Select a calendar:
Filter April Events by Event Type:
Events for the 4th week of April
-
EiS Communications Hub - Tutoring for Engineering Ph.D. StudentsMon, 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
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://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJwbNZqXnWgLocation: Information Science Institute (ISI) - Conf Rm#689
WebCast Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJwbNZqXnWg
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
.jpg)
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.
.jpg)
