xie
Event Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/95803531086?pwd=LwnaIMsMv44jIIkvvlUEXD3gAbqb2N.1
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
AME Seminar
Wed, Apr 02, 2025 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Lihua Jin, UCLA
Talk Title: Non-Equilibrium Stimuli-Responsive Soft Materials
Abstract: One recent impetus of developing stimuli-responsive soft materials (SRSMs) is to use them for sensors, actuators and soft robots. In these applications, mechanics and multi-physics fields are intrinsically coupled through non-equilibrium thermodynamic processes, including diffusion, reaction, viscoelastic relaxation, etc. The non-equilibrium processes of SRSMs not only determine their response speeds, but also govern how SRSMs spatiotemporally evolve their properties and structures. In this talk, using hydrogels, shape memory polymers, humidity-responsive polymers and liquid crystal elastomers as model SRSMs, I will present a few of our recent studies on programing the spatiotemporal properties, shapes, and locomotion of SRSMs through non-equilibrium processes. First, I will describe how mechanical stress can be used to induce and tune the phase separation processes of hydrogels. Second, I will show that the fracture properties and behavior of SRSMs are also highly intertwined with their non-equilibrium processes. Finally, by utilizing the displacement of SRSMs to alter their interaction with external stimuli, we are able to achieve complex and autonomous motion of SRSMs.
Biography: Lihua Jin is an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Before joining UCLA in 2016, she was a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University. In 2014, she obtained her PhD degree in Engineering Sciences from Harvard University. Prior to that, she earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Fudan University. Lihua conducts research on mechanics of soft materials, stimuli-responsive materials, instability and fracture, soft robotics, and biomechanics. She was the winner of the Haythornthwaite Research Initiative Grant, Extreme Mechanics Letters Young Investigator Award, Hellman Fellowship, NSF CAREER Award, ACS PMSE Early Investigator Award, Sia Nemat-Nasser Early Career Award, and SES Huajian Gao Young Investigator Medal.
Host: AME Department
More Info: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/
Location: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 252
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Tessa Yao
Event Link: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Technology for Business Leaders
Thu, Apr 03, 2025
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Bhaskar Krishnamachari, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Talk Title: Technology for Business Leaders
Abstract: Technology for Business Leaders provides a comprehensive exploration of digital transformation and its impact on contemporary business landscapes. Through a series of structured modules, participants will delve into the core concepts of digital technologies, Industry 4.0, innovation, and organizational change management. By analyzing case studies and leveraging practical frameworks, learners will develop the necessary insights and skills to drive successful digital transitions within their organizations.
Host: USC Viterbi Corporate and Professional Programs
More Info: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/technology-for-business-leaders/
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: VASE Executive Education
Event Link: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/technology-for-business-leaders/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
ECE Seminar: Optimizing Distributed Applications in Networked Computing Environments
Thu, Apr 03, 2025 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Carlee Joe-Wong, Robert E. Doherty Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University
Talk Title: Optimizing Distributed Applications in Networked Computing Environments
Abstract: The recent proliferation of Internet-connected devices with computational and data collection capabilities, e.g., in the Internet-of-Things, promises to enable an explosion in new applications and services like artificial intelligence and mixed reality. Realizing these new applications, however, inherently requires device cooperation, whether integrating user data collected across multiple smart homes to train a prediction model for smart home usage, or synthesizing multiple sensors' readings to predict how a wildfire will spread. Such cooperation is inherently limited by constraints on the available compute, storage, or communication resources on Internet-connected devices—and to make matters worse, these devices are often highly heterogeneous and may need to support a range of different applications or services, each with their own unique needs. In this talk, I describe some of our recent work on optimizing device cooperation by learning and exploiting latent similarities across devices and applications. We first consider the general problem of optimally placing components of a distributed application, e.g., for data pre-processing and analysis, within a distributed network of devices. To meet these challenges, we introduce a new reinforcement learning-based problem representation that allows us to learn generalizable policies for dynamic environments. We then consider the specific problems of distributing machine learning applications across devices, demonstrating that we can exploit the structure of the learned data across devices to improve learning performance.
Biography: Carlee Joe-Wong is the Robert E. Doherty Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. She received her A.B. degree (magna cum laude) in Mathematics, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Applied and Computational Mathematics, from Princeton University in 2011, 2013, and 2016, respectively. Her research interests lie in optimizing various types of networked systems, in particular applications of machine learning and economics to computing and communication networks. From 2013 to 2014, Carlee was the Director of Advanced Research at DataMi, a startup she co-founded from her research on mobile data pricing. Her work has received best paper and poster awards at several conferences, including IEEE INFOCOM, ACM/IEEE IPSN, ACM SIGMETRICS, and IEEE ICDCS. She received the NSF CAREER award in 2018, the Army Young Investigator award in 2019, and the Department of Energy Early Career Research Program Award in 2024.
Host: Dr. Leana Golubchik, leana@usc.edu
Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/95435744209?pwd=XZXbX2oiSTg9AXpAwN3oHsy1g6W37u.1Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/95435744209?pwd=XZXbX2oiSTg9AXpAwN3oHsy1g6W37u.1
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Semiconductors and Microelectronics Technology Seminar - Pavan Nukala, Thursday, April 3rd at 1:30pm in EEB 248
Thu, Apr 03, 2025 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Pavan Nukala, Centre for Nano Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India.
Talk Title: Visualizing long-range solid state amorphization in ferroic In2Se3
Series: Semiconductors & Microelectronics Technology
Abstract: I will discuss our recent and exciting results on in-situ transmission electron microscopy studies on T-phase, polar In2Se3 nanowires. Through some beautiful atomic resolution images, I'll show that the vdW layers slide with application of current (carrier wind force), eventually leading to a complete solid-state amorphization of these nanowires. I'll show in-situ videos of jerky earth quake-like response of these devices occurring due to the interaction between these defects, which eventually forms a precursor to amorphization. These insights, while on one hand may be considered to be text-book models of solid-state amorphization, have also implications in In2Se3 FES-FETs. I will briefly discuss our most recent foray into the transistors and show how the in-situ TEM studies are relevant for these devices. References:1 G. Modi*, S. Parathe*, et al., Electrically driven long-range solid state amorphization in ferroic In2Se3, Nature, 635, 847, 2024
Biography: Pavan Nukala obtained his Bachelors and Masters in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Madras, India. He pursued his PhD from University of Pennsylvania, and subsequently was a nanosaclay post-doc at University Paris Saclay and Marie-Curie fellow at the University of Groningen. He started his independent group at the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru, India in 2020. His group works on ferroelectric, piezoelectric and phase change materials, oxide and 2D memristors, with an expertise on in-situ electron microscopy.
Host: Joshua Yang, Chongwu Zhou, Steve Cronin and Wei Wu
More Information: Pavan Nukala_2024-04-03.pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
DEN@Viterbi: How to Apply Virtual Info Session
Thu, Apr 03, 2025 @ 05:00 PM - 06:00 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.
WebCast Link: https://events.blackthorn.io/en/2EmK1o6/g/MKmE6J8PaB/denviterbi-how-to-apply-5a2gRP2vZCn/overview
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Corporate & Professional Programs
Event Link: https://events.blackthorn.io/en/2EmK1o6/g/MKmE6J8PaB/denviterbi-how-to-apply-5a2gRP2vZCn/overview
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Technology for Business Leaders
Fri, Apr 04, 2025
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Bhaskar Krishnamachari, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Talk Title: Technology for Business Leaders
Abstract: Technology for Business Leaders provides a comprehensive exploration of digital transformation and its impact on contemporary business landscapes. Through a series of structured modules, participants will delve into the core concepts of digital technologies, Industry 4.0, innovation, and organizational change management. By analyzing case studies and leveraging practical frameworks, learners will develop the necessary insights and skills to drive successful digital transitions within their organizations.
Host: USC Viterbi Corporate and Professional Programs
More Info: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/technology-for-business-leaders/
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: VASE Executive Education
Event Link: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/technology-for-business-leaders/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
EiS Communications Hub - Tutoring for Engineering Ph.D. Students
Fri, Apr 04, 2025 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Viterbi Ph.D. students are invited to drop by the Hub for instruction on their writing and speaking tasks! All tutoring is one-on-one and conducted by Viterbi faculty.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 222A
Audiences: Viterbi Ph.D. Students
Contact: Helen Choi
Event Link: https://sites.google.com/usc.edu/eishub/home
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
AI Seminar-Experiments in Scaling Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewards
Fri, Apr 04, 2025 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Nathan Lambert, Allen Institure
Talk Title: Experiments in Scaling Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewards
Series: AI Seminar
Abstract: With the release of DeepSeek’s R1 reasoning model, interest in reinforcement learning may be at an all time high. Academics are pouring energy into the space, trying to replicate DeepSeek’s results and establish clear trade-offs and capabilities of this new era of reinforcement learning on language models. This talk discusses these new results with language models trained with Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewards (RLVR), our efforts at scaling them for Ai2’s OLMo and Tülu language models, hints that we may have missed indicating that RL is more effective than people give credit for, and some history from my background in model-based RL/robotics. The goal of the talk is to present a mix of (recent) historical context on language modeling and cutting edge research with RL to forecast how the rapidly expanding industry of language models may change in the near future.
Biography: Nathan Lambert is a Senior Research Scientist and post-training lead at the Allen Institute for AI focusing on building open language models. At the same time he founded and operates Interconnects.ai to increase transparency and understanding of current AI models and systems.
Previously, he helped build an RLHF research team at HuggingFace. He received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley working at the intersection of machine learning and robotics. He was advised by Professor Kristofer Pister in the Berkeley Autonomous Microsystems Lab and Roberto Calandra at Meta AI Research. He was lucky to intern at Facebook AI and DeepMind during his Ph.D. Nathan was was awarded the UC Berkeley EECS Demetri Angelakos Memorial Achievement Award for Altruism for his efforts to better community norms.
If speaker approves to be recorded for this seminar it will be posted on the USC/ISI YouTube page within 1-2 business days: https://www.youtube.com/user/USCISI.
Subscribe here to learn more about upcoming seminars: https://www.isi.edu/events/ .
Host: Eric Boxer and Justina Gilleland
More Info: https://www.isi.edu/events/5553/experiments-in-scaling-reinforcement-learning-with-verifiable-rewards/
Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/94409584905?pwd=Sm5LVkd0bndUdEluM3piK0NWTUQrUT09Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - Virtual Only
WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/94409584905?pwd=Sm5LVkd0bndUdEluM3piK0NWTUQrUT09
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Pete Zamar
Event Link: https://www.isi.edu/events/5553/experiments-in-scaling-reinforcement-learning-with-verifiable-rewards/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Alfred E.Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering - Seminar series
Fri, Apr 04, 2025 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Xiaoping P. Hu, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Department of Bioengineering;Director, Center for Advanced Neuroimaging Reza Abbaschian Chair Professor University of California, Riverside
Talk Title: Some Recent Advances in MRI of Neurodegeneration
Abstract: MRI is a widely used modality in neuroimaging in both clinical medicine and research. For neurodegeneration, in addition to providing exquisite anatomic measures, MRI can assess function, connectivity, and neurobiologically relevant biomarkers such as iron and melanin. In this talk, I will first present our work on the development of neuromelanin imaging and applying it, in conjunction with iron imaging and diffusion tensor imaging, to the diagnosis and assessment of Parkinson’s disease. Our data demonstrate that both neuromelanin and iron imaging could provide potential biomarkers for the early detection of Parkinson’s disease. Second, I will describe our more recent endeavor in imaging the integrity and structural connectivity of locus coeruleus and investigation of their relevance to aging and cognition. I will demonstrate that MR imaging of locus coeruleus could provide highly relevant measure in studying aging.
Biography: Xiaoping Hu obtained his Ph.D. in medical physics in 1988 from the University of Chicago. From 1990 to 2002, he was a faculty member at the University of Minnesota where he became a full professor in 1998. In 2002-2016, he was Professor and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Imaging in the Wallace H. Coulter joint department of biomedical engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University. In July 2016, Dr. Hu joined UC Riverside as professor and chair of bioengineering and director of the center for advanced neuroimaging. Dr. Hu has worked on the development and biomedical application of magnetic resonance imaging, with an emphasis on the brain, for almost 4 decades. He has authored or co-authored 325 peer-reviewed journal articles, with a total of 33,000+ citations and an h-index of 101. He is currently on the editorial board of Brain Connectivity and is an associate editor of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. He is a fellow of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, a fellow of IEEE, a fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, a fellow of American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering and a fellow of the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineers. He was named Reza Abbaschian Chair in July, 2023 and promoted to distinguished professor in July, 2024.
Host: Qifa Zhou
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 109
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Carla Stanard
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
CA DREAMS - Technical Seminar Series
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Fri, Apr 04, 2025 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Shaya Fainman, Professor, University of California, San Diego
Talk Title: Foundry Enabled Chip-scale Photonics Technology and Applications
Abstract: Dense photonic integration requires miniaturization of materials, devices, circuits and systems, including passive components (e.g., engineered composite metamaterials, filters, etc.), active components (e.g., modulators and nonlinear wave mixers) and integrated circuits (Fourier transform spectrometer, programmable phase modulator of free space modes, linear algebra processors, etc.). In this talk we will discuss recent progress in developing CMOS compatible nonlinear optical materials as well as examples of foundry enabled silicon photonic circuits and systems. Specifically, we will review silicon photonics-based Fourier transform spectrometer (Si-FTS) that can bring broadband operation and fine resolution to the chip scale. Here we will present the modeling and experimental demonstration of a thermally tuned Si-FTS accounting for dispersion, thermo-optic non-linearity, and thermal expansion. We show how these effects modify the relation between the spectrum and interferogram of a light source and we develop a quantitative correction procedure through calibration with a tunable laser. Providing design flexibility and robustness, the Si-FTS is poised to become a fundamental building block for on-chip spectroscopy. Moreover, taking advantage of nanofabrication we will discuss on-chip spectrometers using stratified waveguide filters and machine learning. Moving forward, we will discuss chip-scale integrated circuit/system that will allow to realize linear algebra accelerators with superior performance in speed, energy consumption and size compared to its electronic counterpart. Such system can be manufactured using monolithic CMOS process and impact such applications as 5G/6G and beyond wireless MIMO systems as well as deep learning and artificial intelligence.
Biography: Yeshaiahu (Shaya) Fainman is an inaugural ASML/Cymer Chair of Advanced Optical Technologies and Distinguished Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He received the M. Sc and Ph. D degrees from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in 1979 and 1983, respectively. He is directing research of the Ultrafast and Nanoscale Optics group at UCSD and made significant contributions to near field optical phenomena, nanoscale science and engineering of ultra-small, sub-micrometer semiconductor light emitters and nanolasers, inhomogeneous and meta-materials, nanophotonics and plasmonics, non-conventional imaging and silicon photonics. His current research interests are in near field optical science and optical technology with applications targeting information technologies and biomedical sensing. He contributed over 360 manuscripts in peer review journals and over 560 conference presentations and conference proceedings. During his career he has led as Director and Deputy Director of numerous large size interdisciplinary projects and centers supported by BMDO, DARPA, NSF-ERC, and ONR. He is a Fellow of the OSA, IEEE, SPIE, and a recipient of the Miriam and Aharon Gutvirt Prize, Lady Davis Fellowship, Brown Award, SPIE Gabor Award, OSA Emmett N. Leith Medal, OSA Joseph Fraunhofer Award/Robert M. Burley Prize and OPTICA (former OSA) Nick Holonyak Jr Award.
Host: Dr. Steve Crago
More Info: https://www.isi.edu/events/5445/foundry-enabled-chip-scale-photonics-technology-and-applications/
Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97017422125?pwd=Dbrt8MNMrmBV3xalKQJcAiNsggFJjJ.1&from=addonWebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97017422125?pwd=Dbrt8MNMrmBV3xalKQJcAiNsggFJjJ.1&from=addon
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Amy Kasmir
Event Link: https://www.isi.edu/events/5445/foundry-enabled-chip-scale-photonics-technology-and-applications/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
PhD Thesis Proposal - Soumyaroop Nandi
Fri, Apr 04, 2025 @ 02:45 PM - 04:45 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
Title: Context-Aware Semantic Forgery Detection in Biomedical and Natural Images
Committee: Dr. Premkumar Natarajan (Chair), Dr. Emilio Ferrara, Dr. Daniel O’Leary, Dr. Erdem Biyik, and Dr. Gale Lucas
Abstract:Copy-move forgery is one of the most common and challenging forms of image manipulation, where regions within an image are duplicated and repositioned to conceal or falsify visual evidence. Detecting these manipulations becomes especially difficult in the case of semantic or context-aware forgeries, where duplicated content is strategically placed to mislead interpretation or alter meaning. This challenge is further compounded in specialized domains such as biomedical imaging, where image tampering can undermine scientific integrity by distorting experimental results. In the proposed thesis, we explore and develop state space model-based attention networks to advance the detection of copy-move and semantic image forgeries in both natural and biomedical images. We begin by introducing a visual state space modeling approach that uses normalized attention maps to locate and compare similar regions within an image. A region-based block-attention mechanism, integrated with this model, enables precise identification of manipulated and authentic areas, producing detailed localization maps of both the source and duplicated regions. To address the limitations of existing datasets, we propose a comprehensive copy-move forgery detection dataset designed to capture a wider range of sophisticated tampering techniques. Furthermore, we extend our methods to biomedical images, leveraging state space models as similarity detectors that focus on duplicated regions, enabling effective detection of manipulations that traditional models often fail to identify. This thesis aims to advance the field of semantic forgery detection by providing efficient and robust techniques for identifying both low-level pixel alterations and high-level, context-driven forgeries across diverse imaging applications.
Location: Ginsburg Hall (GCS) - 402C - 4th Floor
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Ellecia Williams
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Technology for Business Leaders
Mon, Apr 07, 2025
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Bhaskar Krishnamachari, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Talk Title: Technology for Business Leaders
Abstract: Technology for Business Leaders provides a comprehensive exploration of digital transformation and its impact on contemporary business landscapes. Through a series of structured modules, participants will delve into the core concepts of digital technologies, Industry 4.0, innovation, and organizational change management. By analyzing case studies and leveraging practical frameworks, learners will develop the necessary insights and skills to drive successful digital transitions within their organizations.
Host: USC Viterbi Corporate and Professional Programs
More Info: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/technology-for-business-leaders/
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: VASE Executive Education
Event Link: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/technology-for-business-leaders/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
EiS Communications Hub - Tutoring for Engineering Ph.D. Students
Mon, Apr 07, 2025 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Viterbi Ph.D. students are invited to drop by the Hub for instruction on their writing and speaking tasks! All tutoring is one-on-one and conducted by Viterbi faculty.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 222A
Audiences: Viterbi Ph.D. Students
Contact: Helen Choi
Event Link: https://sites.google.com/usc.edu/eishub/home
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Deans Transformative Lecture Series
Mon, Apr 07, 2025 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Rebecca Richards-Kortum, Ph.D., Malcolm Gillis University Professor Director, Rice 360 Institute for Global Health Department of Bioengineering at Rice University
Talk Title: Point-of-Care Tools to Improve Global Cancer Care
Biography: Rebecca Richards-Kortum, Ph.D.is the Rice University Malcolm Gillis University Professor of Bioengineeringand co-Director of Rice 360 Institute for Global Health. Her research has been instrumental in improving earlydetection of cancers and in developing and scaling affordable technologies to improve newborn and maternalhealth, especially in low-resource settings. She is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and a member of theUS National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Inventors,the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. She received her Ph.D. inMedical Physics from MIT and her BS in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Nebraska.
Host: Keck School of Medicine- USC
Location: Aresty Auditorium -Norris Cancer Center
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Carla Stanard
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
"Keys to Life" series at USC ORSL
Mon, Apr 07, 2025 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
University Calendar
"Keys to Life" with Prof. Weiss is a motivational discussion series designed to promote student success and well-being. This series is for students who want to develop their "keys" in a small group setting and a peaceful, reflective environment. Finding purpose is essential to living a meaningful life and key to personal fulfillment. This series will help students identify and articulate their purpose and provide group motivation to work towards it. A unique feature of the series will be its peripatetic "Purpose Walks" through campus.
More Information: Keys to Life with Prof. Weiss.jpg
Location: University Religious Center (URC) - courtyard
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Elisabeth Arnold Weiss
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Epstein Institute, ISE 651 Seminar Class
Tue, Apr 08, 2025 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Nabeel Gillani, Assistant Professor in the Department of Design and Data Analysis at Northeastern University
Host: Dr. Qiang Huang
More Information: FLYER 651 guest Nabeel Gillani 4.8.25.png
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Casi Jones/ ISE
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Six Sigma Black Belt
Tue, Apr 08, 2025 @ 04:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: IISE Faculty, IISE Faculty
Talk Title: Six Sigma Black Belt
Abstract: USC Viterbi School of Engineering's Six Sigma Black Belt program, offered in partnership with the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, enables professionals to learn how to integrate principles of business, statistics, and engineering to achieve tangible results. Learn the advanced problem-solving skills you need to implement the principles, practices, and techniques of our Six Sigma Black Belt course in order to maximize performance and cost reductions in your organization. During this three-week practitioner course, you will learn how to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements, and quantify the resulting savings. You will be required to complete a project demonstrating mastery of appropriate analytical methods and pass an examination to earn Six Sigma Black Belt Certification. This practitioner course for Six Sigma implementation provides extensive coverage of the Six Sigma process, as well as intensive exposure to the key analytical tools associated with Six Sigma, including project management, team skills, cost analysis, FMEA, basic statistics, inferential statistics, sampling, goodness of fit testing, regression and correlation analysis, reliability, design of experiments, statistical process control, measurement systems analysis, and simulation. Computer applications are emphasized.
Host: USC Viterbi Corporate and Professional Programs
More Info: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/six-sigma-lean-certification/six-sigma-black-belt/
Audiences: Six Sigma Black Belt Students
Contact: VASE Executive Education
Event Link: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/six-sigma-lean-certification/six-sigma-black-belt/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
EiS Communications Hub - Tutoring for Engineering Ph.D. Students
Wed, Apr 09, 2025 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Viterbi Ph.D. students are invited to drop by the Hub for instruction on their writing and speaking tasks! All tutoring is one-on-one and conducted by Viterbi faculty.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 222A
Audiences: Viterbi Ph.D. Students
Contact: Helen Choi
Event Link: https://sites.google.com/usc.edu/eishub/home
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
CS Colloquium: Xia (Ben) Hu (Rice University) - Efficient LLM Serving via Lossy Computation
Wed, Apr 09, 2025 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Xia (Ben) Hu, Rice University
Talk Title: Efficient LLM Serving via Lossy Computation
Series: Computer Science Colloquium
Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) have exhibited human-like conversational abilities. Yet, scaling LLMs to longer contexts, such as extracting information from lengthy articles, one of the most fundamental tasks in healthcare applications, poses significant challenges. The primary issues are their inability to handle contexts beyond pre-training lengths and system constraints that make deployment difficult, as memory requirements for inference increase with context length. The key idea to overcome these challenges is that LLMs are extremely robust to noise from lossy computation, such as low-precision computation. Following this insight, we will discuss recent advancements in serving LLMs at scale, particularly in handling longer contexts. To address the algorithmic challenge, I will share our recent work on extending LLM context length to at least 8× longer by coarsening the positional information of distant tokens. To address the system challenge, I will discuss our recent efforts in quantizing the intermediate states of past tokens to 2-bit numbers, leading to a 8x memory efficiency and 3.5x wall-clock time speedup without harming performance. Finally, I will highlight our latest projects applying LLMs in healthcare, particularly how we utilize retrieval techniques for long contexts to mitigate the hallucination problem in healthcare chatbots. This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium
Biography: Dr. Xia “Ben” Hu is an Associate Professor at Rice University in the Department of Computer Science. Dr. Hu has published over 200 papers in several major academic venues, including NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, KDD, IJCAI, etc. An open-source package developed by his group, namely AutoKeras, has become the most used automated deep learning system on GitHub (with over 9,000 stars and 1,000 forks). Additionally, his work on LLM efficiency, deep collaborative filtering, anomaly detection, knowledge graphs, and fast interpretation has been incorporated into production systems at Hugging Face, TensorFlow, Apple, Bing, and Meta, respectively. His papers have received several Best Paper (Candidate) awards from venues such as ICML, WWW, WSDM, ICDM, AMIA, and INFORMS. He is the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award and the ACM SIGKDD Rising Star Award. His work has been cited more than 30,000 times with an h-index of 76. He served as General Co-Chair for WSDM 2020 and ICHI 2023, as well as Program Co-Chair for AIHC 2024 and CHASE 2025.
Host: Yan Liu
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
Audiences: Everyone (USC) is invited
Contact: CS Faculty Affairs
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Computer Science General Faculty Meeting
Wed, Apr 09, 2025 @ 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 and staff only. Event details emailed directly to attendees.
Location: Ginsburg Hall (GCS) - 107
Audiences: Invited Faculty Only
Contact: Julia Mittenberg-Beirao
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
PhD Thesis Proposal - Arash Hajisafi
Wed, Apr 09, 2025 @ 12:30 PM - 02:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
Presentation Title: Dynamic GNNs for Accurate and Efficient Modeling of Instant and Lagged Dependencies in Multivariate Time Series
Date and Time: Wednesday, April 9th, 2025 - 12:30p - 2:00p
Location: GCS 502C
Committee Members: Cyrus Shahabi (Chair), Ibrahim Sabek, Viktor Prasanna, Ruishan Liu, John P. Wilson (External)
Abstract: Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) have shown great success in modeling complex dependencies within multivariate time series by explicitly capturing intra-series (within individual series) and inter-series (across different series) relationships. However, existing methods often struggle to represent evolving correlations, particularly when multiple contexts and lagged interactions are involved. My previous research has developed GNN-based prediction models addressing instant dependencies across various contexts, incorporating both static and dynamic relationship aspects, and achieving significant improvements in forecasting accuracy and efficiency. Despite these advancements, real-world time series, such as those found in financial markets, frequently exhibit lagged dependencies, where changes in one series influence others after varying delays. Building on my prior contributions, my dissertation proposes developing a novel dynamic GNN method explicitly designed to capture these lagged dependencies, aiming to further enhance the prediction accuracy in applications like stock forecasting.Location: Ginsburg Hall (GCS) - 502C
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Arash Hajisafi
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
AME Seminar
Wed, Apr 09, 2025 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Pedro Paredes, NASA Langley Research Center
Talk Title: Hypersonic Boundary Layer Transition over Blunt Cones
Abstract: The linear amplification of modal Mack-mode disturbances that lead to boundary-layer transition in two-dimensional/axisymmetric hypersonic configurations is strongly reduced by the presence of a blunt nosetip. The mechanisms underlying the low Mack-mode N-factor values at the observed onset of transition over the cone frustum are currently unknown. As the nose bluntness is increased beyond the critical nose Reynolds number for transition reversal, the transition location rapidly moves upstream, and transition appears to depend on uncontrolled disturbances due to nosetip roughness. Linear nonmodal analysis has shown that both planar and oblique traveling disturbances that peak within the entropy layer experience appreciable energy amplification for moderate to large nosetip bluntness. Nonlinear nonmodal analysis shows that planar entropy-layer disturbances excited near the nose tip can excite the high frequency Mack-mode disturbances and hence, can lead to a reduction in the transition N-factor. Digital wind-tunnel simulations are conducted via direct numerical simulations (DNS) to understand the effects of freestream acoustic disturbances in transition over blunt cones during a conventional tunnel experiment. The results confirm the appearance of entropy-layer disturbances predicted by linear nonmodal analysis and the numerical schlieren contours show the inclined structures predicted by nonlinear nonmodal analysis and observed in experiments.
Biography: Pedro Paredes is a Research Scientist at the Computational AeroSciences Branch of the NASA Langley Research Center. Dr. Paredes earned his Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Aerospace Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain. He was one of the recipients of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Award in 2020 and has been awarded with two Office of Naval Research grants as the principal investigator. Dr. Paredes was honored with the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Associate Fellow distinction in 2024. The research activities of Dr. Paredes are related to boundary layer transition (BLT) prediction and physics-based development of technology concepts for BLT control across the flight speed regimes. He has developed and applied advanced, multidimensional stability-analysis methods for BLT prediction of high-speed flow configurations. With a prolific academic record, he has authored over 50 journal articles and 80 conference papers.
Host: AME Department
More Info: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/
Location: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 252
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Tessa Yao
Event Link: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Six Sigma Black Belt
Wed, Apr 09, 2025 @ 04:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: IISE Faculty, IISE Faculty
Talk Title: Six Sigma Black Belt
Abstract: USC Viterbi School of Engineering's Six Sigma Black Belt program, offered in partnership with the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, enables professionals to learn how to integrate principles of business, statistics, and engineering to achieve tangible results. Learn the advanced problem-solving skills you need to implement the principles, practices, and techniques of our Six Sigma Black Belt course in order to maximize performance and cost reductions in your organization. During this three-week practitioner course, you will learn how to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements, and quantify the resulting savings. You will be required to complete a project demonstrating mastery of appropriate analytical methods and pass an examination to earn Six Sigma Black Belt Certification. This practitioner course for Six Sigma implementation provides extensive coverage of the Six Sigma process, as well as intensive exposure to the key analytical tools associated with Six Sigma, including project management, team skills, cost analysis, FMEA, basic statistics, inferential statistics, sampling, goodness of fit testing, regression and correlation analysis, reliability, design of experiments, statistical process control, measurement systems analysis, and simulation. Computer applications are emphasized.
Host: USC Viterbi Corporate and Professional Programs
More Info: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/six-sigma-lean-certification/six-sigma-black-belt/
Audiences: Six Sigma Black Belt Students
Contact: VASE Executive Education
Event Link: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/six-sigma-lean-certification/six-sigma-black-belt/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
NL Seminar- An Investigation of Intermediate Representations in Spoken Language Models
Thu, Apr 10, 2025 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Tolulope Ogunremi, Stanford University
Talk Title: An Investigation of Intermediate Representations in Spoken Language Models
Abstract: Meeting hosts only admit on-line guests that they know to the Zoom meeting. Hence, you’re highly encouraged to use your USC account to sign into Zoom. If you’re an outside visitor, please inform us at (nlg-seminar-host(at)isi.edu) to make us aware of your attendance so we can admit you. Specify if you will attend remotely or in person at least one business day prior to the event. Provide your: full name, job title and professional affiliation and arrive at least 10 minutes before the seminar begins. If you do not have access to the 6th Floor for in-person attendance, please check in at the 10th floor main reception desk to register as a visitor and someone will escort you to the conference room location. https://usc.zoom.us/j/93979709729?pwd=v8abin7zGE0E7jWy4cGoEj8vyyFlUT.1 Meeting ID: 939 7970 9729 Passcode: 804448
Spoken language models, large language models trained to process speech and audio inputs by leveraging speech encoder representations, have rapidly increased in popularity as a new modelling approach to speech processing tasks. These models train modality adapters to adapt speech encoder output into language model input.In this work, we use CommonVoice and FLEURS automatic speech recognition (ASR) data in several languages to investigate the output of the modality adapter of spoken language models. We introduce an algorithm to determine whether the modality adapter output resembles a transcription, transliteration or a semantic representation of the speech. We also find that the representation of a language in the language model affects the modality adapter output and transcription abilities of the spoken language models.
Biography: Tolúlá»ÂpẹàÒgúnrẹÃÂmí is a Computer Science PhD candidate at Stanford University in the Stanford NLP Group. Her work focusses on speech and language processing for low-resource languages, currently African languages. Her research combines linguistic investigations of these languages and community-based projects that integrate the concerns of local language communities with technological advances. Before, she did a Masters in Speech and Language Processing at the University Edinburgh.
If speaker approves to be recorded for this seminar, it will be posted on the USC/ISI YouTube page within 1-2 business days: https://www.youtube.com/user/USCISI Subscribe here to learn more about upcoming seminars: https://www.isi.edu/events/ For more information on the NL Seminar series and upcoming talks, please visit: https://www.isi.edu/research-groups-nlg/nlg-seminars/ Hosts: Jonathan May and Katy Felkner
Host: Jonathan May and Katy Felkner
More Info: https://www.isi.edu/research-groups-nlg/nlg-seminars/
Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/93979709729?pwd=v8abin7zGE0E7jWy4cGoEj8vyyFlUT.1Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - Conf Rm#689
WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/93979709729?pwd=v8abin7zGE0E7jWy4cGoEj8vyyFlUT.1
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Pete Zamar
Event Link: https://www.isi.edu/research-groups-nlg/nlg-seminars/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
PhD Thesis Proposal - Jiahao Wen
Thu, Apr 10, 2025 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
Title of Thesis Proposal: Optimal r-Adaptive In-Timestep Remeshing for Elastodynamics
Date and Time: April 10th, 12 pm - 1pm
Location: SAL 213
Committee Members: Prof. Jernej Barbic, Prof. Yong Chen, Prof. Oded Stein, Prof. Satyandra Gupta, and Prof. Stefanos Nikolaidis.
Abstract: This work is about finding optimal degrees of freedom for FEM simulation of nonlinear deformable objects with frictional contacts. This is done by moving the vertices in the undeformed (reference) mesh to improve the match to the true analytical solution of the underlying PDE. I.e., get closer to the true solution with a fewer number of mesh vertices by optimally repositioning those vertices in the undeformed mesh. More broadly, the work tries to improve how partial differential equations are solved by adapting the FEM solution space.Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 213
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Jiahao Wen
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Semiconductors and Microelectronics Technology Seminar - Kyung Min Kim, Thursday, April 10th at 1:30pm in EEB 248
Thu, Apr 10, 2025 @ 01:30 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Kyung Min Kim, Associate Professor, Materials Science and Engineering Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
Talk Title: Spatiotemporal Computing Utilizing Dual Thermal Dynamics of Mott Memristors
Series: Semiconductors & Microelectronics Technology
Abstract: The Mott memristor is a highly intriguing device that demonstrates unique electrical characteristics through the dynamic interaction of heat and current. The device exhibits dynamic thermal behavior, encompassing temporal accumulation via heat capacity and spatial transportation through heat diffusion. This spatiotemporal thermal activity enables coupling between memristor devices when arranged in arrays, which can be effectively utilized for computing. Additionally, the thermal dynamics of Mott memristors inherently involve stochasticity, resulting in probabilistic behavior. These properties, such as thermal coupling and stochasticity, provide a novel approach to tackling NP-hard problems, which are often challenging for conventional computers to solve. This presentation explores various computing devices that leverage the spatiotemporal thermal information of Mott memristors, including true random number generators (TRNGs), probabilistic computing systems, and thermal computing devices. The future potential and implications of these technologies will also be discussed.
Biography: Professor Kyung Min Kim is a Tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) since 2017. He earned his B.S. degree in 2003 and his Ph.D. degree in 2008 from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea. From 2011 to 2013, he worked at Samsung Electronics in Korea, and from 2014 to 2017, he worked at Hewlett Packard Labs of Hewlett Packard Enterprise in Palo Alto, California, USA. His research covers a wide range of areas related to next-generation semiconductor technology. This includes exploring new semiconductor materials and processing techniques, post-von Neumann computing technologies such as neuromorphic computing, reservoir computing, and probabilistic computing, as well as semiconductor packaging technology.
Host: Jayakanth Ravichandran, Joshua Yang, Chongwu Zhou, Steve Cronin and Wei Wu
More Information: Kyung Min Kim Flyer.pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Civil and Environmental Department Seminar Series
Thu, Apr 10, 2025 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Ed Reynolds, M.S., University of Southern California
Talk Title: The Multi-Billion Dollar Environmental Assessment and Remediation Industry in Southern California ⓠA Career Path Option
Host: Dr. Adam Smith
More Information: Ed Reynolds Announcement.docx
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Salina Palacios
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
PhD Thesis Proposal - Robby Costales
Thu, Apr 10, 2025 @ 03:00 PM - 04:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
Title: The Three-Tiered Exploration Problem in Open-Ended Adaptive Learning
Committee members: Stefanos Nikolaidis (chair), Erdem Biyik, Stephen Tu, Willie Neiswanger, Daniel Seita
Abstract: A central challenge in training adaptive decision-making agents via meta-reinforcement learning (meta-RL) is meta-exploration—the search for an efficient exploration strategy that generalize to new, unseen tasks. Another bottleneck is the significant expense of manually designing training task distributions. While autocurricula methods—which automatically generate appropriately challenging training tasks for the learning agent—are well-studied in the standard RL setting, their application to meta-RL has been underexplored. These autocurricula approaches are a promising route for both (1) reducing the difficulty of meta-exploration and (2) removing the need for hand-designing tasks for meta-RL training, but the emergent training dynamics are complex—with each component mutually exacerbating each others' separate instabilities. In this talk, I outline a preliminary framework for understanding this combined learning problem, and present a research trajectory for addressing the associated challenges, building on my ongoing PhD work.Location: Ginsburg Hall (GCS) - 502C - 5th Floor
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Ellecia Williams
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Six Sigma Black Belt
Thu, Apr 10, 2025 @ 04:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: IISE Faculty, IISE Faculty
Talk Title: Six Sigma Black Belt
Abstract: USC Viterbi School of Engineering's Six Sigma Black Belt program, offered in partnership with the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, enables professionals to learn how to integrate principles of business, statistics, and engineering to achieve tangible results. Learn the advanced problem-solving skills you need to implement the principles, practices, and techniques of our Six Sigma Black Belt course in order to maximize performance and cost reductions in your organization. During this three-week practitioner course, you will learn how to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements, and quantify the resulting savings. You will be required to complete a project demonstrating mastery of appropriate analytical methods and pass an examination to earn Six Sigma Black Belt Certification. This practitioner course for Six Sigma implementation provides extensive coverage of the Six Sigma process, as well as intensive exposure to the key analytical tools associated with Six Sigma, including project management, team skills, cost analysis, FMEA, basic statistics, inferential statistics, sampling, goodness of fit testing, regression and correlation analysis, reliability, design of experiments, statistical process control, measurement systems analysis, and simulation. Computer applications are emphasized.
Host: USC Viterbi Corporate and Professional Programs
More Info: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/six-sigma-lean-certification/six-sigma-black-belt/
Audiences: Six Sigma Black Belt Students
Contact: VASE Executive Education
Event Link: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/six-sigma-lean-certification/six-sigma-black-belt/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
EiS Communications Hub - Tutoring for Engineering Ph.D. Students
Fri, Apr 11, 2025 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Viterbi Ph.D. students are invited to drop by the Hub for instruction on their writing and speaking tasks! All tutoring is one-on-one and conducted by Viterbi faculty.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 222A
Audiences: Viterbi Ph.D. Students
Contact: Helen Choi
Event Link: https://sites.google.com/usc.edu/eishub/home
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Alfred E.Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering - Seminar series
Fri, Apr 11, 2025 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Morgan Huse, Ph.D., Member, Immunology Program at MSKCC
Talk Title: âÂÂMechanoregulation of Anti-tumor ImmunityâÂÂ
Abstract: The Huse lab studies the structure and function of dynamic immune cell-cell interactions. We are particularly interested in the immunological synapses formed between cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) and the transformed or infected target cells they aim to destroy. In recent years, CTL-mediated killing has emerged as a central component of several promising anti-cancer immunotherapies. Hence, a better understanding of the mechanisms controlling this process could provide avenues for enhancing the potency and specificity of CTLs in clinical contexts. Using a combination of synthetic chemistry, materials science, single cell biophysical assays, and fluorescence video-microscopy, we have 1) identified critical signaling pathways required to establish the cytoskeletal architecture of the synapse, and 2) established a novel role for mechanical force in controlling the potency and specificity of killing responses. These results have spawned a more holistic understanding of how physical and chemical processes synergize to facilitate intercellular communication in the immune system.
Biography: Dr. Huse grew up in East Asia before completing high school in Los Angeles. After graduating from Harvard University with a degree in Biochemical Sciences, he carried out doctoral work at the Rockefeller University in the labs of John Kuriyan and Tom Muir. His Ph.D. thesis focused on the phosphoregulation of the TGFβ receptor. Dr. Huse then worked as a postdoctoral fellow in Mark Davis’ lab at Stanford University, where he studied signal transduction and polarized effector responses in T cells. He took a position in the MSKCC Immunology Program in 2007. Since then, his lab has investigated the dynamic architecture of immune cell-cell interactions. He has studied key signaling pathways required for the elaboration of specific interfacial structures and the importance of mechanical force as an avenue for communication between immune cells and their targets. His talk today will describe recent studies from his lab aimed at understanding the mechanoregulation of immune effector responses.
Host: Peter Yingxiao Wang- Chair of Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 109
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Carla Stanard
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
AI Seminar- How I learned to stop worrying and love AI
Fri, Apr 11, 2025 @ 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: William Regli, University of Maryland
Talk Title: How I learned to stop worrying and love AI
Series: AI Seminar
Abstract: In Voltaire’s Candide, Dr. Pangloss is relentlessly optimistic in the face of novella’s unflinching portrait of the human condition; his opposite, Martin, is pessimistic and cynical. Today’s developments around Artificial Intelligence are being driven by similarly opposing forces. The Panglossian approach views AI as humanity’s grasping of Promethean fire whereas others see existential risk and threats to human safety, privacy, and wellbeing. We might hope that the reality is somewhere in between; and we might suspect that the reason for these extreme views is that we probably have the problems around AI framed incorrectly.This presentation attempts to summarize my personal views regarding AI that I have developed during my decade away from academia in various forms of public service. First, as a member of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) leadership team in the Defense Sciences Office (2014-2017); next as the founding director of the Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security, the Department of Defense’s university-affiliated research center (UARC) for the social sciences and AI at the University of Maryland (2018-2023); and lastly as Senior Advisor for AI Risk Modeling for Biden Administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (2023-2024). The bottom line, upfront:— Current AI narratives are techno-philic and need to be re-framed because the thorniest problems are decidedly non-technical—they are mostly about AI’s interaction with, and influence on, people and society;— Unlike physics and engineering we do not yet have the required level of scientific understanding about AI and its effects on people and society needed to establish rigorous engineering practices and manage its use; and, lastly— The impacts of AI, operating at various levels in our society (ranging from individuals to our planetary community as a whole), are going to be uneven in scale, speed, and impact. I would rather not merely admire these problems, hence I will try to re-frame them as inherently socio-technical. I will provide a practical methodology for identifying emerging scientific and engineering questions related to the ongoing integration of AI with humans and society. Using this approach, I will provide several examples of research questions that merit investigation. In the end, I hope to provide a unique perspective on recent developments in AI and a tangible means by which we might address these daunting emerging challenges.
Biography: Dr. Regli is a computer scientist who has focused his career on interdisciplinary and use-inspired problems spanning artificial intelligence, engineering and manufacturing, and computational modeling. Dr. Regli’s recent sponsored research activities include verification and validation of intelligent systems; intelligent computer networks; and the use of artificial intelligence in advanced manufacturing. He has published more than 250 technical articles, created two technology companies (one focused on mobile communications for public safety, the other on information management in edge networks), and produced five foundational U.S. Patents in the area of 3D CAD search.From 2014 to 2017 Regli served on the leadership team of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), as Deputy Director (9/14-12/16) and Acting Director (1/17-7/17) of the Defense Sciences Office (DSO); then as Special Assistant to the DARPA Director (8/17-12/17). During his tenure, DSO initiated programs in areas as diverse as artificial intelligence, design and manufacturing, social science, applied mathematics, physical sciences and advanced sensing technologies; in his role leading DSO he advanced the data management and retention plans for the agency, co-developed the “Disruptioneering” program template, expanded the DARPA Young Faculty Award, and was the Program Chair for the “DARPA 60” anniversary conference (9/2018). For his contributions, Regli received the Award for Excellence for Meritorious Service (2015) from the Undersecretary of Defense (AT&L) and DARPA Meritorious Public Service Medal (2017). Regli’s other government service includes as a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) (1995-1997); as a Scientific Adviser to the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) in the areas of information technology and manufacturing (2010-2014;2018-); and as a member of the US Air Force Scientific Advisory Board (2019-2021; 2022-). His community service currently includes a role on the Computing Research Association (CRA) Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Advisory Board (2021-) as well as several editorial boards. Regli recently completed service as the founding Executive Director (2018-2023) of the University of Maryland’s University-Affiliated Research Center for the Department of Defense: The Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (ARLIS), the chartered DoD academic laboratory for the Intelligence and Security communities. For part of 2023-2024, Regli served in the Executive Offices of the President (EOP), White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), as a Senior Advisor for AI Risk for the National AI Initiatives Office supporting a variety of activities.Dr. Regli holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland at College Park and Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from Saint Joseph's University. He is an elected Senior Member of both the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI); and a Fellow of the Computer Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for his “contributions to 3D search, design repositories and intelligent manufacturing”, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for “work at the interface between science and government primarily at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.”
Host: Abel Salinas and Maura Covaci
More Info: https://www.isi.edu/events/5723/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-ai/
Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/98948507679?pwd=3j3zstL7xeFhfwELPJaJ8zHEbXBz4M.1Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - Virtual Only
WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/98948507679?pwd=3j3zstL7xeFhfwELPJaJ8zHEbXBz4M.1
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Pete Zamar
Event Link: https://www.isi.edu/events/5723/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-ai/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
CA DREAMS - Technical Seminar Series
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Fri, Apr 11, 2025 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Jonathan Klamkin, Professor, UC Santa Barbara and Director of UCSB Nanofab
Talk Title: Integrated Photonics: It's Always About High Performance
Series: CA DREAMS - Technical Seminar Series
Abstract: Photonics integrated circuits (PICs) are now widely deployed for optical communications. And more recently, the demand for higher speed, lower latency, and lower power consumption interconnects has increased significantly to support AI infrastructure. These optical interconnects are also a viable approach to move data from array-based systems such as focal plane arrays and RF phased arrays. This presentation will describe highly complex PICs for RF photonics, optical interconnects, and sensors, as well as heterogeneous integration methods to bridge high-performance active components with silicon photonics. While the community tends to think of silicon as the means to low cost, integrated photonics has always been about high performance.
Biography: Jonathan Klamkin received the B.S. degree from Cornell University, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB). From 2008-2011 he was a member of the Technical Staff at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. From 2011-2013 he was an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Communication, Information and Perception Technologies (TeCIP), Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy. From 2013-2015 he was an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and Materials at Boston University. In 2015 Professor Klamkin joined the ECE Department at UCSB where he leads the Integrated Photonics Laboratory (iPL) and serves as Director of the UCSB Nanofab. He has published 250 journal and conference papers, more than 30 issued and pending patents, and has delivered more than 120 invited, keynote and plenary presentations. Professor Klamkin is the recipient of the NASA Early Career Faculty Award, the DARPA Young Faculty Award, the DARPA Director's Fellowship, and the PIERS Young Scientist Award. He is a Fellow of Optica.
Host: Dr. Steve Crago
More Info: https://www.isi.edu/events/5730/integrated-photonics-its-always-about-high-performance/
Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97017422125?pwd=Dbrt8MNMrmBV3xalKQJcAiNsggFJjJ.1&from=addonWebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97017422125?pwd=Dbrt8MNMrmBV3xalKQJcAiNsggFJjJ.1&from=addon
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Amy Kasmir
Event Link: https://www.isi.edu/events/5730/integrated-photonics-its-always-about-high-performance/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Munushian Visiting Seminar Series - Distinguished Lecture - Shanhui Fan, Friday, April 11th at 2pm in EEB 132 & Zoom
Fri, Apr 11, 2025 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Shanhui Fan, Joseph and Hon Mai Goodman Professor of the School of Engineering Stanford University
Talk Title: Nanophotonics and energy applications
Series: Munushian Visiting Seminar Series
Abstract: Light, or electromagnetic wave, represents a fundamental carrier of energy. New ability to control light, as provided by nanophotonic structures, therefore has important implications in energy technology. In this talk, we will discuss some of the efforts in developing nanophotonic structures for energy applications, Examples include radiative cooling, and reciprocity breaking towards ultimate limit for solar energy harvesting.
Biography: Shanhui Fan is the Joseph and Hon Mai Goodman Professor of the School of Engineering at the Stanford University. He received his Ph. D in 1997 in theoretical condensed matter physics from MIT. His research interests are in nanophotonics. He has published over 700 refereed journal articles and has given over 400 invited talks, and was granted over 70 US patents. His recent awards include the R. W. Wood Prize from the Optica, a Simons Investigator in Physics, and a Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship. He is a member of the U. S. National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of APS, OSA, SPIE, and IEEE.
Host: Eun Sok Kim, Quntao Zhuang, Chongwu Zhou
More Info: https://usc.zoom.us/j/99755735840?pwd=9wy4p6Ncgv8bMyNaJHOFf2yaJnCLFB.1
More Information: Shanhui Fan Flyer.pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
Event Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/99755735840?pwd=9wy4p6Ncgv8bMyNaJHOFf2yaJnCLFB.1
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Six Sigma Black Belt
Fri, Apr 11, 2025 @ 04:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: IISE Faculty, IISE Faculty
Talk Title: Six Sigma Black Belt
Abstract: USC Viterbi School of Engineering's Six Sigma Black Belt program, offered in partnership with the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, enables professionals to learn how to integrate principles of business, statistics, and engineering to achieve tangible results. Learn the advanced problem-solving skills you need to implement the principles, practices, and techniques of our Six Sigma Black Belt course in order to maximize performance and cost reductions in your organization. During this three-week practitioner course, you will learn how to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements, and quantify the resulting savings. You will be required to complete a project demonstrating mastery of appropriate analytical methods and pass an examination to earn Six Sigma Black Belt Certification. This practitioner course for Six Sigma implementation provides extensive coverage of the Six Sigma process, as well as intensive exposure to the key analytical tools associated with Six Sigma, including project management, team skills, cost analysis, FMEA, basic statistics, inferential statistics, sampling, goodness of fit testing, regression and correlation analysis, reliability, design of experiments, statistical process control, measurement systems analysis, and simulation. Computer applications are emphasized.
Host: USC Viterbi Corporate and Professional Programs
More Info: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/six-sigma-lean-certification/six-sigma-black-belt/
Audiences: Six Sigma Black Belt Students
Contact: VASE Executive Education
Event Link: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/six-sigma-lean-certification/six-sigma-black-belt/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Trojan Tank!
Fri, Apr 11, 2025 @ 07:00 PM - 09:00 PM
Viterbi Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Receptions & Special Events
The tiehub, in collaboration with the Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, is excited to host the first of its kind USC Shark Tank!
Join us to watch and cheer on your fellow students pitch live on stage in front of our Sharks for a chance to win $$.Location: Sign into EngageSC to View Location
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Ralph Lin
Event Link: https://engage.usc.edu/Viterbitie/rsvp?id=403967
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
EiS Communications Hub - Tutoring for Engineering Ph.D. Students
Mon, Apr 14, 2025 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Viterbi Ph.D. students are invited to drop by the Hub for instruction on their writing and speaking tasks! All tutoring is one-on-one and conducted by Viterbi faculty.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 222A
Audiences: Viterbi Ph.D. Students
Contact: Helen Choi
Event Link: https://sites.google.com/usc.edu/eishub/home
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
DREAM Industry Mentorship speaker series- special event with Teague Egan
Mon, Apr 14, 2025 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
University Calendar
DREAM connects students with experienced industry professionals from a variety of tech and destination companies who help them create a vision for their futures, align their careers around purpose, and build character in the context of growth, reinvention, and constant change. Industry mentors discuss how professional challenges present opportunities for character and leadership development. This event features visionary USC alum Teague Egan, the Founder and CEO of EnergyX, discussing his remarkable career as an entrepreneur and energy futurist developing cutting-edge lithium and battery technology.https://eis.usc.edu/dream/
More Information: DREAM Flyer 4-14 Teague Egan talk.png
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 217
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Elisabeth Arnold Weiss
Event Link: https://cglink.me/2nB/r403917
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
"Keys to Life" series at USC ORSL
Mon, Apr 14, 2025 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
University Calendar
"Keys to Life" with Prof. Weiss is a motivational discussion series designed to promote student success and well-being. This series is for students who want to develop their "keys" in a small group setting and a peaceful, reflective environment. Finding purpose is essential to living a meaningful life and key to personal fulfillment. This series will help students identify and articulate their purpose and provide group motivation to work towards it. A unique feature of the series will be its peripatetic "Purpose Walks" through campus.
More Information: Keys to Life with Prof. Weiss.jpg
Location: University Religious Center (URC) - courtyard
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Elisabeth Arnold Weiss
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
PhD Thesis Proposal - Changzhi Xie
Mon, Apr 14, 2025 @ 02:30 PM - 03:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
Title of Presentation: On the Dynamics of Learning Linear Functinos with Neural Networks
Date and Time: 4.14 2:30-3:30PM
Location: EEB 203
Committee Members: Mahdi Soltanolkotabi(committee chair), Haipeng Luo, Robin Jia, Vatsal Sharan, Adel Javanmard.
Abstract: We study the gradient descent training dynamics of fitting a one-hidden-layer network with multi-dimensional outputs to linear target functions. That is, we focus on a realizable model where the inputs are drawn i.i.d. from a Gaussian distribution and the labels are generated according to a planted linear model with multiple outputs. This framework serves as a good model for a variety of interesting problems including end-to-end training in inverse problems and various auto-encoder models in machine learning. Despite the seemingly simple formulation, understanding training dynamics is a challenging unresolved problem. This is in part due to the fact that the training landscape contains multiple local optima and it is completely unclear why gradient descent from random initialization is able to escape such bad optima. In this work, we develop the first comprehensive analysis of the gradient descent dynamics for learning linear target functions with ReLU networks. We show that gradient descent with moderately small random initialization converges to a global minimizer at a linear rate. To rigorously show that GD avoids local optima, we develop intricate techniques to decompose the loss and control the GD trajectory, which may have broader implications for the analysis of non-convex optimization problems involving local optima. We corroborate our theoretical results with extensive experiments with various configurations.Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 203
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Changzhi Xie
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
PhD Thesis Proposal - Tejas Srinivasan
Mon, Apr 14, 2025 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
Title of Thesis Proposal: Facilitating Reliable Human-AI Collaboration Under Uncertainty
Date and Time: April 14, 2025, 4--5pm
Location: GCS 402C
Committee Members: Jesse Thomason (Chair), Robin Jia, Heather Culbertson, Morteza Dehghani, Diyi Yang
Abstract: AI systems are increasingly assisting humans with decision-making tasks. Effective human-AI collaboration requires AI assistants to be reliable by not only being accurate but also knowing when they don’t know and acting appropriately when uncertain. Popular strategies for handling uncertainty include abstaining from answering, providing prediction sets using conformal prediction, communicating uncertaintyto users, and asking clarification questions to resolve uncertainty. However, these mechanisms do not always facilitate appropriate reliance on and utilization of AI systems by users. In this thesis, we explore methods for proactively mitigating under- and over-reliance in human-AI collaboration under uncertainty. In selective prediction, always abstaining when uncertain can lead to under-utilization by the user, so we develop an algorithm to reduce over-abstention in multimodal selective prediction systems without increasing the error rate of the system’s predictions. When communicating uncertainty, we find that user trust can bias how users rely on AI confidence estimates and lead to inappropriate reliance, which we mitigate by adapting AI assistants’ behavior to user trust levels. Finally, we propose reducing over-reliance on LLM agents by modeling and proactively resolving uncertainty about user goals through frictive dialogue. Our works highlight the importance of modeling uncertainty about AI predictions and the user-AI interaction itself, and the benefits of responding to uncertainty through AI introspection and adaptive AI behaviorsLocation: Ginsburg Hall (GCS) - 402C
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Tejas Srinivasan
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
PhD Thesis Proposal - Sara Babakniya
Tue, Apr 15, 2025 @ 12:00 PM - 01:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
Title: Foundational Studies of Privacy and Efficiency in Federated Machine Learning
Date and Time: Tuesday, April 15th, 2025 - 12:00p - 1:30p
Location: EEB539
Committee Members: Prof. Salman Avestimehr (Chair), Prof. Harsha V. Madhyastha, Prof. Jose-Luis Ambite, Prof. Sai Praneeth Karimireddy, Prof. Mahdi Soltanolkotabi
Abstract: Federated learning (FL) enables collaborative model training across distributed devices while preserving user data privacy. However, deploying FL in practice has challenges, such as limited client resources, communication overhead, privacy concerns, and data heterogeneity.
My research addresses these fundamental barriers by developing general and adaptable frameworks that make FL more efficient and scalable in real-world environments. First, I discuss catastrophic forgetting in federated class-incremental learning, where a client's local data distribution may shift over time. I propose a data-free generative replay framework that does not require extra data storage or sharing from the clients. Then, I present my work that explores how to reduce the communication and computation costs of federated training while preserving model performance. I show that we can incorporate sparse learning to reduce costs, but we must carefully coordinate the local and global sparsity patterns.
Building on my prior knowledge of privacy and efficiency, I propose an efficient method to fine-tune language models on edge data. The state-of-the-art language models have been trained on the majority of the available public data. Therefore, these models need to be trained on the users' private data to improve their performance further. I investigate how we can move towards this goal without compromising privacy or efficiency.Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 539
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Sara Babakniya
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Epstein Institute, ISE 651 Seminar Class
Tue, Apr 15, 2025 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Mihai Anitescu,
Talk Title: Exponential Decay of Sensitivity in Graph-Indexed Optimization Problems, such as Control, and Distributed Optimization
Host: Dr. Johannes Royset
More Information: FLYER 651 Mihai Anitescu 4.15.25.png
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Casi Jones/ ISE
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
PhD Thesis Proposal - Bryon Tjanaka
Wed, Apr 16, 2025 @ 03:30 AM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
Title: Robust Robots by Scaling Up Quality Diversity Optimization
Date: April 16 at 3:30-5:00PM
Location: GCS 402C
Committee:
Chair: Stefanos Nikolaidis
Erdem Biyik
Gaurav Sukhatme
Willie Neiswanger
External (from ECE): C.-C. Jay Kuo
Abstract: Quality diversity (QD) optimization is a paradigm for finding diverse, high-performing collections of solutions. QD offers a promising approach for developing robots that can adapt to a wide variety of circumstances. In this proposal, I will discuss my work on scaling up QD to handle the demands of larger robotics problems. First, I will discuss several works that scale up QD to optimize neural network policies in reinforcement learning. These works form a toolbox for practitioners looking to apply QD to their work in robotics. Next, I will discuss my proposed work on scaling up QD to account for more flexible user preferences. I conclude by discussing several other aspects of my research including environment generation and the Pyribs library of QD algorithms
Location: Ginsburg Hall (GCS) - 402C
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Bryon Tjanaka
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
DREAM Industry Mentorship speaker series- with Binti Yost
Wed, Apr 16, 2025 @ 09:00 AM - 10:00 AM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
University Calendar
DREAM connects students with experienced industry professionals from a variety of tech and destination companies who help them create a vision for their futures, align their careers around purpose, and build character in the context of growth, reinvention, and constant change. Industry mentors discuss how professional challenges present opportunities for character and leadership development. This event features Binti Yost, Principal at KPMG- Economic and Valuation Services, sharing insights from her career in consulting for Fortune 500 companies. https://eis.usc.edu/dream/
More Information: DREAM Flyer 4-16 Binti Yost.png
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 217
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Elisabeth Arnold Weiss
Event Link: https://cglink.me/2nB/r403700
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
EiS Communications Hub - Tutoring for Engineering Ph.D. Students
Wed, Apr 16, 2025 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Viterbi Ph.D. students are invited to drop by the Hub for instruction on their writing and speaking tasks! All tutoring is one-on-one and conducted by Viterbi faculty.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 222A
Audiences: Viterbi Ph.D. Students
Contact: Helen Choi
Event Link: https://sites.google.com/usc.edu/eishub/home
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Computer Science General Faculty Meeting
Wed, Apr 16, 2025 @ 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 and staff only. Event details emailed directly to attendees.
Location: Ginsburg Hall (GCS) - 107
Audiences: Invited Faculty Only
Contact: Julia Mittenberg-Beirao
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
DEN@Viterbi - 'Limited Status: How to Get Started' Virtual Info Session
Wed, Apr 16, 2025 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
DEN@Viterbi, Viterbi School of Engineering Graduate Admission
Workshops & Infosessions
Join USC Viterbi for our upcoming Limited Status: How to Get Started Virtual Information Session via WebEx to learn about the Limited Status enrollment option. The Limited Status enrollment option allows individuals with an undergraduate degree in engineering or related field, with a 3.0 GPA or above to take courses before applying for formal admission into a Viterbi graduate degree program. USC Viterbi representatives will provide a step-by-step guide for how to get started as a Limited Status student and enroll in courses online via DEN@Viterbi as early as the Summer 2025 semester.
WebCast Link: https://events.blackthorn.io/en/2EmK1o6/g/MKmE6J8PaB/denviterbi-limited-status-5a2gRP2vZHd/overview
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Corporate & Professional Programs
Event Link: https://events.blackthorn.io/en/2EmK1o6/g/MKmE6J8PaB/denviterbi-limited-status-5a2gRP2vZHd/overview
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
AME Seminar
Wed, Apr 16, 2025 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Boyce Eugene Griffith, University of North Carolina
Talk Title: Computational Cardiac Fluid Dynamics In Vitro and In Vivo
Abstract: Cardiac fluid dynamics fundamentally involves interactions between complex blood flows and the structural deformations of the muscular heart walls and the thin, flexible valve leaflets. This talk will provide an overview of modern numerical methods for treating such fluid-structure interactions and detail some of their applications to cardiac fluid dynamics. I will initially focus on models of an in vitro pulse-duplicator system that is commonly used in the development and regulation of prosthetic heart valves. These models enable detailed comparisons between experimental data and computational model predictions but use highly simplified descriptions of cardiac anatomy and physiology. I will describe experimental and computational investigations on determinants of prosthetic heart valve dynamics using this platform. I will also present recent in vitro models, including a patient-specific model of transcatheter aortic valve replacement and a new comprehensive model of the human heart. This heart model includes fully three-dimensional descriptions of all major cardiac structures along with biomechanics models that are parameterized using experimental tensile test data obtained exclusively from human tissue specimens. Simulation results demonstrate that the model generates physiological stroke volumes, pressure-volume loops, and valvular pressure-flow relationships, thereby illustrating is its potential for predicting cardiac function in both health and disease. I will end the talk by describing extensions of this model to incorporate a comprehensive description of cardiac electrophysiology and electro-mechanical coupling.
Biography: Boyce Griffith is a Professor of Mathematics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-Chapel Hill) with a joint appointment in the Lampe Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at UNC-Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University. He received a PhD in Mathematics from New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences in 2005. His interests include mathematical modeling and computer simulation of cardiac mechanics, fluid dynamics, and electrophysiology, with a focus on the fluid dynamics of native and prosthetic heart valves.
Host: AME Department
More Info: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/
Location: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 252
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Tessa Yao
Event Link: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
NL Seminar-Ushering Agents to an Open Social World
Thu, Apr 17, 2025 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Hao Zhu, Stanford University
Talk Title: Ushering Agents to an Open Social World
Abstract: Meeting hosts only admit on-line guests that they know to the Zoom meeting. Hence, you’re highly encouraged to use your USC account to sign into Zoom. If you’re an outside visitor, please inform us at (nlg-seminar-host(at)isi.edu) to make us aware of your attendance so we can admit you. Specify if you will attend remotely or in person at least one business day prior to the event. Provide your: full name, job title and professional affiliation and arrive at least 10 minutes before the seminar begins. If you do not have access to the 6th Floor for in-person attendance, please check in at the 10th floor main reception desk to register as a visitor and someone will escort you to the conference room location JOIN VIA ZOOM: https://usc.zoom.us/j/98699643447?pwd=59bYaPQunEwvO3kiZM8jel8s2efWnu.1 Meeting ID: 986 9964 3447 Passcode: 804448 Unlike frontier AI models trained on static datasets, humans learn through dynamic interactions with other people and the world. This fundamental difference in learning methodology not only makes language agents less sample-efficient than humans but also introduces significant risks when these agents are deployed to interact with real humans in the real world. Building agents that can efficiently learn through interaction with other agents, humans and the world is a challenging problem. In this presentation, I will outline three foundational approaches we've developed to address this challenge: (1) Learning through exploration on the internet (NNetNav-live) — We deploy an open-ended agent (without explicit task instructions) to explore the web, gather experience and retroactively label and train on the data. (2) Learning from human normative decision-making (EgoNormia) — We explore methods for agents to observe and internalize social norms in physical interactions through crowd-sourced annotation with context perturbation. (3) Learning to build metrics from human feedback (AutoLibra, in prep) — We present a framework for automatically building behavior evaluation metric systems that help both humans understand agent performance, and agents improve the policy based on human feedback. These complementary approaches offer a path toward creating AI agents that can more effectively learn, adapt, and integrate into our open social world." Hao Zhu is a postdoctoral researcher in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University. He finished his PhD from CMU. He is interested in AI agents, human-agent interaction, robotics and embodied AI, and what AI agents tell us about human social and embodied cognition.
Biography: Hao Zhu is a postdoctoral researcher in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University. He finished his PhD from CMU. He is interested in AI agents, human-agent interaction, robotics and embodied AI, and what AI agents tell us about human social and embodied cognition.
Host: Jonathan May and Katy Felkner
More Info: https://www.isi.edu/events/5715/ushering-agents-to-an-open-social-world/
Webcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jdaj0yOHGs&list=PLknXvJJeEDaK5yBaaGfBhwCEKd7be-d19Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - Conf Rm#689
WebCast Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jdaj0yOHGs&list=PLknXvJJeEDaK5yBaaGfBhwCEKd7be-d19
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Pete Zamar
Event Link: https://www.isi.edu/events/5715/ushering-agents-to-an-open-social-world/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Alfred E.Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering - Seminar series
Thu, Apr 17, 2025 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Ashutosh Chilkoti,Ph.D., Alan L. Kaganov Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Materials Science and Chemistry, Senior Associate Dean at Pratt School of Engineering and Professor for the Department of Biomedical Engineering Duke University, Durham, USA
Talk Title: Molecular Engineering of Biointerfaces and Intrinsically Disordered Proteins
Abstract: I will describe two disparate projects in this talk that illustrate the diversity of ongoing workin my laboratory. In the first half, I will describe a point-of-care diagnostic—the D4 assay—that we have developed, in which all reagents are printed and stored on a “non-fouling”—protein and cell resistant—polymer brush. The D4 assay has no moving parts, does notrequire a cold-chain, and works from a single drop of blood with minimal user intervention,and measures the concentration of multiple analytes with a sub-picomolar limit of detection.In the second half, I will introduce synthetic intrinsically disordered proteins (SynIDPs) thatare genetically encoded polymers of short peptide repeats that exhibit upper criticalsolution temperature (UCST) or lower critical solution temperature (LCST) phase behavior,like many naturally occurring IDPs. Because of their simplicity, the phase behavior ofSynIDPs can be rationally tuned at the molecular level by control of their sequence,composition, and chain length. I will describe how SynIDPs can be used to develop simplebut powerful tools for biotechnology and for the design of synthetic biomolecularcondensates in live cells to control diverse cellular functions
Biography: I will describe two disparate projects in this talk that illustrate the diversity of ongoing workin my laboratory. In the first half, I will describe a point-of-care diagnostic—the D4 assay—that we have developed, in which all reagents are printed and stored on a “non-fouling”—protein and cell resistant—polymer brush. The D4 assay has no moving parts, does notrequire a cold-chain, and works from a single drop of blood with minimal user intervention,and measures the concentration of multiple analytes with a sub-picomolar limit of detection.In the second half, I will introduce synthetic intrinsically disordered proteins (SynIDPs) thatare genetically encoded polymers of short peptide repeats that exhibit upper criticalsolution temperature (UCST) or lower critical solution temperature (LCST) phase behavior,like many naturally occurring IDPs. Because of their simplicity, the phase behavior ofSynIDPs can be rationally tuned at the molecular level by control of their sequence,composition, and chain length. I will describe how SynIDPs can be used to develop simplebut powerful tools for biotechnology and for the design of synthetic biomolecularcondensates in live cells to control diverse cellular functions.
Host: Eunji Chung
Location: Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience (MCB) - Room 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Carla Stanard
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
PhD Thesis Proposal - Mi-Ying Miryam Huang
Thu, Apr 17, 2025 @ 12:00 PM - 01:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
Presentation Title: Towards Publicly Verifiable Cryptography: Obfuscation, Fully Homomorphic Encryption, and Proof Carrying State.
Date and Time: April 17th 12:00pm to 1:30pm
Location: Ginsburg 503C
Committee members: David Kempe, Greta Panova (math department), Vatsal Sharan, Shanghua Teng, Jiapeng Zhang
Abstract: We explore public verifiability in cryptography. This proposal highlights two main results and one ongoing research direction:
Through a quantum lens, we introduce Quantum Obfuscation for approximate Unitary Quantum Functionality. By using advanced quantum techniques, our construction supports approximate unitary quantum functionalities with quantum inputs and outputs, significantly extending beyond existing limitations by Bartusek et al (STOC 2023, STOC 2024). Utilizing Quantum Teleportation combined with Projective Linear Measurement (PLM) quantum programs, we overcome critical obstacles from previous works and open potential applications in quantum copy-protection, quantum functional encryption, and secure quantum software distribution.
From a classical cryptographic perspective, we develop a Publicly Verifiable Fully Homomorphic Encryption (pvFHE) scheme, building upon the FHEW framework by Ducas and Micciancio (Eurocrypt 15). Integrating the GINX homomorphic accumulator, our scheme improves efficiency during bootstrapping and verification. Moreover, we introduce a generalized Rank-1 Constraint System (Ring R1CS) and construct a succinct non-interactive argument (SNARG). This approach provides efficient verifiability and strong security guarantees, including enhanced client data privacy, adhering to the recently introduced privacy framework by Cini et al. (Crypto 24).
Finally, our ongoing project, Proof-Carrying Quantum States, further extends these concepts to achieve verifiable quantum computations, bridging classical and quantum cryptographic techniques to ensure computation integrity and privacy. Together, these contributions advance both theoretical foundations and practical applications of publicly verifiable cryptographic protocols.Location: Ginsburg Hall (GCS) - 503C
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mi-Ying Miryam Huang
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Career & Internship Bootcamp
Fri, Apr 18, 2025 @ 09:00 AM - 04:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Workshops & Infosessions
Want to secure an internship or job? Participate in Career & Internship Bootcamp on April 18th to learn how to increase your chances of getting contacted for an interview, how to excel at interviews, and how to negotiate a higher salary.
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections
Event Link: https://viterbicareers.usc.edu/bootcamp/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
EiS Communications Hub - Tutoring for Engineering Ph.D. Students
Fri, Apr 18, 2025 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Viterbi Ph.D. students are invited to drop by the Hub for instruction on their writing and speaking tasks! All tutoring is one-on-one and conducted by Viterbi faculty.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 222A
Audiences: Viterbi Ph.D. Students
Contact: Helen Choi
Event Link: https://sites.google.com/usc.edu/eishub/home
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Alfred E.Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering - Seminar series
Fri, Apr 18, 2025 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Wei Gao, Ph.D., Professor of Medical Engineering, Ronald and JoAnne Willens Scholar, and Heritage Medical Research Institute Investigator at the California Institute of Technology
Talk Title: Body-Interfaced Electrochemical Biosensors
Abstract: The rise of personalized medicine is reshaping traditional healthcare, enabling predictive analytics and tailored treatment strategies. In this talk, I will discuss our progress in developing wearable, implantable, and ingestible electrochemical biosensors for real-time molecular analysis. These bioelectronic systems autonomously access and sample diverse body fluids—including sweat, interstitial fluid, gastrointestinal fluid, wound exudate, and exhaled breath condensate—enabling continuous monitoring of key biomarkers such as metabolites, nutrients, hormones, proteins, and drugs during various activities. To facilitate scalable, cost-effective manufacturing of these high-performance, nanomaterial-based sensors, we employ laser engraving, inkjet printing, and 3D printing techniques. The clinical utility of our biosensors is being evaluated in human and animal studies, focusing on applications such as stress and mental health assessment, precision nutrition, chronic disease management, and personalized drug monitoring. Additionally, I will highlight our efforts in energy harvesting from both the body and the environment, opening the door to battery-free, wireless biosensing technologies. By integrating electrochemical biosensing with advanced bioelectronics, we aim to revolutionize personalized healthcare, offering new possibilities for diagnostics, continuous monitoring, and therapeutic interventions.
Biography: Wei Gao is a Professor of Medical Engineering, Ronald and JoAnne Willens Scholar, and Heritage Medical Research Institute Investigator at the California Institute of Technology. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego in 2014, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley from 2014 to 2017. He is serving as an Associate Editor for Science Advances, npj Flexible Electronics, Biosensors and Bioelectronics, and Sensors & Diagnostics. His achievements have garnered a number of awards and honors, such as NSF Career Award, ONR Young Investigator Award, IAMBE Early Career Award, Sloan Research Fellowship, Pittcon Achievement Award, IEEE EMBS Early Career Achievement Award, IEEE Sensor Council Technical Achievement Award, Falling Walls Breakthrough of the Year 2023 in Engineering and Technology, Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists Finalist, MIT Technology Review 35 Innovators Under 35, ACS DIC Young Investigator Award, and Materials Today Rising Star Award. He is also recognized as a World Economic Forum Young Scientist, a Highly Cited Researcher (Web of Science), and is a member of the Global Young Academy. He is an elected fellow for AIMBE. His research interests encompass a wide range of areas including wearable sensors, bioelectronics, flexible electronics, and micro/nanorobotics.For additional information about Gao’s research, please visit www.gao.caltech.edu
Host: Qifa Zhou/ Maral Mousavi
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 109
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Carla Stanard
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
CA DREAMS - Technical Seminar Series
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Fri, Apr 18, 2025 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Hamidreza Aghasi, Professor, UC Irvine
Talk Title: CMOS Circuits and Systems for Coherent Multi-Band Millimeter-Wave Radars
Series: CA DREAMS - Technical Seminar Series
Abstract: This presentation discusses recent advancements in CMOS-based circuit and system design for coherent multi-band millimeter-wave (mm-wave) FMCW radars, enabling enhanced range and angular resolution across multiple frequency bands. We begin by presenting block-level strategies for achieving broadband radiation coverage and phase noise reduction in mm-wave radar systems. Next, we introduce a 49–63â¯GHz dual-PLL stepped-chirp radar transceiver in 22â¯nm FD-SOI, which employs phase-locked sub-chirps to achieve a 14â¯GHz effective bandwidth and 1.4â¯cm range resolution, while addressing challenges related to chirp linearity and phase/frequency synchronization. We then present a dual-band 23–27â¯GHz and 69–81â¯GHz MIMO radar in 65â¯nm CMOS featuring synchronized LO generation and frequency tripling, enabling a 16â¯GHz total bandwidth and sub-centimeter range resolution. The presentation concludes with recent measurement results and highlights from ongoing designs targeting further improvements in range and angular resolution for next-generation mm-wave radar systems.
Biography: Hamidreza Aghasi received his B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 2011, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University in 2015 and 2017, respectively. In the summer of 2014, he was an intern at Samsung Research America’s Display Lab in San Jose, California. From 2017 to 2018, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan, and from 2018 to 2019, he was a mm-Wave research scientist at Acacia Communications Inc. in Holmdel, New Jersey. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at the University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine), where he is Director of the High-Speed Integrated Electronics (HIE) Laboratory. His research interests include RF, mm-wave, and terahertz circuit design for imaging, sensing, and communication applications. Dr. Aghasi is a senior member of IEEE, member of Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS) and the Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S), a TPC member of the IEEE Custom Integrated Circuit Conference (CICC) and the IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium (RFIC), and an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (TVLSI). He also serves as the IEEE MTT-S/EDS Chapter Chair of Orange County, CA. He has reviewed for the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Open Journal of Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Solid-State Circuits Letters, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems, IEEE Electron Device Letters, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems, and IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters. He received the Cornell Graduate Fellowship in 2011, the Jacobs Fellowship in 2012, the Cornell ECE Innovation Award in 2013, the Cornell Scale-up and Prototyping Award in 2017, Best Invited Paper Award at the 2019 IEEE CICC, the NeurIPS ML4PS Reproducibility Award in 2024, and the NSF CAREER Award in 2025.
Host: Dr. Steve Crago
More Info: https://www.isi.edu/events/5737/cmos-circuits-and-systems-for-coherent-multi-band-millimeter-wave-radars/
Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97017422125?pwd=Dbrt8MNMrmBV3xalKQJcAiNsggFJjJ.1&from=addonWebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97017422125?pwd=Dbrt8MNMrmBV3xalKQJcAiNsggFJjJ.1&from=addon
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Amy Kasmir
Event Link: https://www.isi.edu/events/5737/cmos-circuits-and-systems-for-coherent-multi-band-millimeter-wave-radars/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
EiS Communications Hub - Tutoring for Engineering Ph.D. Students
Mon, Apr 21, 2025 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Viterbi Ph.D. students are invited to drop by the Hub for instruction on their writing and speaking tasks! All tutoring is one-on-one and conducted by Viterbi faculty.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 222A
Audiences: Viterbi Ph.D. Students
Contact: Helen Choi
Event Link: https://sites.google.com/usc.edu/eishub/home
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
"Keys to Life" series at USC ORSL
Mon, Apr 21, 2025 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
University Calendar
"Keys to Life" with Prof. Weiss is a motivational discussion series designed to promote student success and well-being. This series is for students who want to develop their "keys" in a small group setting and a peaceful, reflective environment. Finding purpose is essential to living a meaningful life and key to personal fulfillment. This series will help students identify and articulate their purpose and provide group motivation to work towards it. A unique feature of the series will be its peripatetic "Purpose Walks" through campus.
More Information: Keys to Life with Prof. Weiss.jpg
Location: University Religious Center (URC) - courtyard
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Elisabeth Arnold Weiss
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Remarkable Trajectory Lecture Honoring Dr. Ellis Horowitz
Mon, Apr 21, 2025 @ 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Ellis Horowitz, Professor of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering - USC
Talk Title: Turing Award Winners I Have Known and Their Impact on My Research
Abstract: I have been involved with computers for the past 62 years ever since I programmed an IBM 1620 while a junior in college. My journey has witnessed the development of the field of Computer Science and its recognition as a legitimate field of study, the growth of journals to publish the growing body of work in the field, the development of computer science departments and the awarding of degrees including Bachelors, Masters and Ph.D.s (including my own). In this talk I plan to highlight just some of the changes I have witnessed, by focusing on the Turing award winners I have known that have impacted my research. Though many more computer scientists have influenced my work, for this talk I will stick to the Turing award winners that I actually met personally and in some cases did joint work.
VIRTUAL AUDIENCE: If you are unable to join us in-person, you will be missed, but you can still view the lecture using the Zoom link below.
https://usc.zoom.us/j/94418192726?pwd=CgniyXcDAgc63uxdb70EmNmASGzf6Z.1
Meeting ID: 944 1819 2726
Passcode: 04212025
Biography: Dr. Ellis Horowitz is currently Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at the University of Southern California. He received his B.S. degree from Brooklyn College and his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. He was on the faculty there and at Cornell University. He has also been a visiting Professor at M.I.T. and the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion).
Dr. Horowitz has held numerous academic administrative jobs including Associate Chairman of Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin. At U.S.C. he was chairman of the Computer Science Department from 1990 to 1999. After completing his term as Computer Science department chairman, Dr. Horowitz was appointed Director of Information Technology and Distance Education in USC's Viterbi School of Engineering. Part of his responsibilities included the Distance Education Network (DEN). As Director he oversaw an operation that offers more than 200 graduate engineering courses per year to more than 1,000 students. Originally courses were delivered by closed circuit satellite broadcast, but under Dr. Horowitz DEN converted their course delivery to Internet webcast.
Dr. Horowitz is the author of ten books and over eighty journal articles and refereed conference proceedings on computer science subjects ranging from data structures, algorithms, and software design to computer science education. He has been a principal investigator on research contracts from NSF, AFOSR, ONR, and DARPA. He is a past associate editor for the journals Communications of the ACM and Transactions on Mathematical Software. He was an IBM Scholar from 1989-1993. His Erdos number is 4.
Dr. Horowitz is an active consultant to the legal community, specializing in intellectual property issues. He has participated in several landmark cases including Yahoo v Google, RIAA v Kazaa, and RIAA v LimeWire. He was the founder and CEO of Quality Software Products, a California Corporation, from 1983 - 1993. The company designed and developed UNIX application software that was sold worldwide.
For more information on Dr. Horowitz please visit: https://ellishorowitz.com/
Host: Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
More Info: https://forms.gle/jFxiDEvrwBovEHw27
Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/94418192726?pwd=CgniyXcDAgc63uxdb70EmNmASGzf6Z.1Location: Ginsburg Hall (GCS) - Auditorium (LL1)
WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/94418192726?pwd=CgniyXcDAgc63uxdb70EmNmASGzf6Z.1
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Event Link: https://forms.gle/jFxiDEvrwBovEHw27
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Controls Seminar: Dario Paccagnan
Mon, Apr 21, 2025 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dario Paccagnan, Associate Professor, Department of Computing, Imperial College London
Talk Title: Pick-to-Learn for Systems and Control: Data-driven design with state-of-the art safety guarantees
Abstract: Data-driven methods have become powerful tools for tackling increasingly complex problems in Systems and Control. However, deploying these methods in real-world settings — especially safety-critical ones — requires rigorous safety and performance guarantees. This need has motivated much recent work at the interface of Statistical Learning and Control, aiming to integrate formal guarantees with data-driven design methods. However, many existing approaches achieve this only by sacrificing valuable data for testing/calibration or by restricting the design space, thus leading to suboptimal performances.
Against this backdrop, in this talk I will introduce Pick-to-Learn (P2L) for Systems and Control, a novel framework designed to equipany data-driven control method with state-of-the-art safety and performance guarantees. Crucially, P2L enables the use of all available data to jointly synthesize and certify the design, eliminating the need to set aside data for calibration or validation purposes.
I will then demonstrate how, as a result, P2L delivers designs and certificates that outperforms existing methods across a range of core problems including optimal control, reachability analysis, safe synthesis, and robust control.
Biography: Dario Paccagnan is a Senior Lecturer (US Associate Professor) and a member of the Computational Optimization Group in the Department of Computing, Imperial College London.Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Control, Dynamical System, and Computations, UCSB hosted by Prof. Francesco Bullo and Prof. Jason Marden. Paccagnan received a PhD in optimization and control from ETH Zurich under the guidance of Prof. John Lygeros. He was awarded a B.Sc. and two M.Sc. degrees from the University of Padova, and the Technical University of Denmark under the TIME double degree program.He is interested in the modeling, analysis, and control of multi-agent systems where self-interested agents take autonomous decisions. He leverages theoretical models and real world case studies to shed light on the societal impact of self-interested decision making.
Host: Dr. Lars Lindemann, llindema@usc.edu | Dr. Mihailo Jovanovic, mihailo@usc.edu | Dr. Ketan Savla, ksavla@usc.edu
More Information: 2025.04.21 Seminar - Dario Paccagnan.pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - EEB 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Lars Lindemann
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Computational Science Distinguished Seminar Series
Mon, Apr 21, 2025 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, USC School of Advanced Computing
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Padmini Rangamani, UCSD
Talk Title: Advances in computational modeling for cellular biophysics
Abstract: Cellular function often integrates biochemical and mechanical cues in what is known as mechanotransduction. Mechanotransduction is closely tied to cell shape during development, disease, and wound healing. In this talk, I will showcase how mathematical models have helped shed light on some fundamental problems in this area of research including how cell shape can alter biochemical signaling and how cell mechanics can alter cell shape. Beyond mathematical model development, I will also highlight how advances in computational modeling can help us understand complex cellular predictions. Throughout, I will highlight the challenges and opportunities for integrating mathematical models with experimental measurements.
Biography: Padmini Rangamani is a Professor in Pharmacology and in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. She joined the department in July 2014. Earlier, she was a UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow, where she worked on lipid bilayer mechanics. She obtained her Ph.D. in biological sciences from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She received her B.S. and M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Osmania University (Hyderabad, India) and Georgia Institute of Technology respectively. She is the recipient of the PECASE, ARO, AFOSR, and ONR Young Investigator Awards, and a Sloan Research Fellowship for Computational and Molecular Evolutionary Biology. She was also elected as a fellow of the American Institute for Biological and Medical Engineers.
Host: The School of Advanced Computing
More Info: https://sac.usc.edu/distinguished-seminar-series/
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 526
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Tessa Yao
Event Link: https://sac.usc.edu/distinguished-seminar-series/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
MEPC Finals
Mon, Apr 21, 2025 @ 05:30 PM - 08:30 PM
Viterbi Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Receptions & Special Events
Watch your fellow Trojans compete for a $100,000 prize in the MEPC Finals Pitch Competition. Dinner will be provided .
Location: Sign into EngageSC to View Location
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Jashan Dhami
Event Link: https://engage.usc.edu/Viterbitie/rsvp?id=404174
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Epstein Institute, ISE 651 Seminar Class
Tue, Apr 22, 2025 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Weizhi Lin, Assistant Professor in Industrial and Systems Engineering at San Jose State 7.2025
Host: Dr. Qiang Huang
More Information: FLYER 651 Weizhi Lin 4.22.25.pdf
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Casi Jones/ ISE
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Robotics and Autonomous Systems Center (RASC) Seminar
Tue, Apr 22, 2025 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
USC School of Advanced Computing, USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Davide Scaramuzza, Professor of Robotics and Perception at the University of Zurich
Talk Title: Vision-based Agile Robot Navigation
Abstract: Autonomous drones play a crucial role in inspection, agriculture, logistics, and search-and-rescue missions and promise to increase productivity by a factor of 10. However, they still lag behind human pilots in speed, versatility, and robustness. What does it take to fly autonomous drones as agile as or even better than human pilots? Autonomous, agile navigation through unknown, GPS-denied environments poses several challenges for robotics research regarding perception, learning, planning, and control. In this talk, I will show how the combination of model-based and machine-learning methods, united with the power of new, low-latency sensors, such as event cameras, can allow drones to achieve unprecedented speed and robustness by relying solely on onboard computing. This can result in better productivity and safety of future autonomous aircraft.
Biography: Davide Scaramuzza is a Professor of Robotics and Perception at the University of Zurich and currently distinguished visiting scientist at NASA JPL. He did his Ph.D. at ETH Zurich, a postdoc at the University of Pennsylvania, and was a visiting professor at Stanford University. His research focuses on autonomous, agile microdrone navigation using standard and event-based cameras. He pioneered autonomous, vision-based navigation of drones, which inspired the navigation algorithm of the NASA Mars helicopter and many drone companies. He contributed significantly to visual-inertial state estimation, vision-based agile navigation of microdrones, and low-latency, robust perception with event cameras, which were transferred to many products, from drones to automobiles, cameras, AR/VR headsets, and mobile devices. In 2022, his team demonstrated that an AI-powered drone could outperform the world champions of drone racing, a result published in Nature and considered the first time an AI defeated a human in the physical world. He is a consultant for the United Nations on disaster response and disarmament. He has won many awards, including an IEEE Technical Field Award, the elevation to IEEE Fellow, the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Early Career Award, a European Research Council Consolidator Grant, a Google Research Award, two NASA TechBrief Awards, and many paper awards (TRO, CVPR, RAL, IROS). In 2015, he co-founded Zurich-Eye, today Meta Zurich, which developed the world-leading virtual-reality headset Meta Quest. In 2020, he co-founded SUIND, which builds autonomous drones for precision agriculture. Many aspects of his research have been featured in the media, such as The New York Times, The Economist, and Forbes. Homepage: https://rpg.ifi.uzh.ch/people_scaramuzza.html
Host: Executive Vice Dean of USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Director of the USC School of Advanced Computing, Gaurav Sukhatme
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 526
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Raymond Duran
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Robotics and Autonomous Systems Center (RASC) Seminar
Tue, Apr 22, 2025 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Davide Scaramuzza, Professor of Robotics and Perception at the University of Zurich
Talk Title: Vision-based Agile Robot Navigation
Abstract: Autonomous drones play a crucial role in inspection, agriculture, logistics, and search-and-rescue missions and promise to increase productivity by a factor of 10. However, they still lag behind human pilots in speed, versatility, and robustness. What does it take to fly autonomous drones as agile as or even better than human pilots? Autonomous, agile navigation through unknown, GPS-denied environments poses several challenges for robotics research regarding perception, learning, planning, and control. In this talk, I will show how the combination of model-based and machine-learning methods, united with the power of new, low-latency sensors, such as event cameras, can allow drones to achieve unprecedented speed and robustness by relying solely on onboard computing. This can result in better productivity and safety of future autonomous aircraft.
Biography: Davide Scaramuzza is a Professor of Robotics and Perception at the University of Zurich and currently distinguished visiting scientist at NASA JPL. He did his Ph.D. at ETH Zurich, a postdoc at the University of Pennsylvania, and was a visiting professor at Stanford University. His research focuses on autonomous, agile microdrone navigation using standard and event-based cameras. He pioneered autonomous, vision-based navigation of drones, which inspired the navigation algorithm of the NASA Mars helicopter and many drone companies. He contributed significantly to visual-inertial state estimation, vision-based agile navigation of microdrones, and low-latency, robust perception with event cameras, which were transferred to many products, from drones to automobiles, cameras, AR/VR headsets, and mobile devices. In 2022, his team demonstrated that an AI-powered drone could outperform the world champions of drone racing, a result published in Nature and considered the first time an AI defeated a human in the physical world. He is a consultant for the United Nations on disaster response and disarmament. He has won many awards, including an IEEE Technical Field Award, the elevation to IEEE Fellow, the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Early Career Award, a European Research Council Consolidator Grant, a Google Research Award, two NASA TechBrief Awards, and many paper awards (TRO, CVPR, RAL, IROS). In 2015, he co-founded Zurich-Eye, today Meta Zurich, which developed the world-leading virtual-reality headset Meta Quest. In 2020, he co-founded SUIND, which builds autonomous drones for precision agriculture. Many aspects of his research have been featured in the media, such as The New York Times, The Economist, and Forbes.
Homepage: https://rpg.ifi.uzh.ch/people_scaramuzza.html
Host: Executive Vice Dean of USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Director of the USC School of Advanced Computing, Gaurav Sukhatme
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 526
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Raymond Duran
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
EiS Communications Hub - Tutoring for Engineering Ph.D. Students
Wed, Apr 23, 2025 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Viterbi Ph.D. students are invited to drop by the Hub for instruction on their writing and speaking tasks! All tutoring is one-on-one and conducted by Viterbi faculty.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 222A
Audiences: Viterbi Ph.D. Students
Contact: Helen Choi
Event Link: https://sites.google.com/usc.edu/eishub/home
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
DREAM Industry Mentorship speaker series- with Mehrad Noori
Wed, Apr 23, 2025 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
University Calendar
DREAM connects students with experienced industry professionals from a variety of tech and destination companies who help them create a vision for their futures, align their careers around purpose, and build character in the context of growth, reinvention, and constant change. Industry mentors discuss how professional challenges present opportunities for character and leadership development. This event features Mehrad Noori, Executive Producer at Reality Labs at Meta, sharing insights from his journey from undergraduate at USC School of Cinematic Arts and M.A. at Iovine and Young Academy to leading immersive content development as Executive Producer at NBC Universal, AnythingEverything, and Meta. https://eis.usc.edu/dream/
More Information: DREAM flyer 4-23 Mehrad Noori.png
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 217
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Elisabeth Arnold Weiss
Event Link: https://cglink.me/2nB/r403861
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Computer Science General Faculty Meeting
Wed, Apr 23, 2025 @ 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 and staff only. Event details emailed directly to attendees.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 526
Audiences: Invited Faculty Only
Contact: Julia Mittenberg-Beirao
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
AME Seminar
Wed, Apr 23, 2025 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Paolo Celli, Stonybrook
Talk Title: A quest towards load-bearing shape-morphing structures
Abstract: Shape-morphing metamaterials, mechanical systems and structures are designed to predictably achieve large shape changes when actuated. These systems are often designed to undergo large deformations when loaded; the issue of turning them into functional, load-bearing structures is seldom considered, even though this is crucial for potential structural applications of such systems. This talk will showcase some of our current activities in this context.
First, we will present a strategy to turn flat arrangements of structural elements into pop-up domes, investigating their load-bearing capacity and comparing them to existing structures such as gridshells. Then, we will illustrate how to create morphing structures that can retain their shape via localized snap-through buckling and without the need for external anchoring; we will also illustrate how these structures can be inverse-designed to achieve desired shapes and to display mechanical memory.
Biography: Paolo Celli is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at Stony Brook University. His research involves experimental and computational aspects of solid and structural mechanics, structural dynamics, and wave mechanics. His current interests are in the areas of i) shape-morphing and deployable structures, ii) dynamic structures with time-varying properties, iii) structures for energy and iv) robotics applications. Prior to joining SBU in January 2020, he was a postdoc at Caltech and obtained his PhD in civil engineering from the University of Minnesota.
Host: AME Department
More Info: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/
Location: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 252
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Tessa Yao
Event Link: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
NL Seminar: The Surprising Effectiveness of Membership Inference with Simple N-Gram Coverage
Thu, Apr 24, 2025 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Skyler Hallinan, USC
Talk Title: The Surprising Effectiveness of Membership Inference with Simple N-Gram Coverage
Series: NL Seminar
Abstract: Meeting hosts only admit on-line guests that they know to the Zoom meeting. Hence, you’re highly encouraged to use your USC account to sign into Zoom. If you’re an outside visitor, please inform us at ((nlg-seminar-host(at)isi.edu) to make us aware of your attendance so we can admit you. Specify if you will attend remotely or in person at least one business day prior to the event. Provide your: full name, job title and professional affiliation and arrive at least 10 minutes before the seminar begins. If you do not have access to the 6th Floor for in-person attendance, please check in at the 10th floor main reception desk to register as a visitor and someone will escort you to the conference room location. Join Via Zoom: https://usc.zoom.us/j/96791099940?pwd=6kov3zTLAnD4JU49d1VtX4XNAZMcvs.1Meeting ID: 967 9109 9940Passcode: 840282
Membership inference attacks serves as useful tool for fair use of language models, such as detecting potential copyright infringement and auditing data leakage. However, many current state-of-the-art attacks require access to models' hidden states or probability distribution, which prevents investigation into more widely-used, API-access only models like GPT-4. In this work, we introduce N-Gram Coverage Attack, a membership inference attack that relies solely on text outputs from the target model, enabling attacks on completely black-box models. We leverage the observation that models are more likely to memorize and subsequently generate text patterns that were commonly observed in their training data. Specifically, to make a prediction on a candidate member, N-Gram Coverage Attack first obtains multiple model generations conditioned on a prefix of the candidate. It then uses n-gram overlap metrics to compute and aggregate the similarities of these outputs with the ground truth suffix; high similarities indicate likely membership. We first demonstrate on a diverse set of existing benchmarks that N-Gram Coverage Attack outperforms other black-box methods while also impressively achieving comparable or even better performance to state-of-the-art white-box attacks --- despite having access to only text outputs. Interestingly, we find that the success rate of our method scales with the attack compute budget --- as we increase the number of sequences generated from the target model conditioned on the prefix, attack performance tends to improve. Having verified the accuracy of our method, we use it to investigate previously unstudied closed OpenAI models on multiple domains. We find that more recent models, such as GPT-4o, exhibit increased robustness to membership inference, suggesting an evolving trend toward improved privacy protections.
Biography: Skyler Hallinan is a Ph.D. student in Computer Science at the University of Southern California where he is advised by Xiang Ren. His research aims to build trustworthy AI systems with robust reasoning capabilities via data-centric approaches. His work spans three core areas: understanding how data impacts downstream model behavior, safeguarding user data and privacy, and advancing model capabilities with better data. Previously, he was a research intern at Apple and Amazon, and received a B.S./M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Washington, where he was advised by Yejin Choi.
Host: Jonathan May and Katy Felkner
More Info: https://www.isi.edu/research-groups-nlg/nlg-seminars/
Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/96791099940?pwd=6kov3zTLAnD4JU49d1VtX4XNAZMcvs.1Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - Conf Rm#689
WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/96791099940?pwd=6kov3zTLAnD4JU49d1VtX4XNAZMcvs.1
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Pete Zamar
Event Link: https://www.isi.edu/research-groups-nlg/nlg-seminars/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
PhD Thesis Proposal - Neel Patel
Thu, Apr 24, 2025 @ 12:30 PM - 01:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
Title: Combinatorial Optimization under Uncertainty, Incentives and Correlations.
Date and Time: 04/24, 12:30-1:30 pm
Location: GCS 502C
Committee Members: Shaddin Dughmi, David Kempe, Vatsal Sharan, Evi Micha and Greta Panova
Abstract:
This proposal considers algorithms for combinatorial problems, primarily those concerned with combinatorial selection under uncertainty and incentives, also known as stochastic selection problems. The core focus is on the two pivotal stochastic selection problems that include contention resolution schemes (CRS) and generalized prophet inequalities. Our contributions are twofold:
Our first contribution deepens the understanding of the stochastic selection problems beyond independent priors on the input and its implications on the famous matroid secretary conjecture. Our results completely characterize the CRS and prophet inequalities on matroids for pairwise independent priors. En route to proving our results, we develop techniques to sample exact pairwise independent vectors over a finite field from approximate pairwise independent vectors which later becomes a key ingredient for characterizing the difficult instance for binary matroid secretary conjecture.
The rest of the proposal aims to push the applications of the powerful algorithmic toolkit --- stochastic selection with a broader goal of identifying the algorithmic and economic questions that appear to be complex and algorithmically challenging, for which the techniques developed by online stochastic selection provide an alternative outlook, leading to more efficient and powerful algorithmic results. In this context, we prove the following key results:
1.) We obtain the first combinatorial generalized stationary prophet inequalities where our main result shows that the (offline) CRS plays a central role in the (online) stationary prophet inequality problem. This intriguing connection allows us to obtain several new algorithmic results as well as improves the existing results significantly.
2.) We systematically generalize the sparsification of stochastic matching problems to the general combinatorial structure. Here, we show that any combinatorial structure that exhibits `good’ CRS also exhibits strong stochastic sparsifiers.
3.) We obtain constant approximate delegation mechanisms for the principal-agent delegation problem with probing cost for a large class of combinatorial constraints. We obtain these mechanisms by reducing the delegation problem to the online version of CRS for combinatorial constraints.Location: Ginsburg Hall (GCS) - 502C
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Neel Patel
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Semiconductors and Microelectronics Technology seminar - Wolfgang Maass, Thursday, April24th at 2pm in EEB 248
Thu, Apr 24, 2025 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Wolfgang Maas, Institute of Machine Learning and Neural Computation Graz University of Technology
Talk Title: Recent brain-data and theories suggest new ways of porting cognitive function into neuromorphic hardware through on-chip learning
Series: Semiconductors & Microelectronics Technology
Abstract: I will discuss experimental data and models for BTSP (Behavioral Time Scale Synaptic Plasticity), the only known mechanism for 1-shot learning in the brain. I also will explain how BTSP can be used to create content-addressable memories and to learn cognitive maps that enable flexible goal-directed behavior. References and a simple model for BTSP have already been published (Yujie Wu and Wolfgang Maass, Nat. Comm. 2025). The other material is unpublished.
Biography: Wolfgang Maass - Since 2023: Director of the ELLIS Unit Graz (ELLIS = European Lab for Learning and Intelligent Systems). 1992-2017 Founder and Head of the Institut fuer Grundlagen der Informationsverarbeitung (Institute of Theoretical Computer Science) at Graz University of Technology. Since 1991 Professor of Computer Science at the Graz University of Technology in Austria (since 2017 without teaching duties except education of Phd students, leader of research projects). 1986 - 1991 Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois in Chicago. 1984 - 1986 Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois in Chicago. 1975 - 1984 Postdoc at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Chicago, and the University of California at Berkeley.
Host: Prof. Jayakanth Ravichandran, Prof. J. Joshua Yang, Prof. Chongwu Zhou, Prof. Stephen Cronin, and Prof. Wei Wu
More Information: Wolfgang Maass Flyer.pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
EiS Communications Hub - Tutoring for Engineering Ph.D. Students
Fri, Apr 25, 2025 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Viterbi Ph.D. students are invited to drop by the Hub for instruction on their writing and speaking tasks! All tutoring is one-on-one and conducted by Viterbi faculty.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 222A
Audiences: Viterbi Ph.D. Students
Contact: Helen Choi
Event Link: https://sites.google.com/usc.edu/eishub/home
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
AI Seminar- Texera: An Open-Source System for Cloud-Based Collaborative Data Science and AI/ML Using Workflows
Fri, Apr 25, 2025 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Chen Li, UC Irvine
Talk Title: Texera: An Open-Source System for Cloud-Based Collaborative Data Science and AI/ML Using Workflows
Series: AI Seminar
Abstract: Since 2016 our team at UC Irvine has been developing the Texera open-source system (texera.io), with the goal of enabling a cloud-based platform to support collaborative data science, AI, and ML. It allows users with various backgrounds, including those with limited coding skills, domain scientists, and ML experts, to conduct AI-centric data science with a collaboration experience similar to Google Docs. After eight years of development, the system has a rich set of features, such as shared editing, shared execution, version control, commenting, debugging, user-defined functions in multiple languages (e.g., Python, R, Java), and support of state-of-the-art AI/ML techniques. Its backend parallel engine enables scalable computation on large data sets using computing clusters. It allows bioinformaticians to elastictally request resources from AWS to form a cluster to run computationally intensive jobs. It also supports community-based sharing of resources including datasets and workflows. In this talk, we will give an overview of the system, and focus on research challenges encountered in the development and our solutions. We will show use cases in both education and scientific communities.
Biography: Prof. Chen Li is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at UC Irvine. He received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Stanford University, and his M.S. and B.S. in Computer Science from Tsinghua University, China. His research interests are in the fields of data management, data science, AI/ML, databases, data-intensive computing, search, and visualization. He was a co-founder and CTO of a startup to commercialize his research. He was a recipient of an NSF CAREER award, an ACM Distinguished Member, and an IEEE fellow. If speaker approves to be recorded for this seminar it will be posted on the USC/ISI YouTube page within 1-2 business days: https://www.youtube.com/user/USCISI. Subscribe here to learn more about upcoming seminars: https://www.isi.edu/events/ .
Host: Zhuoyu Shi and Pete Zamar + Maura Covaci
More Info: https://www.isi.edu/events/5507/texera-an-open-source-system-for-cloud-based-collaborative-data-science-and-ai-ml-using-workflows/
Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/95166882238?pwd=id334Bxxz7ZULMFpYWuHEppmFKlfUd.1Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - Virtual Only
WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/95166882238?pwd=id334Bxxz7ZULMFpYWuHEppmFKlfUd.1
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Pete Zamar
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Alfred E.Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering - Seminar series
Fri, Apr 25, 2025 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Gen-Sheng Feng, PHD., Professor Department of Pathology, School of Medicine Department of Molecular Biology, School of Biological Sciences University of California, San Diego
Talk Title: Mechanistic dissection and immunotherapy of liver cancer
Abstract: I will describe our research program that aims at elucidating the paradoxical anti-oncogenic effects of classical oncoproteins in hepatocellular cancer, which was initiated by the discovery of an SH2-containing tyrosine phosphatase Shp2 (originally called Syp) while a postdoc with the late Tony Pawson. In particular, I will discuss most recent data that unveil how Shp2 promotes signaling through the RTK-Ras-Erk pathway. This work has led to the most recent discovery of a new type of vesicle, intercellsome, in cell-cell communication to offset intracellular proliferative signal deficit. I will also discuss mechanisms of liver cancer initiation and progression driven by the dynamic interactions between tumor cells and the microenvironment. By deciphering multi-faceted roles of the immune ecosystem, we aim to develop new strategies for combinatorial liver cancer immunotherapy through coordinated activation of innate and adaptive immune cells.
Biography: Gen-Sheng Feng is Professor of Pathology and Molecular Biology at the University of California, San Diego. He has been approved for promotion to Distinguished Professor at UCSD (effective on July 1, 2025). Dr. Feng got BSc degree in Biology from Hangzhou University, and PhD degree from Indiana University Bloomington. He received postdoctoral training at the University of Toronto, Canada. Dr. Feng has published 193 peer-reviewed research papers, reviews and book chapters. Dr. Feng has served on the editorial boards of MCB, JBC, Hepatology, and J Hepatology. He is a Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Dr. Feng was the President for the Association of Chinese Americans in Cancer Research (ACACR, 2022-2024) and the President-elect for the Society of Chinese Bio scientists in America (SCBA).
Host: Peter Yingxiao Wang- Chair of Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 109
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Carla Stanard
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
CA DREAMS - Technical Seminar Series
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Fri, Apr 25, 2025 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Brian Thibeault and Steve Zamek, UCSB and PDF Solutions
Talk Title: Analytics for Semiconductors: From Megafabs to Nanofabs
Series: CA DREAMS - Technical Seminar Series
Abstract: This joint talk will provide an overview of advanced data analytics for semiconductor manufacturing and application thereof in R&D environment. The first part of the talk, by Steve Zamek from PDF Solutions, will provide an overview of end-to-end data analytics used by 100+ semiconductor companies. Big Data analytics enables faster yield ramp, improved efficiency, lower manufacturing cost and facilitates root cause analysis in a timely manner. The second part of the talk, by Brian Thibeault, the UCSB Nanofab Director, will discuss the small-business enabling R&D Nanofab environment. The UCSB Nanofab, a leading and accessible university nanofabrication facility, has been at the center of a semiconductor startup ecosystem for over 20 years. Brian will introduce Nanofab’s operation in the context of this vibrant ecosystem that bridges university research and commercialization. Several examples of successful lab-to-fab transition stories will be provided. Brian will also cover the recent collaboration between UCSB and PDF Solutions to improve process reproducibility, leveraging the Exensio® software within a technology-diverse, multi-user fabrication environment.
Biography: Brian Thibeault, UCSB Brian Thibeault has been UCSB Nanofab Technical/Operational Director for 6 years, where he is responsible for all aspects of facility advancements and operations, and the senior Nanofab staff scientist for 24 years. From 1996 to 2000, Brian worked on GaN-based LED and RF HEMT development for WiTech, LLC, founded by Steve DenBaars and Umesh Mishra and purchased by CREE Inc. in June of 2000. Brian holds a PhD from UCSB in Electrical and Computer Engineering (1997), where his research focused on Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser design, growth, and fabrication. Steve Zamek, PDF Solutions Steve Zamek is a Director of Product Management at PDF Solutions Inc. Steve is responsible for the Big Data Analytics platform deployed in 100+ leading customers – foundries, IDM’s, OSAT’s and fabless companies. Prior to his current role, Steve held a variety of roles at KLA, a leading provider of inspection and metrology equipment for the semiconductor industry. Steve holds a PhD from UCSD, MSc from BGU, BSc from the Technion – all in Electrical Engineering. He had Internships with Cymer (now ASML) and Sun (now Oracle).
Host: Dr. Steve Crago
More Info: https://www.isi.edu/events/5740/analytics-for-semiconductors-from-megafabs-to-nanofabs/
Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97017422125?pwd=Dbrt8MNMrmBV3xalKQJcAiNsggFJjJ.1&from=addonWebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/97017422125?pwd=Dbrt8MNMrmBV3xalKQJcAiNsggFJjJ.1&from=addon
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Amy Kasmir
Event Link: https://www.isi.edu/events/5740/analytics-for-semiconductors-from-megafabs-to-nanofabs/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
CS Bekey Lecture feat. Dr. Huan Liu
Fri, Apr 25, 2025 @ 01:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Huan Liu , Regents Professor and Ira A. Fulton Professor of Computer Science and Engineering - Arizona State University
Talk Title: Ceaseless Inquiries: From AI to AI - What I Learned During My Years at USC under Dr. Bekey and What Came After
Abstract: My time at USC as a graduate student, with Dr. George Bekey as my advisor, had an indelible impact on my career. In this talk, I will illustrate how my research career was shaped by Dr. Bekey’s supervision and the ambience at USC at the time. My research journey in AI began in Robotics, and evolved into Knowledge-based Systems, Machine Learning, Data Mining, Social Computing, and Social Media Mining with posts in Australia, Singapore, and finally in the US, where I now teach at ASU. On the shoulders of giants, I learned valuable lessons on how to be an effective advisor and what the essence of research is. With the swift development of AI, we will have many more research opportunities to make novel contributions at accelerating speeds.
This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium.
VIRTUAL AUDIENCE: If you are unable to join us in-person, you will be missed, but you can still view the lecture using the Zoom link below.
https://usc.zoom.us/j/98846857348?pwd=QTJNKBil2tUvBZxpAJUXvIpr9N0fS5.1
Meeting ID: 988 4685 7348
Passcode: 04252025b
Biography: Dr. Huan Liu is a Regents Professor and Ira A. Fulton Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Arizona State University. He is the recipient of the ACM SIGKDD 2022 Innovation Award for his outstanding contributions to the foundation, principles, and applications of social media mining and feature selection for data Mining. He co-authored the textbook, Social Media Mining: An Introduction, by Cambridge University Press. He is a Fellow of AAAI, AAAS, ACM, and IEEE.
Host: Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
More Info: https://forms.gle/phi3Gh2yogf9ABtX9
Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/98846857348?pwd=QTJNKBil2tUvBZxpAJUXvIpr9N0fS5.1Location: Ginsburg Hall (GCS) - Auditorium (LL1)
WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/98846857348?pwd=QTJNKBil2tUvBZxpAJUXvIpr9N0fS5.1
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Event Link: https://forms.gle/phi3Gh2yogf9ABtX9
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
PhD Thesis Proposal - Zhuojin Li
Fri, Apr 25, 2025 @ 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
Title: Performance Modeling and Optimization for Machine Learning Systems: from Cloud Training to Edge Inference
Date and Time: Fri, April 25, 2-4pm
Location: EEB 403
Committee Members: Leana Golubchik (Chair), Murali Annavaram, Peter Beerel, Jyotirmoy V. Deshmukh, William G. J. Halfond
Abstract: Deep neural networks (DNNs) have achieved remarkable success in a wide range of tasks, from computer vision to natural language processing. However, as these networks substantially grow in scale, ensuring efficient performance across the entire lifecycle - from cloud-based training to edge-device inference - remains a crucial problem. Our work addresses this need by developing performance modeling and optimization techniques for both cloud-based distributed training and edge-based inference.
First, we develop training throughput prediction models (coarse-grained and fine-grained) for distributed stochastic gradient descent (SGD), characterizing the impact of communication bottlenecks and node stragglers in synchronous/asynchronous and centralized/decentralized settings. Second, we propose an operation-wise framework that accurately predicts the inference latency of various neural architectures - such as CNNs and Vision Transformers (ViTs) - across diverse mobile platforms and ML frameworks. Finally, we propose a heterogeneous co-execution approach that combines low-overhead synchronization with ML-based workload partitioning on mobile CPUs and GPUs, substantially speeding up inference tasks. Together, these three contributions form a comprehensive methodology for end-to-end DNN performance evaluation and optimization, providing practical insights for large-scale training in the cloud and efficient deployment at the edge.Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 403
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Zhuojin Li
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Quantum/Physics Joint seminar - Kenneth Brown, Friday, April 25th at 2pm in EEB 132 & Zoom
Fri, Apr 25, 2025 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Kenneth Brown, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Physics, and Chemistry Duke University
Talk Title: Building Quantum Systems at Universities
Series: MHI Physics Joint Seminar Series
Abstract: Quantum computers have improved dramatically as industry has pushed the capability of these devices in terms of both scale and quality. Continued improvement requires research at all levels of the stack from the physical control of qubits to the software-layer that executes programs. Quantum systems at universities enable scientists and engineers to optimize over all these levels and to test new frameworks for quantum system design. In this talk, I will discuss how varying levels of access to quantum computers at companies, national laboratories, and universities enable different kinds of research.
Biography: Kenneth Brown is the Michael J. Fitzpatrick Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Physics, and Chemistry at Duke University. He is an expert in quantum information science and engineering, and he uses the control of quantum systems to develop new technologies and understand the natural world. His research interests are ion trap quantum computers and quantum error correction. He serves on the American Physical Society Council of Representatives for the Division of Quantum Information. He was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Kavli Fellow, and an Experienced Research Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for his work in quantum information.
Host: Quntao Zhuang, Eli Levenson-Falk, Jonathan Habif, Daniel Lidar, Kelly Luo,k Todd Brun, Tony Levi, Stephan Haas
More Info: https://usc.zoom.us/j/92394501475?pwd=xmrBvQLybbTORjh79PVFav4Abrzeba.1
More Information: Ken Brown Flyer.pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
Event Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/92394501475?pwd=xmrBvQLybbTORjh79PVFav4Abrzeba.1
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
PhD Thesis Proposal - Omkar Thakoor
Fri, Apr 25, 2025 @ 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
Title: Adversarial Knapsack for Sequential Competitive Resource Allocation
Date and Time: Friday, April 25th - 2:00pm
Location: EEB 219
Committee Members: Victor Prasanna (Chair), Jyotirmoy Deshmukh, Paul Bogdan, Vatsal sharan, Rajgopal Kannan
Abstract:
Game Theory has become a key theoretical tool for analyzing important decision-making processes in various fields. One such common scenario has two or more agents strategically allocating respective resources to gain control of shared items. A prime example of this is in the defense sector where warfare resources are allocated to gain control of conflict territories. Colonel Blotto game is a long-studied model for this problem that considers simultaneous interactions between the players. Our work focuses on a sequential decision-making dynamic, where players act with partial or complete knowledge of previous moves. Unlike traditional approaches that rely on complex mixed strategies, we focus on deterministic pure strategies, streamlining computation while preserving strategic depth. Additionally, we extend the payoff structure to accommodate fractional allocations and payoffs, moving beyond the binary, all-or-nothing paradigm to allow more granular outcomes. Another recent and successful model of Stackelberg Security Games (SSG) consider sequential interactions but with largely dissimilar actions for agents – rather than the agents contesting for items with resource allocation, they consider a defender protecting targets versus an attacker selecting ones to attack. In this project, we investigate the scenario where both the agents have the same goal of optimizing resource allocation, but in a sequential setting, thus distinguishing from both the aforementioned lines of works. While we use the defense resource allocation as an exemplary application, our analysis and results will be general and applicable to other domains.
Our current contributions include formalizing an adversarial knapsack game model that captures the scenario as described above. We have laid foundation with a base setting of the model that gives rise to a bilevel knapsack problem: How should a leader assign weights to given items with known values, so as to minimize the output of a follower trying to maximize the value of her knapsack subject to limited capacity? We study this problem in various settings such as the follower’s optimization being a 0-1 versus a fractional knapsack problem, and with the leader’s weight variables being real (continuous) versus integers (discrete). This knapsack-based approach is novel in the context of competitive resource allocation, with rare instances in prior work only partially leveraging it for follower analysis. Our contributions include: (1) proposing an adversarial knapsack formulation for the sequential resource allocation problem, (2) developing efficient heuristics for fractional allocation scenarios, and (3) analyzing the 0-1 knapsack case, providing a computational hardness result alongside a heuristic solution.
Our focus in future is to explore other utility functions of the resource allocation that the knapsack-solving follower makes, such as non-linear concave utility functions. Secondly, the synchronicity of decision-making among the game players is closely tied with the information sharing and availability that applies to the gameplay. The existing models often assume perfect and complete information that is not practical in most cases. The imperfect and incomplete information settings allow for manifestation of two different techniques: Deception and Persuasion. Deception in our context could see the leader using certain tools to deflate or inflate his perceived resource allocation from the follower’s perspective, thereby misleading the follower into playing suboptimally. Persuasion focuses on how the leader can influence follower's decisions via strategic information revelation — often described as a signaling scheme — to yield the most desirable equilibrium outcome. These techniques are best realized in a multi-step or repeated game setting, which we also aim to investigate for our future analysis.
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 219
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Omkar Thakoor
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
PhD Thesis Proposal - James Hale
Fri, Apr 25, 2025 @ 03:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
Title of Thesis Proposal: AI-Mediated Dispute Resolution
Date and Time: Friday 25 April 2025 3-5PM
Location: GCS 402C
Committee Members: Dr. Jonathan Gratch, Dr. Gale Lucas, Dr. Jesse Thomason, Dr. Laurent Itti, and Dr. Peter Kim
Abstract: When conflict arises so does the possibility of potentially irreparable harm interpersonally, policitally, or professionally. Simultaneously, finding effective mediators, especially for those without the means to hire an expert, remains a challenge and may preclude resolution. In this proposal, I examine whether one can leverage recent advances in artificial intelligence to create automated mediators -- democratizing conflict mediation. First, I present a laboratory setting wherein we induce conflict in dyads of human crowd workers as they roleplay a buyer-seller dispute -- yielding the KODIS corpus. Second, we examine whether LLMs can understand emotion dynamics in KODIS to forecast dispute outcomes -- showing they can predict subjective outcomes, and uncovering escalatory spirals as the literature predicts. Lastly, I outline my plan to create automated mediators over the remainder of my PhD.Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 213
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: James Hale
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
EiS Communications Hub - Tutoring for Engineering Ph.D. Students
Mon, Apr 28, 2025 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Viterbi Ph.D. students are invited to drop by the Hub for instruction on their writing and speaking tasks! All tutoring is one-on-one and conducted by Viterbi faculty.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 222A
Audiences: Viterbi Ph.D. Students
Contact: Helen Choi
Event Link: https://sites.google.com/usc.edu/eishub/home
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
CS Colloquium: Alessandro Vespignani (Northeastern University) - From Data to Decisions: Computational Approaches to Dynamics, Behavior, and Forecasting in Complex Systems
Mon, Apr 28, 2025 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Alessandro Vespignani, Northeastern University
Talk Title: From Data to Decisions: Computational Approaches to Dynamics, Behavior, and Forecasting in Complex Systems
Abstract: The behavior of complex socio-technical systems is shaped by dynamic interactions across multiple layers of data, infrastructure, and human behavior. Understanding and anticipating these dynamics is essential for improving resilience, governance, and societal well-being. In this talk, I will explore how advanced computational modeling—leveraging network science, dynamical systems, AI, and machine learning—can help decode, simulate, and forecast the behavior of large-scale interconnected systems. Starting from the study of contagion phenomena—biological, informational, and behavioral—I will highlight how data-driven modeling frameworks have advanced our ability to monitor and forecast collective dynamics in real time. I will then present applications in public health and infectious disease management, where such models have informed epidemic preparedness, intervention design, and decision-making. Moving beyond contagion, I will discuss the broader implications of these tools in understanding adaptive behavior, feedback mechanisms, and systemic risk in socio-technical systems. By integrating empirical data with mechanistic and machine learning models, we can begin to build predictive frameworks that support decision-making across domains—from public health to digital ecosystems—where complexity is the rule, not the exception.
This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium
Biography: Alessandro Vespignani is the Sternberg Family Distinguished University Professor at Northeastern University, where he directs the Network Science Institute. His research lies at the intersection of computational modeling, data science, and complex systems, with a focus on contagion phenomena such as epidemics, information diffusion, and collective behavior. Vespignani builds large-scale predictive models that integrate real-world data using mechanistic simulations and machine learning to understand and forecast the dynamics of interconnected systems. He currently leads the CDC-funded EPISTORM center, a national effort to build the next generation of epidemic forecasting infrastructure, integrating diverse data streams such as wastewater surveillance, viral genomics, and high-resolution mobility data. Vespignani has authored over 200 scientific publications in leading journals, including Nature, Science, and PNAS. He is also the author of several books and monographs on complex systems and network science. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the AAAS, and the Network Science Society.
Host: Cyrus Shahabi
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
Audiences: Everyone (USC) is invited
Contact: CS Faculty Affairs
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
PhD Dissertation Defense - Dong Ho Lee
Mon, Apr 28, 2025 @ 04:00 PM - 06:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
Title: Improving Language Model Through Context
Date and Time: Monday, April 28th, 2025 - 4:00p - 6:00p
Location: KAP 165
Committee Members: Jay Pujara (Chair), Xiang Ren, robin Jia, Fred Morstatter, amd Meisam, Razaviyayn
Abstract: Contextual cues are important in recent LM research, enabling models to reason effectively, handle complex tasks, and exhibit social intelligence through context-aware interactions. My research proposes foundational groundwork for the systematic study and practical incorporation of multiple contextual information into LM. Specifically, I address three key research questions: (1) Can LMs effectively learn from context during inference?; (2) Does adding context during training enhance model behavior?; (3) Can LMs dynamically generate and refine context to improve its output quality?To explore these questions, I explore a variety of contextual cues including (a) human-provided explanations [TriggerNER (ACL 2020), AutoTriggER (EACL 2023), LEAN-LIFE (ACL 2020), XMD (ACL 2023)]; (b) in-context examples [FewNER (ACL 2022), LLM-Data-Creation (EMNLP 2023), TKG-LLM (EMNLP 2023)]; (c) dialogue context [Normvio-RT (EMNLP 2023), LoCoMo (ACL 2024), REALTALK (2025)]; and (d) model-generated context [QUEST(2025)].
Zoom Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/7469763888?pwd=UzAveW81ZGF5ZCt1Vkoxd09DUml0dz09Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 165
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Dong Ho Lee
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Epstein Institute, ISE 651 Seminar Class
Tue, Apr 29, 2025 @ 03:30 AM - 04:30 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Minhee Kim ,
Host: Dr. Qiang Huang
More Information: FLYER 651 Minee Kim 4.29.25.png
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Casi Jones/ ISE
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
PhD Academic Career Mentoring Panel Series "Searching for Academic Jobs"
Tue, Apr 29, 2025 @ 12:00 PM - 01:30 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
You are invited to the PhD Academic Career Mentoring Panel Series for current Engineering doctoral students and postdocs from all areas and departments. This session is aimed to encourage PhD students and postdocs to pursue rewarding careers in academia and research. Distinguished faculty will discuss their academic paths and offer strategic advice and answer your questions. Lunch is provided!
Moderated by: Erik A. Johnson, Vice Dean of Academic ProgramsLocation: Sign into EngageSC to View Location
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Viterbi Student Services
Event Link: https://engage.usc.edu/viterbi/rsvp?id=404282
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
USC CAIS Seminar
Tue, Apr 29, 2025 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science, USC School of Advanced Computing
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Shubham Singh, University of Illinois Chicago
Talk Title: Fair Scheduling and Resource Allocation for Public Services
Abstract: The efficient and equitable distribution of public resources—such as health inspectors, mail delivery, and street sweeping—is crucial for local governments. However, disruptions to these allocation processes often reflect deep-seated historical and social inequalities, disproportionately affecting vulnerable populations. In this talk, we examine how single-objective predictive models can exacerbate societal disparities, how different choices of efficiency and fairness objectives lead to divergent outcomes under the same allocation policy, and the limitations of ranking methods in achieving an optimal utility-fairness tradeoff.
Biography: Shubham Singh is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at the University of Illinois Chicago, focusing on computational methods for tackling socio-technical challenges. His research spans resource allocation, fair machine learning, and privacy and security. An active member of the FAccT and EAAMO communities, he has published at EAAMO, USENIX, and workshops at ICML and NeurIPS. He has been recognized through the Google CS Research Mentorship Program and serves as the Working Groups Co-lead for EAAMO Bridges (formerly MD4SG), reflecting his dedication to socially impactful research. More of his work can be found at: https://shubhams.github.io.
Host: Swabha Swayamdipta
More Info: https://cais.usc.edu/events/fair-scheduling-and-resource-allocation-for-public-services/
Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_wWfmuzu-QjyCq-gEzETU5ALocation: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 120
WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_wWfmuzu-QjyCq-gEzETU5A
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Hailey Nadel/USC CAIS
Event Link: https://cais.usc.edu/events/fair-scheduling-and-resource-allocation-for-public-services/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
WIE STUDY SESH
Tue, Apr 29, 2025 @ 03:00 PM - 05:00 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Student Activity
Join Women in Engineering and Viterbi Learning Program for WIE STUDY SESH. Get to know others in your major and create study groups. Great time to meet others in Viterbi.
This program is open to all eligible individuals. Women in Engineering operates all of its programs and activities consistent with the Universityâs Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex [1], ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor.
Individuals with disabilities who need accommodations to attend this event may contact Thelma Zaragoza at Tfederic@usc.edu. We request that individuals requiring accommodations or auxiliary aids such as sign language interpreters and alternative format materials notify us at least 7 days prior to the event. Every reasonable effort will be made to provide reasonable accommodations in an effective and timely manner.Location: Sign into EngageSC to View Location
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Thelma Federico Zaragoza
Event Link: https://engage.usc.edu/WIE/rsvp?id=404190
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Quantum/Physics Joint seminar, Ofer Naaman, Tuesday, April 29th at 4pm in EEB 248 & Zoom
Tue, Apr 29, 2025 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Ofer Naaman, Research Scientist Google Quantum AI
Talk Title: Quantum computing at Google
Series: Quantum/Physics Joint Seminar Series
Abstract: Google Quantum AI's mission is to build a useful quantum computer. In this talk I will review Google's approach to quantum computing, and our roadmap to building a useful machine based on superconducting qubits. I will highlight milestone experiments along our roadmap, demonstrating beyond-classical computation and quantum error correction, and some of the multidisciplinary technical challenges we are addressing toward a long-lived error-corrected logical qubit.
Biography: Ofer Naaman (he/him) is a research scientist with Google Quantum AI, where he leads the readout hardware team. Ofer holds a BSc degree from Tel Aviv University and a PhD in physics from UC San Diego. Prior to joining Google, Ofer was at NIST Boulder, UC Berkeley, and Northrop Grumman, where he has worked on topics ranging from single-electron transistors, quantum computing, and parametric amplifiers, to superconducting logic and cryogenic memory. He authored and co-authored 55+ papers and 25+ patents, is a member of APS, and an IEEE MTT-S senior member.
Host: Quntao Zhuang, Eli Levenson-Falk, Jonathan Habif, Daniel Lidar, Kelly Luo,k Todd Brun, Tony Levi, Stephan Haas
More Info: https://usc.zoom.us/j/96507214109?pwd=KAEOiIOoBtpCVDywfI13CKtiPKCnZg.1
More Information: Ofer Naaman Flyer.pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
Event Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/96507214109?pwd=KAEOiIOoBtpCVDywfI13CKtiPKCnZg.1
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
EiS Communications Hub - Tutoring for Engineering Ph.D. Students
Wed, Apr 30, 2025 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Viterbi Ph.D. students are invited to drop by the Hub for instruction on their writing and speaking tasks! All tutoring is one-on-one and conducted by Viterbi faculty.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 222A
Audiences: Viterbi Ph.D. Students
Contact: Helen Choi
Event Link: https://sites.google.com/usc.edu/eishub/home
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
PhD Thesis Proposal - Kegan Strawn
Wed, Apr 30, 2025 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
Title: Conformal Prediction for Safe Robot Planning in Dynamic Environments
Date and Time: Wednesday, 04/30/25 - 11:00a - 12:00p
Location: GCS 502C
Committee Members: Lars Lindemann, Nora Ayanian, Jyotirmoy Vinay Deshmukh, Erdem Biyik, Ketan Savla
Abstract: Safe robot navigation in dynamic environments around other uncontrolled agents is a central challenge for robotics. This thesis proposal explores statistical tools to quantify uncertainty in control and planning for collision avoidance applications in new and challenging problem settings. First, we introduce conformal predictive safety filters, which augment reinforcement learning policies with learned safety layers that avoid uncertainty regions around dynamic agents, providing probabilistic safety guarantees and reducing collisions without being overly conservative. We then extend this idea to multi-agent pathfinding (MAPF) with CP-Solver, a novel variant of Enhanced Conflict-Based Search that plans around uncontrollable agents. By incorporating uncertainty-aware predictions into planning, CP-Solver offers probabilistic safety guarantees while maintaining high throughput. We conclude with future work on online model selection to robustify and adapt safety filters in real-time, demonstrating safety and performance results through multi-robot drone simulations. Together, these contributions advance safety guarantees and performance in multi-agent systems by combining prediction, uncertainty quantification, and planning.Location: Ginsburg Hall (GCS) - 502C
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kegan Strawn
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
PhD Dissertation Defense - Sabyasachee Baruah
Wed, Apr 30, 2025 @ 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
Title: Character-centric Computational Narrative Understanding
Date and Time: April 30th, 2025: 2:00p - 4:00p
Location: RTH 320
Committee Members: Dr. Shrikanth Narayanan (chair), Dr. Maja Mataric, and Dr. Morteza Dehghani (outside member
Abstract: Narrative is a mechanism through which we try to understand the world. We use stories to communicate with each other, assign meaning to our actions, and create interpersonal bonds through similar experiences. It is important to study narratives to find the qualities of effective storytelling, understand how they enable human collaboration, and study the representation of people and ideas. However, even though substantial discourse on narrative understanding exists in the research community, it lacks a uniform and structured computational approach. Therefore, in this dissertation, I define narrativity and propose a modality-agnostic computational pipeline to study narratives. I identify the essential building blocks of narratives – characters, events, attributes, and relations – and define how their interaction creates narrativity. I focus on the character-centric tasks of the proposed pipeline to underscore the importance of narrative characters. I categorize the various character understanding tasks, and present my contributions towards the resolution and attribution tasks, building towards a holistic understanding of the narrative.
Zoom Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/95907531652?pwd=6eNMG5kHGUec6zICZKYaan3HebWvGS.1
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 320
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Sabyasachee Baruah
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
AME Seminar
Wed, Apr 30, 2025 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Kathryn Matlack, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Talk Title: TBD
Host: AME Department
More Info: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/
Location: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 252
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Tessa Yao
Event Link: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
ECE Pioneer Talk - Prof. Alice Parker
Wed, Apr 30, 2025 @ 04:00 PM - 06:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Alice Parker, Professor Emerita, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, USC
Talk Title: From Silicon to the Brain using Microelectronics as a Bridge
Series: ECE Pioneer Series
Abstract: This presentation spans 55 years of my career in science and engineering, from graduate school in the MSEE program at Stanford to final research at the University of Southern California as a Dean's Professor. My background in electronic circuits laid the groundwork for my final two decades of research in electronics to model the brain, a research interest I had for my entire career but placed on hold due to successes early on with graduate students on high-level synthesis of digital circuits, including system and intranet synthesis. The talk focuses first on high-level synthesis of digital circuits and then on the BioRC Biomimetic Research Cortex, a project focused on building an electronic brain based on pulseand timing circuits.
Biography: Alice C. Parker is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Southern California and is a former Division Director for Computer Engineering, a former Dean of Graduate Studies, and a former Vice Provost for Research at USC. She was elected President of the Academic Senate in 1993. She was previously on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon. Dr. Parker received the B.S.E.E. and Ph.D degrees from North Carolina State University and an M.S.E.E. from Stanford University. She was elected a Fellow of the IEEE for her contributions to design automation in the areas of high-level synthesis, hardware description languages and design representation. She also received an NSF Faculty Award for Women Scientists and Engineers, an NSF Fellowship, an award from ASEE (the Sharon Keillor award), and an teaching award from the Viterbi school.
Host: Richard Leahy, leahy@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - EEB 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Cathy Huang
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor.
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