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    • PRiML Seminar: “Optimizing probability distributions for learning: sampling meets optimization”

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    Room 401B, 3401 Walnut 3401 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

    Optimization and sampling are both of central importance in large-scale machine learning problems, but they are typically viewed as very different problems. This talk presents recent results that exploit the interplay between them. Viewing Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling algorithms as performing an optimization over the space of probability distributions, we demonstrate analogs of Nesterov's acceleration approach in the sampling domain, […]

    MEAM Seminar: “Interfacial Soft Matter”

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    Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

    Surface tension plays a critical role in a wide range of biological, environmental, technological and geophysical settings. In this talk, I will present three different problems dealing with interfacial soft matter that find motivation in markedly diverse areas. First, I will discuss the evaporation kinetics and flow dynamics of non-spherical sessile drops undergoing phase change. […]

    ESE Seminar: “New Designer Materials: Sculpting Electromagnetic Fields on the Atomic Scale”

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    Room 337, Towne Building 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

    New optical nanomaterials hold the potential for breakthroughs in a wide range of areas from ultrafast optoelectronics such as modulators, light sources and hyperspectral detectors, to efficient upconversion for energy applications, bio-sensing and quantum information science. An exciting opportunity to realize such new nanomaterials lies in controlling the local electromagnetic environment on the atomic- and […]

    CIS Seminar: “Perceiving Humans in the 3D World”

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    Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

    Since the dawn of civilization, we have functioned in a social environment where we spend our days interacting with other humans. As we approach a society where intelligent systems and humans coexist, these systems must also interpret and interact with humans that reside in the 3D world. While computer vision systems today work well for […]

    ESE Seminar: “Towards Socially-Aware Autonomy for Mobility-Efficient Smart Cities”

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    Room 337, Towne Building 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

    As cities grow everywhere, and urban roadways become overburdened, efficient strategies are required for improving mobility. With the prevalence of smart sensing and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, such as smartphones and smart intersections, the physical infrastructures of our cities are being connected to the cyber world. As a result, cities are becoming smart. Moreover, […]

    CIS Seminar: ” Rethinking the hardware-software contract: Enabling practical and general cross-layer optimizations”

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    Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

    Layered abstractions in the computing stack are critical to building complex systems, but the existing *interfaces* between layers restrict what can be done at each level. Enhancing cross-layer interfaces--specifically, the hardware-software interface--is crucial towards addressing two important and hard-to-solve challenges in computer systems today: First, significant effort and expertise are required to write high-performance code […]

    • ESE Seminar: “Quantum Nanophotonics: Engineering Atom-Photon Interactions on a Chip”

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    Berger Auditorium (Room 13), Skirkanich Hall 210 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

    Abstract: The ability to engineer controllable atom-photon interactions is at the heart of quantum optics and quantum information processing. In this talk, I will introduce a nanophotonic platform for engineering strong atom-photon interactions on a semiconductor chip. I will first discuss an experimental demonstration of a spin-photon quantum transistor , a fundamental building block for […]

    ESE Seminar: “From Nanotech to Living Sensors: Unraveling the Spin Physics of Biosensing at the Nanoscale”

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    Room 337, Towne Building 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

    I am a quantum engineer interested in how quantum physics informs biology at the nanoscale. As a physicist, I have developed high-performance nanosensors that essentially worked due to room-temperature quantum effects in noisy environments. Currently, I am focusing on “living sensors” -- organisms and cells that respond to minute stimuli, routinely outperforming technological probes in […]

    ESE Seminar: “Towards Robotic Manipulation – Understanding the World Through Contact”

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    Berger Auditorium (Room 13), Skirkanich Hall 210 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

    Why is robotic manipulation so hard? As humans, we are unrivaled in our ability to dexterously manipulate objects and exhibit complex skills seemingly effortlessly. Recent research in cognitive science suggests that this ability is driven by our internal representations of the physical world, built over a life-time of experience. Our predictive ability is complemented by […]