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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250410T103000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250410T120000
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250322T150920Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250322T150920Z
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SUMMARY:MSE/MEAM Seminar: "Converting Scientific Discovery and Disruptive Ideas Into Impactful Energy Technologies with ARPA-E" Laurent Pilon: ARPA-E
DESCRIPTION:This talk presents the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) and how stakeholders at the University of Pennsylvania can engage in a dialog with the funding agency. ARPA-E advances high-risk high-impact transformational technologies to generate\, store\, and use energy. As part of the US Department of Energy\, ARPA-E’s mission is to enhance the economic and energy security of the United States through the development of energy technologies that (i) reduce energy import\, (ii) improve energy efficiency\, (iii) reduce greenhouse gas emissions\, and (iv) ensure the resilience\, reliability\, and security of the U.S. energy infrastructure. Another mission of ARPA-E is to ensure that the United States maintains a technological lead in developing and deploying advanced energy technologies. These missions are achieved through rigorous program development\, competitive project selection\, and active program management to ensure impactful expenditures. We will discuss the different funding mechanisms\, the lifecycle of ARPA-E programs and how stakeholders can engage at different stages. This discussion will be illustrated with the speaker’s experience as a faculty member at UCLA and in his roles at ARPA-E where he developed and managed the following programs: \n\nIGNIITE supporting early-career innovators seeking to convert disruptive ideas into impactful new technologies across the full spectrum of energy applications.\nCIRCULAR developing foundational technologies to achieve a circular electric vehicle battery supply chain.\nSuperconducting Tape program aiming to manufacture high performance\, low cost\, high temperature superconducting tapes to support developments in fusion reactors\, electric aviation\, and power transmission.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/mse-seminar-converting-scientific-discovery-and-disruptive-ideas-into-impactful-energy-technologies-with-arpa-e-lauren-pilon-arpa-e/
LOCATION:Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101)\, Levine Hall\, 3330 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Seminar
ORGANIZER;CN="Materials Science and Engineering":MAILTO:johnruss@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250410T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250410T110000
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250331T173405Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250331T173405Z
UID:10008343-1744279200-1744282800@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:MEAM Ph.D. Thesis Defense: "Macroscopic Ensemble Methods for Multi Robot Task Assignment in Dynamic Environments"
DESCRIPTION:With finite resources to complete tasks like monitoring\, coverage\, and search\, the challenge lies in identifying and performing tasks that can change both in frequency and location. One potential solution is teams of robots equipped with the necessary capabilities to complete the desired tasks. However\, robot teams require methods that effectively assign robots to tasks\, which is also known as the Multi Robot Task Allocation (MRTA) problem. Existing MRTA approaches assign each individual robot to a task. This works well if the team is small (less than 20 robots) and if the individual task specification does not change (monitoring a static environment). Unfortunately\, these solutions require solving a combinatorial optimization problem which has poor computational scalability as the team and number of tasks increase\, and is further exacerbated by changing task or environment conditions. An alternative perspective is to look at how biologists study animal resource selection. Instead of posing the problem of assigning animals to resources\, animals randomly select a resource weighted by the perceived resource value resulting in beneficial population configurations. Taking inspiration from biology\, we model team-wide objectives using macroscopic ensemble allocation. These methods allow robots to select stationary task regions\, are known to easily control large robot teams (more than 50 robots)\, and can even describe robot team heterogeneity. Nevertheless\, macroscopic ensemble methods require extensions to effectively solve the MRTA problem for tasks where conditions change\, e.g.\, monitoring spatiotemporal processes. The main contributions of this dissertation include online adaptive macroscopic allocation\, distributed adaptive macroscopic allocation\, and macroscopic allocation via robot-robot collaboration. Our results show robot teams monitoring spatial temporal environments using simulation and robot experiments.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/meam-ph-d-thesis-defense-macroscopic-ensemble-methods-for-multi-robot-task-assignment-in-dynamic-environments/
LOCATION:Levine 307\, 3330 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Doctoral,Dissertation or Thesis Defense
ORGANIZER;CN="Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics":MAILTO:meam@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250409T153000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250409T163000
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20241216T200401Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241216T200401Z
UID:10008202-1744212600-1744216200@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:CBE Seminar: "Value-added Transformations in Electrocatalysis and Graduate Education" (Maureen Tang\, Drexel University)
DESCRIPTION:Abstract: \n\nElectrifying the chemical industry has been much touted as a path to a low-carbon future\, but nearly all pathways of interest are electrochemical reductions. If we want water-to-hydrogen\, CO2-to-chemicals\, or nitrogen-to-ammonia\, from where will we get the electrons? Water-to-oxygen is thermodynamically expensive\, kinetically slow\, and generates a zero-value product. This talk will discuss two potential avenues of investigation for value-added electron-holes. In the first\, we seek to determine the mechanism of six-electron water oxidation to ozone. We discuss our efforts to identify intermediates\, understand the role of dopants\, and deconvolute catalysis from corrosion in electrochemical ozone production. In the second\, we investigate the feasibility of electrocatalytic cyclohexane oxidation. Our results show that molecular oxygen\, not water\, is the primary oxygen source\, with implications for radical intermediates. We furthermore demonstrate the impact of cross-over in these systems and point to the importance of electrochemical reactor design in lab-scale studies. In the final part of this talk\, I will discuss non-technical limitations to the aforementioned approach. I will incorporate advances in behavioral economics and organizational behavior into a novel mentoring activity for PhD students while exploring themes of scarcity and abundance in the modern university.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/cbe-seminar-value-added-transformations-in-electrocatalysis-and-graduate-education-maureen-tang-drexel-university/
LOCATION:Wu & Chen Auditorium
CATEGORIES:Seminar
ORGANIZER;CN="Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering":MAILTO:cbemail@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250409T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250409T140000
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250403T210257Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250403T210257Z
UID:10008350-1744203600-1744207200@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:Spring 2025 GRASP SFI: Lillian Ratliff\, University of Washington\, “Fragile Foundations? Building Robustness into Reasoning with Algorithmic Agents”
DESCRIPTION:This will be a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Levine 307 and virtual attendance on Zoom. \nABSTRACT\nAs AI-enabled systems become integral to critical domains\, their robustness is increasingly tested by dynamic environments\, continual learning\, and inferential uncertainty. Whether an AI proxy informs high-stakes medical decisions or an embodied agent relies on a foundation model to reason across modalities\, today’s training and deployment methodologies remain inherently fragile. This fragility often stems from a reliance on stationarity assumptions\, overly symmetric training paradigms\, and a failure to account for other adapting agents—leading to systems that generalize poorly\, misestimate uncertainty\, and break down in interactive settings.\n\n\nThis talk presents recent theoretical contributions and algorithmic design principles for robust inference and influence when reasoning with algorithmic agents. In particular\, it explores how tools from control and game theory—when integrated into machine learning\, and vice versa—enable uncertainty adaptation and the synthesis of decision-making strategies for influencing algorithmic agents. Through motivating examples\, the talk will illustrate how bridging these disciplines leads to more robust AI systems that can reason\, adapt\, and interact effectively in complex\, non-stationary environments. The first part will focus on algorithms with non-asymptotic convergence guarantees in time-varying settings with a hierarchical game structure. The second part will address uncertainty quantification and adaptation in safety-critical\, multi-agent\, embodied AI systems. The talk will conclude with a discussion of open questions and future directions.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/spring-2025-grasp-sfi-lillian-ratliff/
LOCATION:Levine 307\, 3330 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Seminar
ORGANIZER;CN="General Robotics%2C Automation%2C Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Lab":MAILTO:grasplab@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250409T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250409T131500
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250402T130550Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250402T130550Z
UID:10008347-1744200000-1744204500@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:ASSET Seminar: "Alignment and Control with Representation Engineering"
DESCRIPTION:Abstract: \nLarge Language Models (LLMs) are vulnerable to adversarial attacks\, which bypass common safeguards put in place to prevent these models from generating harmful output. Notably\, these attacks can be transferrable to other models—even proprietary ones—potentially compromising a wide range of AI systems with a single exploit. This surprising fragility underscores a critical weakness in current AI safeguards. \nIn this talk\, we illustrate how these attacks are discovered\, and several recent advances that take advantage of models’ internal representations to thwart them. Unlike much prior work that relies on adversarial training methods\, this approach directly controls neural representations responsible for harmful and unwanted behaviors\, while remaining agnostic to particular attacks. Notably\, in start contrast with prior work we show that these methods can remain effective while preserving the model’s performance on non-adversarial inputs. Our findings suggest that achieving robust safety in generative models may be an attainable goal. \nZoom Link:https://upenn.zoom.us/j/95869536469
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/asset-seminar-alignment-and-control-with-representation-engineering/
LOCATION:Amy Gutmann Hall\, Room 414\, 3333 Chestnut Street\, Philadelphia\, 19104\, United States
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250408T101500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250408T111500
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250324T175817Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250324T175817Z
UID:10008327-1744107300-1744110900@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:MEAM Seminar: “Learning Memory and Material Dependent Constitutive Laws”
DESCRIPTION:The theory of homogenization provides a systematic approach to the derivation of macroscale constitutive laws\, obviating the need to repeatedly resolve complex microstructure. However\, the unit cell problem which defines the constitutive model is typically not amenable to analytical solution. It is therefore of interest to learn constitutive models from data generated by the unit cell problem. Many viscoelastic and elastoviscoplastic materials are characterized by memory-dependent constitutive laws. Furthermore\, in order to amortize the computational investment in finding such memory-dependent constitutive laws\, it is desirable to learn their dependence on the material microstructure.\nWhilst the learning of memory dependence and material dependence have been considered separately\, their joint learning has not been considered. This talk is focused on the joint learning problem and proposes a novel neural operator framework to address it \nIn order to provide firm foundations\, the homogenization problem for linear Kelvin–Voigt viscoelastic materials is studied. The theoretical properties of the cell problem\, in this Kelvin–Voigt setting\, are used to motivate the proposed general neural operator framework; these theoretical properties are also used to prove a universal approximation theorem for the learned macroscale constitutive model. This formulation of learnable constitutive models is then deployed beyond the Kelvin–Voigt setting. Numerical experiments are presented showing that the resulting data-driven methodology accurately learns history- and microstructure-dependent linear viscoelastic and nonlinear elastoviscoplastic constitutive models; numerical results also demonstrate that the resulting constitutive models can be deployed in macroscale simulation of material deformation. \nJoint work with Kaushik Bhattacharya\, Lianghao Cao\, George Stepaniants and Margaret Trautner (all Caltech).
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/meam-seminar-learning-memory-and-material-dependent-constitutive-laws/
LOCATION:Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101)\, Levine Hall\, 3330 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Seminar
ORGANIZER;CN="Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics":MAILTO:meam@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250407T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250407T150000
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250314T182407Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250314T182407Z
UID:10008319-1744034400-1744038000@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:CBE Doctoral Dissertation Defense: "Understanding and Modulating Interactions between Polymers and Nanoparticles for Effective Catalyst Design in Polymer Upcycling" (Anirban Majumder)
DESCRIPTION:Abstract: \n\n\n\nDespite recent advances in catalytic conversion of plastic waste into high-value chemicals\, the interactions between the polymers and catalysts\, which are highly porous nanomaterials\, are not well understood. Fundamental understanding of these interactions and the ability to modulate them would allow us to design effective catalysts for polymer upcycling reactions. To study the interactions between polymers and nanomaterials\, quantifying them is essential. In this thesis\, we employ a quantitative technique to directly measure the contact angle between polymers and nanoparticles\, enabling us to investigate various aspects of polymer-catalyst interactions that are crucial for polymer upcycling reactions. We measure the contact angle of polyolefins with silica nanoparticles\, a commonly used support in heterogeneous catalysis\, and modify the surface chemistry of these nanoparticles by depositing catalytic metals and metal oxides via atomic layer deposition (ALD) and using silane chemistry. Our findings show that the polarizability of polyolefins plays a significant role in their interactions with catalytic support materials\, and modifying the polarity of the support material could be an effective way to tune polymer-catalyst interactions. Further\, we find that the polymer-catalyst interactions are dominated by interactions of the polymers with the support materials and not with the metal catalytic sites. We also probe the influence of common plastic additives\, namely primary antioxidants (PAOs)\, benzophenones and hindered amine light stabilizers (HALS)\, on the polymer-catalyst interactions by adding them to purified high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and measuring the contact angle on silica nanoparticles. We observe that while the addition of PAOs and benzophenones to polyolefins does not affect their interactions with silica significantly\, HALS strongly alter the polymer-silica interactions. Hence\, the presence of different types of additives in plastics might necessitate different strategies to design catalysts for polymer upcycling reactions. Overall\, this thesis sheds light on some key unanswered questions on polymer-catalyst interactions and paves the way for future innovations in polymer upcycling and engineering catalysts for other polymeric reactions.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/cbe-doctoral-dissertation-defense-understanding-and-modulating-interactions-between-polyolefins-and-nanoparticles-for-effective-catalyst-design-in-polymer-upcycling-anirban-majumder/
LOCATION:Raisler Lounge (Room 225)\, Towne Building\, 220 South 33rd Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Doctoral,Student,Dissertation or Thesis Defense
ORGANIZER;CN="Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering":MAILTO:cbemail@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250404T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250404T150000
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250328T182752Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250328T182752Z
UID:10008338-1743771600-1743778800@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:Women in Data Science @ Penn Conference: From Data to Discovery: Exploring AI with a Patient Case Study\, ChatGPT and Generative Models
DESCRIPTION:In today’s data-driven landscape\, vast unstructured data sources — like documents and electronic health records (EHRs) — demand advanced AI tools to unlock their full potential. Generative AI\, powered by large language models (LLMs)\, is becoming indispensable for processing and extracting insights from complex language-based data. \nParticipants will explore: \n\nIdentifying key problems that lend themselves to AI-driven solutions.\nCollecting and preparing data\, building models and running state-of-the-art algorithms.\nValidating models and interpreting their results.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/women-in-data-science-penn-conference-from-data-to-discovery-exploring-ai-with-a-patient-case-study-chatgpt-and-generative-models/
LOCATION:Jon M. Huntsman Hall\, 3730 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:AI Month
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250404T103000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250404T114500
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250218T204413Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250218T204413Z
UID:10008294-1743762600-1743767100@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:Spring 2025 GRASP on Robotics: Reid Simmons\, Carnegie Mellon University\, “AI-Based Assistants for the Elderly”
DESCRIPTION:This will be a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Wu and Chen and virtual attendance on Zoom. \nABSTRACT\nAs the population ages\, the need grows for AI agents to assist people to remain living independently.  Older adults are typically set in their ways\, so AI agents should adapt to their ways of doing things\, rather than the other way around.  To that end\, we are exploring various approaches to learning to personalize assistive agents\, including the use of bandit algorithms\, foundational models\, neuro-symbolic architectures\, and theory of mind.  This talk will present our approaches and results in several assistive areas\, including meal preparation and exercise coaching\, as well as work in learning policies from humans.  Much of the research is being supported by AI-CARING\, an NSF-sponsored Institute devoted to developing AI technologies to help older adults with cognitive and physical decline remain in their homes.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/spring-2025-grasp-on-robotics-reid-simmons-carnegie-mellon-university-ai-based-assistants-for-the-elderly/
LOCATION:Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101)\, Levine Hall\, 3330 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Seminar
ORGANIZER;CN="General Robotics%2C Automation%2C Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Lab":MAILTO:grasplab@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250404T093000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250404T103000
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250327T203720Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250327T203720Z
UID:10008333-1743759000-1743762600@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:CIS Seminar: "Pareto-efficient AI systems: Expanding the quality and efficiency frontier of AI"
DESCRIPTION:We have made exciting progress in AI by massive models on massive amounts of data center compute. However\, the demands for AI are rapidly expanding. I identify how to maximize performance under any compute constraint\, expanding the Pareto frontier of AI capabilities.\n \nThis talk builds up to an efficient language model architecture that expands the Pareto-frontier between quality and throughput efficiency. In motivation\, the Transformer\, AI’s current workhorse architecture\, is memory hungry\, severely limiting its throughput\, or amount of text it can process per second. This has led to a Cambrian explosion of alternate efficient architecture candidates proposed across prior work. Prior work has painted an exciting picture: there exists architectures that are asymptotically faster than Transformers\, while also matching quality. However\, I ask\, if we’re using asymptotically faster building blocks\, are we giving something up in quality?\n\n\nIn part one\, we build understanding. Indeed\, there’s no free lunch! I present my work to identify and explain the fundamental quality and efficiency tradeoffs between different classes of architectures. Methods I developed for this analysis are now ubiquitous in the development of language models.\n\n\nIn part two\, we measure how AI architecture candidates fare on the tradeoff space. A major hurdle\, however\, is that we lack implementations of the architectures that that run at peak-efficiency on modern hardware. Further\, many proposed architectures are asymptotically fast\, but not wall-clock fast. I present ThunderKittens\, a new programming library I built to help AI researchers write simple\, hardware-efficient algorithms across hardware platforms.\n\n\nIn part three\, we expand the Pareto-frontier of the tradeoff space. I present the BASED architecture\, which is built from simple\, hardware-efficient components. I released the state-of-the-art 8B-405B Transformer-free language models\, per standard evaluations\, all on an academic budget.\n\n\nGiven the massive investment into language models\, this work has had significant impact and adoption in research\, open-source\, and industry
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/cis-seminar-pareto-efficient-ai-systems-expanding-the-quality-and-efficiency-frontier-of-ai-3/
LOCATION:Amy Gutmann Hall\, Room 414\, 3333 Chestnut Street\, Philadelphia\, 19104\, United States
ORGANIZER;CN="Computer and Information Science":MAILTO:cherylh@cis.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250404T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250404T160000
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250328T181917Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250328T181917Z
UID:10008337-1743757200-1743782400@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:Penn AI Governance Workshop
DESCRIPTION:This event is presented by the Wharton Accountable AI Lab and co-sponsored by the Wharton AI & Analytics Initiative; Penn Engineering; the Center for Technology\, Innovation & Competition; and the Perry World House. \nThe Penn AI Governance Workshop will feature panel discussions\, lightning talks and networking opportunities\, and will conclude with a reception. \nThe workshop brings together leading Penn researchers to explore key topics\, including AI safety and evaluation\, AI policy\, AI ethics and responsibility\, and teaching AI governance at Penn. Throughout the day\, panel discussions will be interspersed with lightning talks from researchers.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/penn-ai-governance-workshop/
LOCATION:Perry World House\, 3803 Locust Walk\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:AI Month
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250403T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250403T170000
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250320T193257Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250320T193257Z
UID:10008322-1743696000-1743699600@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:A Fireside Chat with Rajeev Misra: Global Trends in Technology\, Business and Human Capital
DESCRIPTION:Misra will share insights on the intersection of technological innovation\, business strategy\, and talent in the AI era\, drawing on his leadership experience in global finance and tech investment. The program will also include the presentation of the 2024 D. Robert Yarnall Award. \nClick here to RSVP to this event.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/global-trends-in-technology-business-and-human-capital/
LOCATION:Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101)\, Levine Hall\, 3330 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:AI Month
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250403T153000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250403T163000
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250327T201307Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250327T201307Z
UID:10008331-1743694200-1743697800@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:CIS Seminar: "Learning\, Reasoning\, and Planning with Neuro-Symbolic Concepts"
DESCRIPTION:I aim to build complete intelligent agents that can continually learn\, reason\, and plan: answer queries\, infer human intentions\, and make long-horizon plans spanning hours to days. In this talk\, I will describe a general learning and reasoning framework based on neuro-symbolic concepts. Drawing inspiration from theories and studies in cognitive science\, neuro-symbolic concepts serve as compositional abstractions of the physical world\, representing object properties\, relations\, and actions. These concepts can be combinatorially reused in flexible and novel ways. Technically\, each neuro-symbolic concept is represented as a combination of symbolic programs\, which define how concepts can be structurally combined (similar to the ways that words form sentences in human language)\, and modular neural networks\, which ground concept names in sensory inputs and agent actions. I show that systems that leverage neuro-symbolic concepts demonstrate superior data efficiency\, enable agents to reason and plan more quickly\, and achieve strong generalization in novel situations and for novel goals. This is illustrated in visual reasoning in 2D\, 3D\, motion\, and video data\, as well as in diverse decision-making tasks spanning virtual agents and real-world robotic manipulation.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/cis-seminar-learning-reasoning-and-planning-with-neuro-symbolic-concepts/
LOCATION:Levine 307\, 3330 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
ORGANIZER;CN="Computer and Information Science":MAILTO:cherylh@cis.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250403T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250403T130000
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250131T215848Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250131T215848Z
UID:10008260-1743681600-1743685200@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:IDEAS/STAT Optimization Seminar: "Stochastic-Gradient-based Algorithms for Solving Nonconvex Constrained Optimization Problems"
DESCRIPTION:Zoom link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/98220304722 \n  \nAbstract\nI will present recent work by my research group on the design and analysis of stochastic-gradient-based algorithms for solving nonconvex constrained optimization problems\, which may arise\, for example\, in informed supervised learning.  I will focus in particular on algorithmic strategies that have consistently been shown to exhibit the best practical performance\, rather than focus on regularization-based methods that are popular for theoretical analyses\, but often fail to yield satisfactory results.  Our algorithms possess solid theoretical convergence guarantees and preliminary experiments motivate continued study.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/ideas-stat-optimization-seminar-frank-e-curtis/
LOCATION:Amy Gutmann Hall\, Room 615
CATEGORIES:Seminar,Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250403T103000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250403T120000
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250217T012425Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250217T012425Z
UID:10008289-1743676200-1743681600@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:MSE Seminar: "Multifunctional Nanoparticles for Targeted Cancer Imaging and Treatment\," Miqin Zhang - Kyocera Chair Professor of Materials Science and Engineering University of Washington
DESCRIPTION:One of our key research areas focuses on developing innovative nanoplatforms for cancer diagnosis\, treatment\, and therapy-response monitoring. We aim to understand material-biosystem interactions and design nanoparticles capable of delivering effective therapeutic payloads. This presentation will discuss strategies for synthesizing and engineering nanoparticles to ensure stability\, extended blood circulation\, and controlled drug release while overcoming biological barriers. I will also highlight the applications of our nanoparticle formulations in targeted delivery of DNAs\, siRNAs\, and mRNAs\, integrated with chemotherapy\, radiation\, and immunotherapy. Our scalable and safe nanoparticles demonstrate effectiveness in overcoming therapy resistance\, metastasis\, and tumor recurrence in various murine models.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/mse-seminar-multifunctional-nanoparticles-for-targeted-cancer-imaging-and-treatment-miqin-zhang-kyocera-chair-professor-of-materials-science-and-engineering-university-of-washington/
LOCATION:Wu & Chen Auditorium
CATEGORIES:Seminar
ORGANIZER;CN="Materials Science and Engineering":MAILTO:johnruss@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250402T153000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250402T163000
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20241216T195635Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241216T195635Z
UID:10008201-1743607800-1743611400@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:CBE Seminar: "Metabolic Engineering and Synthetic Biology for a Sustainable Future" (Hal Alper\, UT Austin)
DESCRIPTION:Abstract: \nRecent technical advances are leading to a rapid transformation of the chemical palette available in cells\, thus making it conceivable to produce nearly any organic molecule of interest—from biofuels to biopolymers to pharmaceuticals. However\, these feats require the ability to “hijack” native cellular machinery and metabolism and navigate the complexity inherent in cellular regulation. This talk will cover examples of how microbial systems and enzyme can achieve the goal of sustainable chemical production and waste valorization. Examples include rewired cells for polymer precursors\, unconventional carbon utilization including plastic waste\, and platform strain engineering. Throughout the talk\, there will be a focus on the biological developments necessary to achieve a sustainable\, circular economy.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/metabolic-engineering-and-synthetic-biology-for-a-sustainable-future-hal-alper-ut-austin/
LOCATION:Wu & Chen Auditorium
CATEGORIES:Seminar
ORGANIZER;CN="Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering":MAILTO:cbemail@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250402T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250402T160000
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250328T181145Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250328T181145Z
UID:10008335-1743606000-1743609600@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:Spring 2025 GRASP SFI: Ke Li\, Simon Fraser University\, “The Devil Is in the Gaps: How (Not) To Interpolate Between Discrete Points”
DESCRIPTION:This will be a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Levine 307 and virtual attendance on Zoom. \nABSTRACT\nWhat do diffusion models/flow matching\, Gaussian splatting and efficient transformer architectures have in common? Under the hood\, they all turn a discrete set of points into a function defined everywhere. In the case of diffusion models/flow matching\, the points are training data points\, and the function is the probability density. In the case of Gaussian splatting\, the points are splat centres and the function is the volume density. In the case of efficient transformers\, the points are keys used by attention and the function is the mapping from query to attention weights.\n\nIt turns out that *how* gaps between points are filled in is critical — in this talk\, I will show how seemingly innocent choices made in popular techniques give rise to profound consequences. Such choices make diffusion models/flow matching data-hungry and slow to sample from\, Gaussian splats hard to move and edit\, and hashing-based efficient transformers error-prone. To address these issues\, I will give an overview of three methods my lab developed\, Implicit Maximum Likelihood Estimation (IMLE)\, Proximity Attention Point Rendering (PAPR) and IceFormer\, and show applications in few-shot image synthesis\, trajectory prediction\, visuomotor policy learning\, novel view synthesis\, 3D shape and albedo editing\, scene interpolation and language modelling.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/spring-2025-grasp-sfi-ke-li/
LOCATION:Levine 307\, 3330 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Seminar
ORGANIZER;CN="General Robotics%2C Automation%2C Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Lab":MAILTO:grasplab@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250402T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250402T131500
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20241118T151023Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241118T151023Z
UID:10008177-1743595200-1743599700@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:ASSET Seminar: "Getting Lost in ML Safety Vibes"
DESCRIPTION:Abstract:  \nMachine learning applications are increasingly reliant on black-box pretrained models. To ensure safe use of these models\, techniques such as unlearning\, guardrails\, and watermarking have been proposed to curb model behavior and audit usage. Unfortunately\, while these post-hoc approaches give positive safety ‘vibes’ when evaluated in isolation\, our work shows that existing techniques are quite brittle when deployed as part of larger systems. In a series of recent works\, we show that: (a) small amounts of auxiliary data can be used to ‘jog’ the memory of unlearned models; (b) current unlearning benchmarks obscure deficiencies in both finetuning and guardrail-based approaches; and (c) simple\, scalable attacks erode existing LLM watermarking systems and reveal fundamental trade-offs in watermark design. Taken together\, these results highlight major deficiencies in the practical use of post-hoc ML safety methods. We end by discussing promising alternatives to ML safety\, which instead aim to ensure safety by design during the development of ML systems. \nZoom Link (if unable to attend in-person): https://upenn.zoom.us/j/91619533220
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/asset-seminar-virginia-smith-carnegie-mellon-university/
LOCATION:Amy Gutmann Hall\, Room 414\, 3333 Chestnut Street\, Philadelphia\, 19104\, United States
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250401T163000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250401T183000
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250328T181124Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250328T181124Z
UID:10008336-1743525000-1743532200@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:AI Across Disciplines: A Penn Initiative
DESCRIPTION:Join President J. Larry Jameson and Provost John L. Jackson\, Jr. along with the Penn AI Council for the launch of Penn AI. \nSenior Vice Provost for Research Dawn Bonnell will lead a discussion with members of the Penn AI Council to explore AI’s societal implications and Penn’s potential to influence a more sustainable future. \nPanelists \nMarylyn Ritchie\, the Edward Rose\, M.D. and Elizabeth Kirk Rose\, M.D. Professor and Vice Dean of Artificial Intelligence and Computing at the Perelman School of Medicine (PSOM) \nRené Vidal\, Rachleff University Professor and Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor\, with joint appointments in PSOM and the School of Engineering and Applied Science (Penn Engineering)\, and Director of the Center for Innovation in Data Engineering and Science (IDEAS) \nLynn Wu\, Associate Professor of Operations\, Information and Decisions at the Wharton School \nBhuvnesh Jain\, Walter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professor in the Natural Sciences and Co-Director of the Penn Data Driven Discovery Initiative in the School of Arts & Sciences \nDuncan Watts\, Stevens University Professor and Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor in Penn Engineering\, the Annenberg School for Communication and Wharton \nReception to follow
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/ai-across-disciplines-a-penn-initiative/
LOCATION:Amy Gutmann Hall\, Auditorium\, 3333 Chestnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:AI Month
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250401T153000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250401T163000
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250327T195955Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250327T195955Z
UID:10008330-1743521400-1743525000@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:CIS Seminar: "Generative Computer Vision for the Physical World"
DESCRIPTION:Generative models are revolutionizing our world\, with the ability to generate photorealistic visual content that are indistinguishable from reality. Despite their overwhelming presence in the cyber world\, they haven’t been very useful in the physical world that we live in. In this talk\, I will present how the rich priors learned by large-scale generative models—ranging from shape and geometry to motion and dynamics—can be harnessed for real-world perception and interaction tasks. I will showcase how these models can facilitate tasks like 3D reconstruction and robotic manipulation by incorporating the structure of the physical world. Moreover\, I will discuss methods to further refine and adapt these systems through self-learning\, enabling machines to continually improve as they explore new scenarios and environments. Together\, these breakthroughs build the foundation for my vision of creating self-supervised machines that can perceive and interact with the physical world.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/cis-seminar-generative-computer-vision-for-the-physical-world/
LOCATION:Amy Gutmann Hall\, Room 414\, 3333 Chestnut Street\, Philadelphia\, 19104\, United States
ORGANIZER;CN="Computer and Information Science":MAILTO:cherylh@cis.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250401T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250401T130000
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250331T170944Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250331T170944Z
UID:10008342-1743505200-1743512400@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:CBE Doctoral Dissertation Defense: "Tailoring MXene Chemistry through Composition and Undercoordination for Applications in Hydrogen Chemistries" (Yamilée Morency)
DESCRIPTION:Abstract: \nGlobal transition to clean energy relies on the development of efficient hydrogen storage materials and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalysts—two primary chemistries investigated in this thesis. MXenes\, a family of two-dimensional transition metal carbides and nitrides\, have emerged as promising candidates for hydrogen technologies due to their high electrical conductivity\, chemical tunability\, and structural versatility. Yet\, the mechanisms by which their chemical composition and morphology—particularly atomic coordination environments—influence performance in hydrogen-related chemistries remain insufficiently understood. \nThis work employs atomic-scale high-throughput modeling\, primarily based on density functional theory (DFT)\, to systematically investigate how compositional tuning and under-coordination affect hydrogen adsorption and catalytic activity across a wide range of MXene structures. The role of under-coordination is probed through the modeling of MXene nanoribbons and nanoparticles\, revealing that edge environments significantly impact hydrogen adsorption\, with certain configurations exhibiting enhanced catalytic activity relative to basal planes. \nThe study further explores the chemistry and HER performance of representative MXenes\, including Mo₂TiC₂O₂ and other double-transition-metal systems\, and identifies key structural and electronic features governing their behavior. The results demonstrate that both composition and under-coordination are powerful levers for optimizing MXenes in hydrogen storage and HER applications. By establishing structure–property relationships and uncovering relevant electronic descriptors\, this thesis provides guidance for the design of MXene-based hydrogen technologies. These findings support the development of low-cost\, earth-abundant alternatives to platinum catalysts and contribute to the broader effort of enabling sustainable hydrogen solutions through computational materials discovery.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/cbe-doctoral-dissertation-defense-tailoring-mxene-chemistry-through-composition-and-undercoordination-for-applications-in-hydrogen-chemistries-yamilee-morency/
LOCATION:Amy Gutmann Hall\, Room 414\, 3333 Chestnut Street\, Philadelphia\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Doctoral,Student,Dissertation or Thesis Defense
ORGANIZER;CN="Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering":MAILTO:cbemail@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250401T101500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250401T111500
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250303T144817Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250303T144817Z
UID:10008308-1743502500-1743506100@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:MEAM Seminar: "Sticky Situations: Cohesion in Granular Flows"
DESCRIPTION:From silo discharge and granular avalanches to the erosion of granular beds\, granular materials play a central role in many industrial and environmental processes. While significant advances have been made in understanding the statics and dynamics of cohesionless grains\, the role of interparticle adhesion\, which fundamentally alters bulk rheology and transport mechanisms\, remains elusive. In this talk\, we will discuss recent experimental efforts to systematically control and characterize model cohesive granular materials\, allowing us to quantify the impact of cohesion in various configurations. By using model adhesive grains\, we probe the role of interparticle adhesion in several canonical flow scenarios: granular discharge from a silo\, where cohesion governs clogging onset and flow rate reduction; erosion of a granular bed by an impinging turbulent jet\, where cohesive forces delay particle entrainment; and the collapse of a cohesive granular column\, where cohesion enhances stability. These experiments provide a framework to rationalize the dynamics of cohesive granular materials\, bridging the gap between idealized numerical models and real-world applications. The study of cohesive granular materials offers predictive frameworks for controlling granular materials in engineering applications\, with implications ranging from powder handling in industrial processes to geophysical flows.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/meam-seminar-sticky-situations-cohesion-in-granular-flows/
LOCATION:Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101)\, Levine Hall\, 3330 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Seminar
ORGANIZER;CN="Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics":MAILTO:meam@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250401T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250401T130000
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250328T180731Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250328T180731Z
UID:10008334-1743498000-1743512400@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:Frontiers in Science: Engineering RNA and AI
DESCRIPTION:This free\, half-day event for undergraduates is hosted by the National Science Foundation Artificial Intelligence-driven RNA BioFoundry (AIRFoundry). \nLed by experts from the University of Pennsylvania and University of Puerto Rico\, Mayagüez\, the event will highlight how AI can enhance RNA\, with applications in medicine\, agriculture and more. \nStudents will also be able to tour cutting-edge labs and engage with graduate researchers at a poster session. \nBreakfast and lunch will be provided. \nSpeakers include: Professors Yoseph Barash\, Lijun Zhou\, Camilo Mora.\nTours include: Singh Center for Nanotechnology\, Penn Institute for RNA Innovation and SMART Lab
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/frontiers-in-science-engineering-rna-and-ai/
LOCATION:Glandt Forum\, Singh Center for Nanotechnology\, 3205 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:AI Month
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250331T153000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250331T163000
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250206T145001Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250206T145001Z
UID:10008274-1743435000-1743438600@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:2024-2025 Heilmeier Award and Lecture
DESCRIPTION:“Colloidal Nanocrystal Materials and Devices with Extraordinary Structures and Functions” \nColloidal nanocrystals (NCs) can serve as “artificial atoms” to construct materials and devices with extraordinary structures and functions. \nThis talk will discuss the process of designing materials and devices from single- and multiple-types of NCs. These designs can leverage the unique characteristics of NCs\, in particular their size- and composition-dependent physical properties. \nThis approach has already led to several advancements\, including flexible NC electronics\, the first NC integrated circuits and magnetically and acoustically driven active matter. \nRegister Now
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/2024-2025-heilmeier-award-and-lecture/
LOCATION:Wu & Chen Auditorium
CATEGORIES:Distinguished Lecture
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250328T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250328T180000
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250219T234554Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250219T234554Z
UID:10008298-1743174000-1743184800@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:Celebration of Community
DESCRIPTION:The Cora Ingrum Center for Community and Outreach is planning its annual Celebration of Community gala to showcase Penn Engineering students\, staff\, and faculty in their multi-talented richness. The event will consist of guest speakers\, performances\, presentations from student groups\, and a variety of cuisines. Do not hesitate to contact Dr. Ocek Eke (ocek@seas.upenn.edu) and André Marston (amarston@seas.upenn.edu) with any questions.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIf you are interested in performing\, fill out this form and look out for updates!
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/celebration-of-community/
LOCATION:Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101)\, Levine Hall\, 3330 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Faculty,Doctoral,Graduate,Student,Master's,Postdoctoral,Undergraduate,Staff
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250328T133000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250328T160000
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250326T173442Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250326T173442Z
UID:10008329-1743168600-1743177600@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:CBE Doctoral Dissertation Defense: "Computational Materials Design for Exerting Control over Ice Formation" (Zachariah Vicars)
DESCRIPTION:Abstract: \n\n\n\nIce formation plays an important role in a wide range of contexts\, from serving as nuclei for clouds in the upper atmosphere to forming on the surfaces of aircraft and ships\, reducing their performance. Controlling the formation of ice using additives or novel coatings has\, consequently\, been a long-standing pursuit in materials science. Here\, we employ molecular simulations to explore the nano-scale detail of ice formation on a variety of surfaces and determine what molecular features are necessary to create surfaces that display extreme ice-phobicity and ice-philicity by modulating lattice match\, surface polarity\, and surface attractions. We then outline some recent advances in quantifying ice-philicity on chemically and topologically complex materials\, like textured surfaces and anti-freeze proteins. These results serve as a foundation for future molecular studies of ice formation in all sorts of environments\, with the goal of designing materials that can reliably control the formation of ice.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nZoom Information:\nLink: https://us05web.zoom.us/j/84021428899?pwd=vafTqLwDqy7UxUJYhGnbX3kXswpKVp.1\nPasscode: 2kdaS5
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/cbe-doctoral-dissertation-defense-computational-materials-design-for-exerting-control-over-ice-formation-zachariah-vicars/
LOCATION:Room 313\, Singh Center for Nanotechnology\, 3205 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Doctoral,Student,Dissertation or Thesis Defense
ORGANIZER;CN="Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering":MAILTO:cbemail@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250328T103000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250328T114500
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20241211T162547Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241211T162547Z
UID:10008196-1743157800-1743162300@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:Spring 2025 GRASP on Robotics: Mac Schwager\, Stanford University\, “Perception-Rich Robot Autonomy with Neural Environment Models”
DESCRIPTION:This will be a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Wu and Chen and virtual attendance on Zoom. \nABSTRACT\nRecent advances in computer vision have led to the rise of highly expressive 3D scene models such as NeRFs and GSplats. More than just rendering lifelike images\, these models allow robots to ground visual\, semantic\, physical\, and affordance properties in a common 3D model\, to rearrange objects in the scene and even simulate physical interactions. In this talk I will describe our efforts to build new robot autonomy features around these models\, while preserving safety\, modularity\, and interpretability. I will present navigation algorithms for robots to safely maneuver through their environment using NeRFs and GSplats\, even while training the model online in a SLAM-like fashion. I will describe methods to embed semantic and affordance information into radiance fields\, giving robots a 3D grounding for understanding and executing tasks from natural language commands. Finally I will describe using these neural models as high-fidelity training environments for learning end-to-end visuo-motor policies. I will demonstrate such a policy for navigating a drone through an obstacle-rich environment while being robust to significant visual distractors. I will conclude with future opportunities and challenges in neural environment models for robotics.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/spring-2025-grasp-on-robotics-mac-schwager-stanford-university-perception-rich-robot-autonomy-with-neural-environment-models/
LOCATION:Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101)\, Levine Hall\, 3330 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
ORGANIZER;CN="General Robotics%2C Automation%2C Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Lab":MAILTO:grasplab@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250328T093000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250328T103000
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250327T203006Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250327T203006Z
UID:10008332-1743154200-1743157800@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:CIS Seminar: "Pareto-efficient AI systems: Expanding the quality and efficiency frontier of AI"
DESCRIPTION:We have made exciting progress in AI by massive models on massive amounts of data center compute. However\, the demands for AI are rapidly expanding. I identify how to maximize performance under any compute constraint\, expanding the Pareto frontier of AI capabilities.\n \nThis talk builds up to an efficient language model architecture that expands the Pareto-frontier between quality and throughput efficiency. In motivation\, the Transformer\, AI’s current workhorse architecture\, is memory hungry\, severely limiting its throughput\, or amount of text it can process per second. This has led to a Cambrian explosion of alternate efficient architecture candidates proposed across prior work. Prior work has painted an exciting picture: there exists architectures that are asymptotically faster than Transformers\, while also matching quality. However\, I ask\, if we’re using asymptotically faster building blocks\, are we giving something up in quality?\n\n\nIn part one\, we build understanding. Indeed\, there’s no free lunch! I present my work to identify and explain the fundamental quality and efficiency tradeoffs between different classes of architectures. Methods I developed for this analysis are now ubiquitous in the development of language models.\n\n\nIn part two\, we measure how AI architecture candidates fare on the tradeoff space. A major hurdle\, however\, is that we lack implementations of the architectures that that run at peak-efficiency on modern hardware. Further\, many proposed architectures are asymptotically fast\, but not wall-clock fast. I present ThunderKittens\, a new programming library I built to help AI researchers write simple\, hardware-efficient algorithms across hardware platforms.\n\n\nIn part three\, we expand the Pareto-frontier of the tradeoff space. I present the BASED architecture\, which is built from simple\, hardware-efficient components. I released the state-of-the-art 8B-405B Transformer-free language models\, per standard evaluations\, all on an academic budget.\n\n\nGiven the massive investment into language models\, this work has had significant impact and adoption in research\, open-source\, and industry.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/cis-seminar-pareto-efficient-ai-systems-expanding-the-quality-and-efficiency-frontier-of-ai-2/
LOCATION:Amy Gutmann Hall\, Room 414\, 3333 Chestnut Street\, Philadelphia\, 19104\, United States
ORGANIZER;CN="Computer and Information Science":MAILTO:cherylh@cis.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250328T093000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250328T103000
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250324T171232Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250324T171232Z
UID:10008326-1743154200-1743157800@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:CIS Seminar: "Learning to Perceive the 4D World"
DESCRIPTION:Perceiving the 4D world (i.e.\, 3D space over time) from visual input is essential for human interaction with the physical environment. While computer vision has made remarkable progress in 3D scene understanding\, much of it remains piecemeal—for example\, focusing solely on static scenes or specific categories of dynamic objects. How can we model diverse dynamic scenes in the wild? How can we achieve online perception with human-like capabilities? In this talk\, I will first discuss holistic scene representations that enable long-range motion estimation and 4D reconstruction. I will then introduce a unified learning-based framework for online dense 3D perception\, which continuously refines scene understanding with new observations. I will conclude by discussing future directions and challenges in advancing spatial intelligence.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/cis-seminar-learning-to-perceive-the-4d-world-2/
LOCATION:Amy Gutmann Hall\, Room 414\, 3333 Chestnut Street\, Philadelphia\, 19104\, United States
ORGANIZER;CN="Computer and Information Science":MAILTO:cherylh@cis.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250327T153000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250327T163000
DTSTAMP:20260403T184949
CREATED:20250319T173957Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250319T173957Z
UID:10008321-1743089400-1743093000@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:CIS Seminar: "Unlocking Scalable Robot Learning in the Real World"
DESCRIPTION:Many domains of machine learning\, from language modeling to computer vision\, have recently undergone a shift towards generalist models\, whose broad generalization abilities are fueled by large and diverse real-world training datasets and high-capacity model architectures. In robotics\, however\, it has been challenging to apply the same recipe: after all\, we cannot easily scrape millions of hours of robot data from the internet and existing model architectures for scalable learning in vision or language modeling are not designed for the continuous control tasks we need to solve in robotics. In this talk\, I will describe my work on unlocking scalable robot learning in the real world. I will discuss important differences between robotics and other machine learning domains\, and describe how we can adapt scalable learning approaches for robotics to yield robot policies that generalize out-of-the-box to unseen environments\, and can be quickly adapted to new tasks or robot embodiments. Through a combination of community-wide data sharing efforts\, improved model design and training objectives\, my work has enabled the construction of the largest robot learning datasets to date\, and the training of generalist robot policies that can perform a range of complex\, long-horizon manipulation tasks simply by prompting them in natural language. I will close with a description of current limitations and open challenges towards building truly general robot control policies.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/cis-seminar-unlocking-scalable-robot-learning-in-the-real-world/
LOCATION:Levine 307\, 3330 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
ORGANIZER;CN="Computer and Information Science":MAILTO:cherylh@cis.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR