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Events for the 2nd week of April
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Technology for Business LeadersMon, 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.
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