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Events for the 3rd week of April
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EiS Communications Hub - Tutoring for Engineering Ph.D. StudentsMon, 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.
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