Select a calendar:
Filter September Events by Event Type:
SUNMONTUEWEDTHUFRISAT
Events for September 20, 2022
-
Intel Tabling Electrical, Computer Eng. & Computer Science majors (On-Campus)
Tue, Sep 20, 2022 @ 11:00 AM - 03:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Workshops & Infosessions
Intel Corporation will be hosting a tabling day for all Electrical, Computer Eng. & Computer Science majors. This event is open and outdoors.
The event is open to all BS, MS, and PHD students.Location: EPSTEIN FAMILY PLAZA (On-Campus)
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections
-
Computer Science General Faculty Meeting
Tue, Sep 20, 2022 @ 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 only. Event details emailed directly to attendees.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 526 - Hybrid
Audiences: Invited Faculty Only
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
-
Why is a Law Firm Hiring Engineers? Holland & Hart Patent Engineer Info Session (Virtual, External)
Tue, Sep 20, 2022 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Workshops & Infosessions
Why is a Law Firm Hiring Engineers? Holland & Hart Patent Engineer Info Session (Virtual)
1 to 2 pm
Holland & Hart is a multi-practice law firm based in the Mountain West. One major focus of ours is to change the way patents are prepared and prosecuted. Here, we help our clients protect many of the cutting-edge technologies that define how we live, work, and communicate and we are hiring Patent Engineers to continue this rapid and innovative growth.
During this info session you will learn what a Patent Engineer does and how you can join this amazing team. There will be time for a Q & A session.
For more information before the info session click this link-https://hhpatentcareers.com/patent-engineers
External employer-hosted events and activities are not affiliated with the USC Viterbi Career Connections Office. They are posted on Viterbi Career Connections because they may be of interest to members of the Viterbi community. Inclusion of any activity does not indicate USC sponsorship or endorsement of that activity or event. It is the participants responsibility to apply due diligence, exercise caution when participating, and report concerns to vcareers@usc.edu.
Location: online
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections
-
PhD Thesis Proposal - Heramb Nemlekar
Tue, Sep 20, 2022 @ 01:30 PM - 03:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
PhD Candidate: Heramb Nemlekar
Title: Efficiently Learning Human Preferences for Proactive Robot Assistance in Assembly Tasks
Date: 09/20/22 (Tuesday)
Time: 1:30 pm
Hybrid Presentation
Location: SAL 322
Zoom URL: https://usc.zoom.us/j/92429044874?pwd=ZExXK2dRamtWK1V0MUswOVVUdnJzZz09
Committee:
Gaurav Sukhatme
Heather Culbertson
Jyotirmoy Deshmukh
Satyandra K. Gupta
Stefanos Nikolaidis
Abstract:
I focus on enabling robots to proactively assist assembly workers by anticipating their future actions. Since each worker can have their own preferred way of performing an assembly, assistive robots must learn the individual preferences of their users to anticipate their actions accurately. Previous work in this field learns human preferences in the form of a policy or a reward function from user demonstrations in the given task. However, obtaining demonstrations can be tedious and time-consuming in actual assemblies. While recent approaches try to efficiently learn user preferences through actively generated queries instead of demonstrations, they do not leverage any prior knowledge of the users' preferences. In this work, I propose exploiting (1) similarities between preferences of different users in a given task and (2) similarities between different tasks performed by a given user to learn the user's preference efficiently. Based on our insight that different users can be grouped into a small set of dominant preferences, I present a novel approach for efficiently inferring the preferences of new users by matching their actions to a dominant preference cluster. For leveraging similarities between tasks, I propose learning user preferences as a function of task-agnostic features (like the mental and physical effort of actions) such that we can transfer their preferences from a canonical to an actual assembly task. I evaluate these approaches in user studies of real-world assembly tasks and show how each prior source of user preference can improve the accuracy of anticipating user actions. I also present a human-robot assembly study that shows how proactively assisting users by anticipating their actions can reduce human-idle time and improve user experience. Finally, I discuss our proposal for jointly leveraging similarities between users and tasks to accurately anticipate user actions.
Location: 322
WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/92429044874?pwd=ZExXK2dRamtWK1V0MUswOVVUdnJzZz09
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Lizsl De Leon
-
Epstein Institute - ISE 651 Seminar
Tue, Sep 20, 2022 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Krishna Rajan , Professor, Dept. of Materials Design and Innovation, University of Buffalo
Talk Title: Mapping Information Connectivity in Materials Science
Host: Prof. Carl Kesselman
More Information: September 20, 2022.pdf
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - GER 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Grace Owh
-
Catalyst Discovery for Metal-Free, Photoredox CO2 Reduction
Tue, Sep 20, 2022 @ 04:00 PM - 05:20 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Shaama Sharada, Assistant Professor
Talk Title: Catalyst Discovery for Metal-Free, Photoredox CO2 Reduction
Abstract: Organic photoredox catalysis will be an important part of an energy-efficient, sustainable future as these
catalysts can access highly reactive states upon excitation and quenching to carry out reactions that are
otherwise thermally inaccessible or energy-intensive. Our group aims to identify sustainable photoredox
routes for CO2 utilization. Prior experiments show that a simple organic chromophore, p-terphenyl, can
reduce and transform CO2 into useful molecules such as amino acids. However, the steps of the photoredox
cycle and reasons for low turnover numbers of these catalysts are poorly understood. Our goal is to utilize
quantum chemistry methods to delineate mechanisms of key steps in this cycle and leverage these insights to
drive discovery of novel chromophores that are both active and yield high turnover numbers. Thus far, we
have demonstrated that the electron transfer (ET) step from the p-terphenyl radical anion to CO2 is adiabatic,
and ET barriers are lowered when electron-donating groups are substituted to p- terminal positions of the
catalyst. To probe degradation pathways from the excited state, we are establishing a protocol for calculation
and characterization of excited-state donor-acceptor charge transfer complexes in collaboration with the
Dawlaty group (USC). We are also taking our first steps towards driving discovery of new chromophores by
implementing a genetic algorithm (GA) whose fitness function factors in both catalyst activity and
degradation resistance by means of simple descriptors obtained from routine DFT calculations. The GA yields
several candidates that are more viable than experimentally studied terphenyls, highlighting the importance of
automated computational tools in accelerating experimental efforts.
Biography: Dr. Shaama Mallikarjun Sharada is the WiSE Gabilan Assistant Professor in the Mork Family Department of
Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at USC.
Her research interests span the development and application of quantum chemistry methods to design catalysts
for sustainable chemistry transformations. Her group is developing efficient algorithms, inspired from signal
processing, for advancing sophisticated rate theories in catalysis. The group is also establishing frameworks for
catalyst design and discovery towards efficient natural gas conversion and light-assisted carbon dioxide
utilization. Dr. Sharada received her Bachelors and Masters in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute
of Technology, Bombay (India) where she was awarded the Institute Gold Medal. She received her PhD in
Chemical Engineering from UC Berkeley in 2015 for developing efficient reaction path search algorithms for
catalysis. As a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University, her work spanned the development of machine
learning density functionals and surface chemistry benchmarking databases. She is a recipient of the 2022
inaugural Chevron Research Innovation Award (USC) and the 2020 ACS Petroleum Research Fund Doctoral New Investigator Award. She is also a Scialog Fellow for the Negative Emissions Science initiative.
Host: Mork Family Department
More Information: Shaama Sharada Seminar Flyer 9 20.pdf
Location: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 352
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Anthony Tritto
-
Abbott Snack and Chat
Tue, Sep 20, 2022 @ 05:00 PM - 07:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Workshops & Infosessions
Abbott will hosting an evening snack and chat for USC Viterbi students on September 20th at 5pm! Come enjoy snacks and learn more about Abbott career opportunities.
September 20 from 5 to 7pm
RTH 211
RSVP in Viterbi Career Gateway
What majors and degree levels are you interested in connecting with? All Engineering Majors and grade levels. Are you recruiting for internships, full-time, or both? Internships. Can you offer Visa sponsorship? Are you able to hire a student on CPT or OPT? NoLocation: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections
