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Events for April 30, 2025
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EiS Communications Hub - Tutoring for Engineering Ph.D. StudentsWed, Apr 30, 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. -
PhD Thesis Proposal - Kegan Strawn
Wed, Apr 30, 2025 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
Title: Conformal Prediction for Safe Robot Planning in Dynamic Environments
Date and Time: Wednesday, 04/30/25 - 11:00a - 12:00p
Location: GCS 502C
Committee Members: Lars Lindemann, Nora Ayanian, Jyotirmoy Vinay Deshmukh, Erdem Biyik, Ketan Savla
Abstract: Safe robot navigation in dynamic environments around other uncontrolled agents is a central challenge for robotics. This thesis proposal explores statistical tools to quantify uncertainty in control and planning for collision avoidance applications in new and challenging problem settings. First, we introduce conformal predictive safety filters, which augment reinforcement learning policies with learned safety layers that avoid uncertainty regions around dynamic agents, providing probabilistic safety guarantees and reducing collisions without being overly conservative. We then extend this idea to multi-agent pathfinding (MAPF) with CP-Solver, a novel variant of Enhanced Conflict-Based Search that plans around uncontrollable agents. By incorporating uncertainty-aware predictions into planning, CP-Solver offers probabilistic safety guarantees while maintaining high throughput. We conclude with future work on online model selection to robustify and adapt safety filters in real-time, demonstrating safety and performance results through multi-robot drone simulations. Together, these contributions advance safety guarantees and performance in multi-agent systems by combining prediction, uncertainty quantification, and planning.Location: Ginsburg Hall (GCS) - 502C
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kegan Strawn
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 Dissertation Defense - Sabyasachee Baruah
Wed, Apr 30, 2025 @ 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
Title: Character-centric Computational Narrative Understanding
Date and Time: April 30th, 2025: 2:00p - 4:00p
Location: RTH 320
Committee Members: Dr. Shrikanth Narayanan (chair), Dr. Maja Mataric, and Dr. Morteza Dehghani (outside member
Abstract: Narrative is a mechanism through which we try to understand the world. We use stories to communicate with each other, assign meaning to our actions, and create interpersonal bonds through similar experiences. It is important to study narratives to find the qualities of effective storytelling, understand how they enable human collaboration, and study the representation of people and ideas. However, even though substantial discourse on narrative understanding exists in the research community, it lacks a uniform and structured computational approach. Therefore, in this dissertation, I define narrativity and propose a modality-agnostic computational pipeline to study narratives. I identify the essential building blocks of narratives – characters, events, attributes, and relations – and define how their interaction creates narrativity. I focus on the character-centric tasks of the proposed pipeline to underscore the importance of narrative characters. I categorize the various character understanding tasks, and present my contributions towards the resolution and attribution tasks, building towards a holistic understanding of the narrative.
Zoom Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/95907531652?pwd=6eNMG5kHGUec6zICZKYaan3HebWvGS.1
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 320
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Sabyasachee Baruah
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 30, 2025 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Kathryn Matlack, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Talk Title: TBD
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. -
ECE Pioneer Talk - Prof. Alice Parker
Wed, Apr 30, 2025 @ 04:00 PM - 06:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Alice Parker, Professor Emerita, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, USC
Talk Title: From Silicon to the Brain using Microelectronics as a Bridge
Series: ECE Pioneer Series
Abstract: This presentation spans 55 years of my career in science and engineering, from graduate school in the MSEE program at Stanford to final research at the University of Southern California as a Dean's Professor. My background in electronic circuits laid the groundwork for my final two decades of research in electronics to model the brain, a research interest I had for my entire career but placed on hold due to successes early on with graduate students on high-level synthesis of digital circuits, including system and intranet synthesis. The talk focuses first on high-level synthesis of digital circuits and then on the BioRC Biomimetic Research Cortex, a project focused on building an electronic brain based on pulseand timing circuits.
Biography: Alice C. Parker is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Southern California and is a former Division Director for Computer Engineering, a former Dean of Graduate Studies, and a former Vice Provost for Research at USC. She was elected President of the Academic Senate in 1993. She was previously on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon. Dr. Parker received the B.S.E.E. and Ph.D degrees from North Carolina State University and an M.S.E.E. from Stanford University. She was elected a Fellow of the IEEE for her contributions to design automation in the areas of high-level synthesis, hardware description languages and design representation. She also received an NSF Faculty Award for Women Scientists and Engineers, an NSF Fellowship, an award from ASEE (the Sharon Keillor award), and an teaching award from the Viterbi school.
Host: Richard Leahy, leahy@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - EEB 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Cathy Huang
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor.
