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Events for the 2nd week of January
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EiS Communications Hub Drop-In Hours
Mon, Jan 08, 2024 @ 10:00 AM - 01:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Viterbi Ph.D. students are invited to stop by the EiS Communications Hub for one-on-one instruction for their academic and professional communications tasks. All instruction is provided by Viterbi faculty at the Engineering in Society Program.
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?authuser=0
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EiS Communications Hub Drop-In Hours
Wed, Jan 10, 2024 @ 10:00 AM - 01:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Viterbi Ph.D. students are invited to stop by the EiS Communications Hub for one-on-one instruction for their academic and professional communications tasks. All instruction is provided by Viterbi faculty at the Engineering in Society Program.
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?authuser=0
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PhD Thesis Defense - Chung-Wei Lee
Wed, Jan 10, 2024 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
PhD Thesis Defense - Chung-Wei Lee
Committee Members:
Haipeng Luo (chair)
Ashutosh Nayyar
Vatsal Sharan
Title:
No-Regret Learning and Last-Iterate Convergence in Games
Abstract:
No-regret learning (or online learning) is a general framework for studying sequential decision-making. Within this framework, the learner iteratively makes decisions, receives feedback, and adjusts their strategies. In this thesis, we consider analyzing the learning dynamics of no-regret algorithms in game scenarios where players play a single game repeatedly with particular no-regret algorithms. This exploration not only raises fundamental questions at the intersection of machine learning and game theory but also stands as a vital element when developing recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence.
A notable instance of this influence is the widespread adoption of the “self-play” concept in game AI development, exemplified in games such as Go and Poker. With this technique, AI agents learn how to play by competing against themselves to enhance their performance step by step. In the terminology of literature focused on learning in games, the method involves running a set of online learning algorithms for players in the game to compute and approximate their game equilibria. To learn more efficiently in games, it is critical to design better online learning algorithms. Standard notions evaluating online learning algorithms in games include “regret,” assessing the average quality of iterates, and “last-iterate convergence,” representing the quality of the final iterates.
In this thesis, we design online learning algorithms and prove that they achieve near-optimal regret or fast last-iterate convergence in various game settings. We start from the simplest two-player zero-sum normal-form games and extend the results to multi-player games, extensive-form games that capture sequential interaction and imperfect information, and finally, the most general convex games. Moreover, we also analyze the weaknesses of prevalent online learning algorithms widely employed in practice and propose a fix for them. This not only makes the algorithms more robust but also sheds light on getting better learning algorithms for artificial intelligence in the future.Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 306
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Events
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Viterbi Impact Program Information Session
Thu, Jan 11, 2024 @ 06:00 PM - 07:00 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Want to make a difference in the Los Angeles Community? Join the Viterbi Impact Program! The Viterbi Impact Program (VIP) helps connect Viterbi students to volunteer opportunities through USC's K-12 STEM Center and local community organizations. Join this information session to learn more about VIP and the value of service in the local community and the engineering profession.
Location: Private Location (register to display)
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Noe Mora
Event Link: https://engage.usc.edu/viterbi/rsvp?id=394093
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EiS Communications Hub Drop-In Hours
Fri, Jan 12, 2024 @ 10:00 AM - 01:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Viterbi Ph.D. students are invited to stop by the EiS Communications Hub for one-on-one instruction for their academic and professional communications tasks. All instruction is provided by Viterbi faculty at the Engineering in Society Program.
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?authuser=0
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Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Fri, Jan 12, 2024 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Bingfei Yu, Ph.D., Assistant Professor Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology - USC-KSOM
Talk Title: "Decoding and rewiring immune recognition at single-cell resolution"
Abstract: Cells sense and respond to the external world with cell surface receptors. Each receptor is like a lock that can only be opened with the right key ligand. One of the greatest challenges is finding the special key that unlocks each receptor, e.g. on individual immune cells that each possess a distinct T cell receptor which recognizes a unique antigen. I developed a viral platform termed ENTER to approach this problem at scale, and read out ligand specificity, receptor identity, and cell fate consequences in single cells. I further engineered ENTER to achieve targeted delivery of therapeutic payload to antigen-specific immune cells, from "reading" receptors to "writing" cell compositions based on receptor identity. This work uncovers immune recognition and communication principles, and offers translational avenues in autoimmunity and cancer immunotherapy.
Biography: Dr. Bingfei Yu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular Microbiology & Immunology and a primary member of Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. She earned her Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of California, San Diego, where she worked with Prof. Ananda Goldrath on differentiation pathways of T cells combating infectious diseases and cancer. During her postdoc research in the lab of Prof. Howard Chang at Stanford, Bingfei explored epigenetics, viral engineering, and single cell genomics to develop technologies that decode immune recognition and molecular blueprints. She is a recipient of Parker Bridge Fellow, Baxter Foundation Faculty Fellow, and the V scholar award.
Host: Keyue Shen, Ph.D.
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 100 B
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Carla Stanard