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Events for the 3rd week of October

  • Discover USC - Dallas

    Sun, Oct 14, 2018 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    Receptions & Special Events


    Join the USC Admission Office at the Discover USC admission program in Dallas.

    This program provides high school seniors and their families with an opportunity to meet admission counselors, alumni, and other prospective students and their parents.

    RSVP for Discover USC

    Location: Dallas/Addison Marriott Quorum by the Galleria

    Audiences: Prospective Freshmen & Family Members

    Contact: Viterbi Admission

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  • Discover USC - Seattle

    Sun, Oct 14, 2018 @ 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    Receptions & Special Events


    Join the USC Admission Office at the Discover USC admission program in Seattle.

    This program provides high school seniors and their families with an opportunity to meet admission counselors, alumni, and other prospective students and their parents.

    RSVP for Discover USC

    Location: Grand Hyatt Seattle

    Audiences: Prospective Freshmen & Family Members

    Contact: Viterbi Admission

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  • Repeating EventMeet USC: Admission Presentation, Campus Tour, and Engineering Talk

    Mon, Oct 15, 2018

    Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    University Calendar


    This half day program is designed for prospective freshmen (HS seniors and younger) and family members. Meet USC includes an information session on the University and the Admission process, a student led walking tour of campus, and a meeting with us in the Viterbi School. During the engineering session we will discuss the curriculum, research opportunities, hands-on projects, entrepreneurial support programs, and other aspects of the engineering school. Meet USC is designed to answer all of your questions about USC, the application process, and financial aid.

    Reservations are required for Meet USC. This program occurs twice, once at 8:30 a.m. and again at 12:30 p.m.

    Please make sure to check availability and register online for the session you wish to attend. Also, remember to list an Engineering major as your "intended major" on the webform!

    RSVP

    Location: Ronald Tutor Campus Center (TCC) - USC Admission Office

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    View All Dates

    Contact: Rebecca Kinnon

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  • CS Colloquium: Judea Pearl (UCLA) - The New Science of Cause and Effect

    Mon, Oct 15, 2018 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Professor Judea Pearl, UCLA

    Talk Title: The New Science of Cause and Effect

    Series: Computer Science Colloquium

    Abstract: Professor Judea Pearl's talk will summarize a revolution that has changed the way scientists deal with cause-effect questions and that will have profound effects on our future. Pearl will first describe how hard causal questions that long were regarded as
    either metaphysical or unmanageable can now be solved using elementary steps and what this tells us about how our mind achieves causal understanding. He will then outline how robots can be built that learn to communicate in our language of cause and effect and reason counterfactually about credit and blame, regret, intent and responsibility.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium

    This talk is co-sponsored by: USC Viterbi Department of Computer Science, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, USC Marshall Department of Data Sciences and Operations and USC Dornsife Department of Economics.


    Biography: Judea Pearl is a professor of computer science and statistics at UCLA, where he directs the Cognitive Systems Laboratory and conducts research in artificial intelligence, human cognition, and philosophy of science. Pearl is the 2011 recipient of the ACM Alan Turing Award, and the 2002 London School of Economics Lakatos Award in the philosophy of science. He is the author of Heuristics (1983), Probabilistic Reasoning (1988), Causality (2000, 2009) and most recently co-authored The Book of Why (2018).


    Host: Computer Science Department and School of Communication in Annenberg

    Location: Wallis Annenberg Hall (ANN) 106 (Sheindlin Forum)

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Computer Science Department

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  • Seminars in Biomedical Engineering

    Mon, Oct 15, 2018 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM

    Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Hanming Peng, USC Visiting Professor

    Talk Title: Drug delivery for cancer application

    Host: Qifa Zhou

    Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta

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  • Resume Lab - Bring your Laptop!

    Mon, Oct 15, 2018 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Labs are an activity where you can work on your resume in the presence of a career advisor to get tips on the spot.

    Bring your Laptop!

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

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Fall 2018 Joint CSC@USC/CommNetS-MHI Seminar Series

    Mon, Oct 15, 2018 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Stanley Chan, Purdue University

    Talk Title: Understanding Plug-and-Play ADMM: Convergence, Objective Function, and Generalization

    Abstract: The Plug-and-Play (PnP) ADMM algorithm is a recently developed image restoration method that allows advanced image denoisers to be integrated into physical forward models to yield a provable convergent algorithm. Since its introduction in 2013, PnP ADMM has enabled numerous record-breaking image recovery results in deblurring, inpainting, super-resolution, Poisson denoising, and compressed sensing, etc. However, despite the successful applications and promising results, very little is known about why PnP ADMM performs so well. Fundamentally, the challenge lies in the fact that many of the latest denoisers are not easily expressible as proximal maps, e.g., deep neural networks.
    In this talk, I will highlight a few recent progresses made by my group and collaborators. I will discuss three questions. (1) Convergence: Under what conditions of the denoisers will PnP ADMM converge? Answering this question will allow us to comment on what kind of denoisers we can use and what kind of convergence we should expect. (2) Objective Function: By plugging in an off-the-shelf denoiser, what does PnP ADMM actually solve? That is, what is the corresponding objective function? This problem will tell us why and when PnP ADMM will perform well, and when PnP ADMM will fail. (3) Generalization: Are we able to generalize PnP ADMM to accommodate multiple agents beyond a single forward model and a single denoiser? This leads to a new concept called consensus equilibrium, which allows us to integrate multiple weak experts to produce an overall strong recovery method. I will illustrate the ideas through examples in image denoising, graph signal processing, turbulence removal and automatic foreground extraction.


    Biography: Stanley H. Chan is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Department of Statistics at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN. He received the B.Eng. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Hong Kong in 2007, the M.A. degree in Mathematics from UC San Diego in 2009, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from UC San Diego in 2011. In 2012-2014, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard. His PhD study and postdoctoral training were supported by the Croucher Foundation PhD Scholarship and postdoctoral Fellowship, two of the most prestigious scholarships in Hong Kong.
    Dr. Chan is a recipient of the Best Paper Award of IEEE International Conference on Image Processing 2016 for his work on single photon image sensors. He is also a recipient of multiple education awards including the IEEE Signal Processing Cup Second Prize, Purdue College of Engineering Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award, Eta Kappa Nu Teaching Award, Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding Professor Award, and Purdue Teaching for Tomorrow Fellowship.
    Dr. Chan is an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Computational Imaging since 2018, an Associate Editor of OSA Optics Express in 2016 - 2018, an Elected Member and the subcommittee Chair of the IEEE Signal Processing Society Special Interest Group in Computational Imaging since 2015. He was the co-chair and co-organizer of the computational imaging special session in ICIP 2016, and had served on multiple technical program committees including ICIP, ICASSP, OSA Imaging and Applied Optics Congress, and Midwest Machine Learning Symposium.


    Host: Antonio Ortega, antonio.ortega@sipi.usc.edu

    More Info: http://csc.usc.edu/seminars/2018Fall/chan.html

    More Information: 18.10.15 Stanley Chan_CSC@USC Seminar.pdf

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Brienne Moore

    Event Link: http://csc.usc.edu/seminars/2018Fall/chan.html

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  • Biomedical Engineering Alumni & Industry Spotlight Panel

    Mon, Oct 15, 2018 @ 07:00 PM - 08:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    The Viterbi Industry & Alumni Spotlight is a great opportunity for you to connect with USC alumni and industry professionals that have been in your shoes. They will share their experiences on how they got to where they are in their career and offer words of wisdom along the way. This is an undergraduate only event.

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211

    Audiences: Undergrad

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Finding Structure in Data: Clustering and Representation Learning

     Finding Structure in Data: Clustering and Representation Learning

    Tue, Oct 16, 2018 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Arya Mazumdar, College of Information & Computer Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst

    Talk Title: Finding Structure in Data: Clustering and Representation Learning

    Abstract: This talk is loosely divided into two parts, both about uncovering hidden structures in data by unsupervised or semisupervised methods. In the first, we discuss new tools to learn parameters of mixtures of distributions, statistical block models, and interactive algorithms for such problems. In the second, we describe new algorithms to learn nonlinear models of data, primarily focusing on networks of rectified linear units. We will emphasize on the information theoretic tools that have been used in both of the parts. We provide rigorous theoretical guarantees and our algorithms perform very well in experiments conducted with real data.


    Biography: Arya Mazumdar is an assistant professor in the College of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst since Fall 2015. Prior to this, Arya was an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, and a postdoctoral scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Arya received his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 2011, where his thesis won the Distinguished Dissertation Fellowship Award. Arya is a recipient of the 2015 NSF CAREER award and the 2010 IEEE ISIT Jack K. Wolf Student Paper Award. He spent the summers of 2008 and 2010 at the Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Palo Alto, CA, and IBM Almaden Research Center, San Jose, CA, respectively. Arya's research interests include information theory and machine learning.

    Host: Professor Salman Avestimehr

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Talyia White

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  • Interviews Open Forum

    Tue, Oct 16, 2018 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


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

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

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Epstein Institute Seminar - ISE 651

    Epstein Institute Seminar - ISE 651

    Tue, Oct 16, 2018 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM

    Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Andrzej Ruszczynski , Professor, Rutgers Business School

    Talk Title: Risk-Averse Optimization and Control of Partially Observable Systems

    Host: Dr. Meisam Razaviyayn

    More Information: October 16, 2018.pdf

    Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Grace Owh

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  • Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Seminar - Lyman L. Handy Colloquia

    Tue, Oct 16, 2018 @ 04:00 PM - 05:20 PM

    Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Professor Susanne Stemmer, Materials Department , University of California, Santa Barbara

    Talk Title: Topological Heterostructures by Molecular Beam Epitaxy

    Abstract: Topology, both in real space and in reciprocal space, has emerged as a new design principle for materials that can host a wealth of novel properties. Interfaces and heterostructures with topological materials offer opportunities to control and manipulate their electronic states and associated phenomena, for example, via electric field effect, strain, or symmetry breaking. In this presentation, we will discuss recent progress in the growth of thin films of the three-dimensional Dirac semimetal Cd3As2 by molecular beam epitaxy. We show that high-mobility, epitaxial Cd3As2 films can be grown and discuss some of the phenomena that can be observed, such as an unusually large negative longitudinal magnetoresistance under parallel electric and magnetic fields. The heterostructures allow for experimental tests of theoretically predicted transitions between topological states by manipulating parameters, such as confinement and film strain. For example, as the film thickness is reduced, a band gap opens in the bulk Dirac electronic states and we observe a quantum Hall effect. Using electric field gating and Landau level spectroscopy, we demonstrate the Dirac dispersion of these two-dimensional states.

    Biography: Susanne Stemmer is Professor of Materials at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She did her doctoral work at the Max-Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart (Germany) and received her degree from the University of Stuttgart in 1995. Following postdoctoral positions, she moved to Rice University, where she was Assistant Professor from 1999 to 2002. In 2002, she joined the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research interests are in the development of scanning transmission electron microscopy techniques, molecular beam epitaxy, functional and strongly correlated oxide heterostructures, and topological materials. She has authored or co-authored more than 240 publications. Honors include election to Fellow of the American Ceramic Society, Fellow of the American Physical Society, Fellow of the Materials Research Society, Fellow of the Microscopy Society of America, and a Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship of the Department of Defense.

    Host: Dr. Jayakanth Ravichandran

    Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 200

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Karen Woo/Mork Family

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  • Repeating EventMeet USC: Admission Presentation, Campus Tour, and Engineering Talk

    Wed, Oct 17, 2018

    Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    University Calendar


    This half day program is designed for prospective freshmen (HS seniors and younger) and family members. Meet USC includes an information session on the University and the Admission process, a student led walking tour of campus, and a meeting with us in the Viterbi School. During the engineering session we will discuss the curriculum, research opportunities, hands-on projects, entrepreneurial support programs, and other aspects of the engineering school. Meet USC is designed to answer all of your questions about USC, the application process, and financial aid.

    Reservations are required for Meet USC. This program occurs twice, once at 8:30 a.m. and again at 12:30 p.m.

    Please make sure to check availability and register online for the session you wish to attend. Also, remember to list an Engineering major as your "intended major" on the webform!

    RSVP

    Location: Ronald Tutor Campus Center (TCC) - USC Admission Office

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    View All Dates

    Contact: Rebecca Kinnon

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  • Machine-Integrated Intelligence, Controlled Sensing, and Active Learning

    Machine-Integrated Intelligence, Controlled Sensing, and Active Learning

    Wed, Oct 17, 2018 @ 12:00 AM - 01:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Tara Javidi, Electrical and Computer Engineering, UC San Diego

    Talk Title: Machine-Integrated Intelligence, Controlled Sensing, and Active Learning

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

    Abstract: The computing landscape has been drastically changing. The new computing realm, which is sometimes dubbed as internet of everything, includes networked devices ranging from tiny wearable sensors, smart home appliances, and personal autonomous robots, to connected self-driving cars, and to smart city infrastructures. In this new computing eco-system, comprising of resource-constrained, unreliable, and vulnerable components and networks, the non-recurring cost of hardware acceleration, engineering implementation, and system building has continued to grow significantly. This is in addition to the growing cost associated with the collection, curation, and labeling of data during both the training and the execution of various popular machine learning models. These design bottle-necks not only result in a significant increase in the non-recurring cost of engineering for companies but also provide a severe hurdle in technology development associated with hardware upgrade and/or system redesign.

    In the first part of the talk, I will discuss an overview of my research on information acquisition and active learning in the context of the mission of our newly formed UCSD Center for Machine-Integrated Computing and Security (MICS). I will report ongoing research in the center where this system integrated view has enabled best-in-class results by bringing Machine into Machine Learning. In the second part of the talk, I will delve deeper into the problems of information acquisition, controlled sensing, and active learning and show our solutions to significantly reduce the cost of data collection and/or data labeling while ensuring reliability and fidelity during the training or run-time. In particular, we illustrate our findings and algorithms in the context of DetecDrone: an ML-enabled drone intelligence platform developed in my lab to provide search, mapping, and monitoring off-the-shelf low cost drones.


    Biography: Tara Javidi studied electrical engineering at Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran from 1992 to 1996. She received her MS degrees in electrical engineering (systems) and in applied mathematics (stochastic analysis) from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1998 and 1999, respectively. She received her Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2002. From 2002 to 2004, Tara Javidi was an assistant professor at the Electrical Engineering Department, University of Washington, Seattle. In 2005, she joined the University of California, San Diego, where she is currently a professor of electrical and computer engineering and a founding co-director of the Center for Machine-aware Computing and Security (MICS). She is also a member of Board of Governors of the IEEE Information Theory Society (2017/18/19).

    Tara Javidi's research interests are in theory of active learning, information theory with feedback, stochastic control theory, and stochastic resource allocation in wireless communications and communication networks. Tara Javidi was a recipient of a 2018 Qualcomm Faculty Award, National Science Foundation early career award (CAREER) in 2004, Barbour Graduate Scholarship, University of Michigan, in 1999, and the Presidential and Ministerial Recognitions for Excellence in the National Entrance Exam, Iran, in 1992. Tara Javidi is a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Information Theory Society (2017/18).

    Host: Professor Paul Bogdan

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Talyia Whtie

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  • CS Colloquium: Fred Morstatter (USC-ISI) - Discovering, Mitigating and Characterizing Social Data Bias

    Wed, Oct 17, 2018 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Fred Morstatter, USC - ISI

    Talk Title: Discovering, Mitigating and Characterizing Social Data Bias

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: Researchers and practitioners use social media to extract actionable patterns about human behavior. However, biases are inevitable and can either be a hindrance or an asset to such analysis. In this talk, I will discuss perturbations to the underlying data that can lead to flawed analysis. I will show how common assumptions in handling social media data can lead to flawed research results, and suggest approaches to combat these problems. However, if we understand the biases in our dataset it can lead to deeper understanding of the populations we wish to study. Once the biases underlying a social dataset are recognized, researchers are in a better position to study the unique characteristics underlying different cultural groups. This talk will conclude with a discussion of ways to identify cultural groups online and to characterize the biases between them.


    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium. Please note, due to limited capacity, seats will be first come first serve.

    Biography: Fred Morstatter is a Computer Scientist at the Information Science Institute. His research focuses on understanding biases that occur in online social data. Specifically, he is interested in biases that can skew research results from big social data. He is also interested in characterizing the biases of cultural groups based upon the trace data they create on social media. He has been a key contributor to the Synergistic Anticipation of Geopolitical Events (SAGE) project under IARPA's Hybrid Forecasting Competition. This project combines human judgement with machine forecasts of geopolitical events in the form of a web platform that serves as a vehicle for research in social media mining. He has published in JMLR, WWW, KDD and ICWSM, among others. He is Program Committee Chair for ICWSM 2019. A full list of publications can be found at www.fredmorstatter.com. Contact him at fredmors@isi.edu.

    Host: Computer Science

    Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 100D

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Interviews Open Forum

    Wed, Oct 17, 2018 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


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

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

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • CAIS Seminar: Dr. John Prindle (USC) – Predicting Risk of Future Child Welfare Involvement

    Wed, Oct 17, 2018 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. John Prindle, USC

    Talk Title: Predicting Risk of Future Child Welfare Involvement

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

    Abstract: Child maltreatment impacts a significant number of children per year and is typically not limited to one encounter with the system. Past records provide a wealth of information which may be used to supplement current maltreatment allegations. Machine learning algorithms in the form of Random Forests were applied to these data to predict risk of future child welfare outcomes, past and present factors.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium


    Biography: Dr. John Prindle is a research assistant professor with the Children's Data Network at USC. His current work focuses on the impact of childhood maltreatment on downstream services such as education and medical services.


    Host: Milind Tambe

    Location: Mark Taper Hall Of Humanities (THH) - 301

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Computer Science Department

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  • CS Colloquium: Steve Chien (JPL) - The Growing Role for Artificial Intelligence in Space Exploration and the Search for Life Beyond Earth

    Wed, Oct 17, 2018 @ 05:00 PM - 06:30 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Steve Chien, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

    Talk Title: The Growing Role for Artificial Intelligence in Space Exploration and the Search for Life Beyond Earth

    Series: Computer Science Colloquium

    Abstract: Artificial Intelligence is playing an increasing role in our everyday lives and the business marketplace. This trend extends to the space sector, where AI has already shown considerable success and has the potential to revolutionize almost every aspect of space exploration. I first highlight a number of success stories of the tremendous impact of Artificial Intelligence in Space: over a dozen years of operations of the Autonomous Sciencecraft on EO-1, the Earth Observing Sensorweb tracking volcanoes, flooding and wildfires and automated targeting onboard the MSL Curiosity rover. Next I describe several search and optimization formulations of space scheduling problems: data management for spacecraft and observation scheduling. Finally I discuss why AI is critical to search for life beyond Earth, highlighting the role of AI in Europa Submersible and Interstellar mission concepts.

    RSVP: https://goo.gl/forms/iLw0LrMKq6JvqxkD3

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium.


    Biography: Dr. Steve Chien is a Senior Research Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology where he leads efforts in autonomous systems for space exploration. Dr. Chien has received numerous awards for his research in space autonomous systems including: NASA Medals in 1997, 2000, 2007, and 2015; he is a four time honoree in the NASA Software of the Year competition (1999, 1999, 2005, 2011); and in 2011 he was awarded the inaugural AIAA Intelligent Systems Award. He has led the deployment of ground and flight autonomy software to numerous missions including the Autonomous Sciencecraft/Earth Observing One, WATCH/Mars Exploration Rovers, Earth Observing Sensorwebs, IPEX, and ESA's Rosetta.


    Host: AAAI@USC

    Location: Mark Taper Hall Of Humanities (THH) - 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Computer Science Department

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  • Edwards Lifesciences Info Session

    Wed, Oct 17, 2018 @ 06:00 PM - 07:30 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    COME BE INSPIRED.

    Discover Edwards Lifesciences' award winning products through a hands-on demo with our Engineering representatives. You'll learn about our Transcatheter Heart Valves, Heart Valve Therapies, Transcatheter Mitral & Tricuspid Therapies, and Critical Care monitoring systems in an interactive group environment.

    We'll also take some time to discuss our Engineering New Grad (ENG) Programs and Summer Internship opportunities and dive deeper into Edwards as a company.

    DISCOVER LIFE HERE.
    At Edwards, you can:
    - Explore a wide variety of medical device engineering projects
    - Develop professional skills
    - Work in a stimulating learning environment
    - Partner with passionate employees fighting cardiovascular disease

    Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Stochastic Control of Finite and Infinite Dimensional Systems Under Uncertainty: Theory, Algorithms and Applications

    Stochastic Control of Finite and Infinite Dimensional Systems Under Uncertainty: Theory, Algorithms and Applications

    Thu, Oct 18, 2018 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Evangelos A. Theodorou , Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

    Talk Title: Stochastic Control of Finite and Infinite Dimensional Systems Under Uncertainty: Theory, Algorithms and Applications

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

    Abstract: In this talk, I will present an overview of projects related to stochastic control and machine learning methods and their applications to dynamical systems represented by stochastic differential and stochastic partial differential equations. These are typically systems that exists in autonomy and robotics as well as in areas of applied physics such as fluid mechanics, plasma physics and turbulence. I will discuss different forms of uncertainty representation that span Gaussian Processes, Polynomial Chaos, Deep Probabilistic Neural Networks and Q-Wiener processes. Finally, I will show applications to robotic terrestrial agility, perceptual control, social networks, large-scale swarms, and control of stochastic fields, and conclude with future directions.



    Biography: Evangelos A. Theodorou is an assistant professor with the Guggenheim School of aerospace engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. He is also affiliated with the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Machines. Evangelos Theodorou earned his Diploma in Electronic and Computer Engineering from the Technical University of Crete (TUC), Greece in 2001. He has also received a MSc in Production Engineering from TUC in 2003, a MSc in Computer Science and Engineering from University of Minnesota in spring of 2007 and a MSc in Electrical Engineering on dynamics and controls from the University of Southern California(USC) in Spring 2010. In May of 2011 he graduated with his PhD, in Computer Science at USC. After his PhD, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the department of computer science and engineering, University of Washington, Seattle. Evangelos Theodorou is the recipient of the King-Sun Fu best paper award of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics for the year 2012 and recipient of the best paper award in cognitive robotics in International Conference of Robotics and Automation 2011. He was also the finalist for the best paper award in International Conference of Humanoid Robotics 2010, International Conference of Robotics and Automation 2017 and Robotics Science and Systems 2018. His theoretical research spans the areas of stochastic optimal control theory, machine learning, information theory and statistical physics. Applications involve learning, planning and control in autonomous, robotics and aerospace systems.

    Host: Prof. Paul Bogdan

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Talyia White

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  • Interviews Open Forum

    Thu, Oct 18, 2018 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


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

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

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Repeating EventMeet USC: Admission Presentation, Campus Tour, and Engineering Talk

    Fri, Oct 19, 2018

    Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    University Calendar


    This half day program is designed for prospective freshmen (HS seniors and younger) and family members. Meet USC includes an information session on the University and the Admission process, a student led walking tour of campus, and a meeting with us in the Viterbi School. During the engineering session we will discuss the curriculum, research opportunities, hands-on projects, entrepreneurial support programs, and other aspects of the engineering school. Meet USC is designed to answer all of your questions about USC, the application process, and financial aid.

    Reservations are required for Meet USC. This program occurs twice, once at 8:30 a.m. and again at 12:30 p.m.

    Please make sure to check availability and register online for the session you wish to attend. Also, remember to list an Engineering major as your "intended major" on the webform!

    RSVP

    Location: Ronald Tutor Campus Center (TCC) - USC Admission Office

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

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    Contact: Rebecca Kinnon

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  • PhD Defense - Ruixin Qiang

    Fri, Oct 19, 2018 @ 10:00 AM - 01:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Student Activity


    Title: Do Humans Play Dice? Choice Making with Randomization

    Time: 10 am on Friday, October 19th, 2018
    Location: SAL 322

    Ph.D. Candidate: Ruixin Qiang

    Committee:
    Prof. David Kempe
    Prof. Shaddin Dughmi
    Prof. Odilon Camara
    Prof. Ming-Deh Huang

    Abstract:
    Making choices with a die sounds unhelpful, and may be adopted only by students who do not know the correct answer during exams. However, there are cases for which rolling a die is the best way to solve the problem. Allocating limited resources fairly is a common scenario that randomness is adopted. For example, the H1B lottery used by USCIS to select who can get the visa. On the other hand, making a choice randomly may be the only way to benefit oneself. In a repeated rock-paper-scissors game, a deterministic player can never win, unless his opponent does not observe he never changes his strategy. In this thesis, we examine several scenarios when randomization does and does not work.

    We first study information structure design, also called ``persuasion'' or ``signaling,'' in the presence of a constraint on the amount of communication. We focus on the fundamental setting of bilateral trade, which in its simplest form involves a seller with a single item to price, a buyer whose value for the item is drawn from a common prior distribution over n different possible values, and a take-it-or-leave-it-offer protocol. A mediator with access to the buyer's type may partially reveal such information to the seller in order to further some objective such as the social welfare or the seller's revenue. A simple example can show that revealing the information deterministically is not optimal for the social welfare. We study how randomization can help in the communication constrained setting.

    We next study the existence of dice-based winner-selection rules for given interim rules. In a winner-selection environment, multiple winners are selected from a candidate set, subject to certain feasibility constraints. The interim rule summarizes the probability of each candidate is selected. We show that when the feasibility constraint is a matroid constraint, any feasible interim rule admits a dice-based implementation. A dice-based implementation associates each candidate a die. To choose the winner, the rule rolls all dice and picks the subset that maximizes the sum of rolled value, subject to the feasibility constraint.

    Aside from the scenarios in which dice can help, we also show two cases when they fail. Both of the cases fall in the Bayesian Persuasion model of Kamenica and Gentzkow. For one setting, we show that our positive algorithmic results for bilateral trade do not extend to communication-constrained signaling in the Bayesian Persuasion model. Specifically, we show that it is NP-hard to approximate the optimal sender's utility to within any constant factor in the presence of communication constraints. For the other, we treat Bayesian persuasion as a winner-selection environment and show an instance that does not admit a dice-based implementation.

    Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 322

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Ryan Rozan

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  • W.V.T. RUSCH ENGINEERING HONORS COLLOQUIUM

    Fri, Oct 19, 2018 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM

    USC Viterbi School of Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Jakob van Zyl , Director for Solar System Exploration, Jet Propulsion Laboratory

    Talk Title: Exploring the Solar System and Beyond

    Host: EHP and Dr. Prata

    Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Amanda McCraven

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  • Repeating EventEssentials of Composites Manufacturing

    Sat, Oct 20, 2018 @ 08:00 AM - 05:00 PM

    Executive Education

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Abstract: Essentials of Composites Manufacturing provides a high-level overview of manufacturing science and engineering for aerospace composite structures, focusing on prepreg and liquid molding processes, including hands-on laboratory demonstrations.
    Course participants will complete a multiple-choice quiz as a knowledge assessment, available online at the end of the course. When the course and quiz have been successfully completed, participants will receive USC Continuing Education Units.

    More Info: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/chemical-engineering-materials-science/essentials-composites-manufacturing/

    Audiences: Registered Attendees

    View All Dates

    Contact: Corporate & Professional Programs

    Event Link: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/chemical-engineering-materials-science/essentials-composites-manufacturing/

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  • MESA College And Career Day

    MESA College And Career Day

    Sat, Oct 20, 2018 @ 09:00 AM - 02:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering K-12 STEM Center

    Receptions & Special Events


    Middle and high school students from the USC Viterbi STEM Educational Outreach Programs (including from USC MESA),as well as students from the MESA centers at UCLA, CSULA, CSULB, UCSB, UC Riverside, SD State, UC Irvine, Imperial Valley, and Chapman will be attending. We are expecting about 1,000 students plus their teachers and parents. The day will consist of a college fair, workshops, campus tours and hands-on activities.

    If you are interested in volunteering, email stemeop@usc.edu

    Location: Founders and Associates Park

    Audiences: Middle and high school students

    Contact: Darin Gray/Viterbi STEM Educational Outreach

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  • Discover USC - Minneapolis

    Sat, Oct 20, 2018 @ 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    Receptions & Special Events


    Join the USC Admission Office at the Discover USC admission program in Minneapolis.

    This program provides high school seniors and their families with an opportunity to meet admission counselors, alumni, and other prospective students and their parents.

    RSVP for Discover USC

    Location: Minneapolis Marriott City Center

    Audiences: Prospective Freshmen & Family Members

    Contact: Viterbi Admission

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  • Discover USC - South Florida

    Sat, Oct 20, 2018 @ 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    Receptions & Special Events


    Join the USC Admission Office at the Discover USC admission program in South Florida.

    This program provides high school seniors and their families with an opportunity to meet admission counselors, alumni, and other prospective students and their parents.

    RSVP for Discover USC

    Location: Hollywood Beach Marriott

    Audiences: Prospective Freshmen & Family Members

    Contact: Viterbi Admission

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