• Spring 2021 GRASP SFI: “Optimizing Orthoses: Challenges in predicting human performance”

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    https://upenn.zoom.us/j/96715197752

    Abstract: Innovations in hardware and control have created a new class of orthoses or exoskeletons to augment and assist human movement. These designs enable forces and torques to be applied to nearly any segment of the body. However, predicting how an individual will adapt their movement in response to external assistance remains incredibly challenging. These […]

    ODEI Spotlight: Cultivating Equity-Focused Institutional Change in University STEM Departments

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    Discipline-based education research has made great strides in understanding how to foster more equitable and effective teaching in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). However, there still has yet to be widespread adoption of reforms in university STEM departments. Our project seeks to understand how departments can implement sustainable, large-scale changes to undergraduate education. While these […]

  • MSE Seminar: “Reaction-Diffusion Driven Pattern Formation in Thermosetting Polymers”

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    Reaction-diffusion processes are versatile, yet underexplored methods for manufacturing that provide unique opportunities to control the spatial properties of materials, achieving order through broken symmetry. The mathematical formalism and derivation of equations coupling reaction and diffusion were presented in the seminal paper by Alan Turing , which describes how random fluctuations can drive the emergence […]

    ESE Seminar: “Engineering (Useful) Quantum Systems”

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    Zoom - Email ESE for Link jbatter@seas.upenn.edu

    Quantum technologies have the potential to revolutionize sensing, communication, and computation. To realize this potential, it will be necessary to scale the size and complexity of engineered quantum systems by several orders of magnitude, without sacrificing coherence or fidelity. Trapped ion qubits provide unparalleled coherence and are a leading platform for current small-scale quantum technology […]

    CIS Seminar: “Expanding the Reach of Fuzzing”

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    Zoom - Email CIS for link cherylh@cis.upenn.edu

    Software bugs are pervasive in modern software. As software is integrated into increasingly many aspects of our lives, these bugs have increasingly severe consequences, both from a security (e.g. Cloudbleed, Heartbleed, Shellshock) and cost standpoint. Fuzzing refers to a set of techniques that automatically find bug-triggering inputs by sending many random-looking inputs to the program […]

    MEAM Seminar: “Lubrication and Tribology Trends and Challenges in Passenger Electric Vehicles”

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    Zoom - Email MEAM for Link peterlit@seas.upenn.edu

    It is becoming more difficult and expensive to continue developing internal combustion engine (ICE) powered vehicles to meet the increasingly tight emissions goals addressing global climate change. Over the last few years, automobile manufacturers have been turning their attention toward electrification as the most practical and cost-effective way of providing personal transportation options that will […]

    PICS Colloquium: “Molecular Engineering of Ice Responsive Materials: Decoding Heterogeneous Ice Nucleation”

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    Zoom - email kathom@seas.upenn.edu

    Abstract: The presence of particles such as dust and pollen affect cloud microphysics significantly through their effect on the state of water. These particles can hinder or accelerate the liquid-to-solid transition of water, and also affect the ice polymorph formed in the clouds. This indirectly cloud reflectivity, cloud lifetime, and precipitation rates. While a predominant […]

    ESE Thesis Defense: “Accelerated Risk Assessment and Domain Adaptation for Autonomous Vehicles”

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    Zoom- Email mokelly@seas.upenn.edu for link

    Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are already driving on public roads around the US; however, their rate of deployment far outpaces quality assurance and regulatory efforts. Consequently, even the most elementary tasks, such as automated lanekeeping, have not been certified for safety, and operations are constrained to narrow domains. First, due to the limitations of worst-case analysis […]

    MEAM Seminar: “Nonintrusive Reduced Order Models Using Physics Informed Neural Networks”

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    Zoom - Email MEAM for Link peterlit@seas.upenn.edu

    The development of reduced order models for complex applications, offering the promise for rapid and accurate evaluation of the output of complex models under parameterized variation, remains a very active research area. Applications are found in problems which require many evaluations, sampled over a potentially large parameter space, such as in optimization, control, uncertainty quantification, […]

    ESE Seminar: “Harnessing Light-Matter Interaction for Photonic Quantum Technologies”

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    Zoom - Email ESE for Link jbatter@seas.upenn.edu

    Photonic quantum technologies have a unique potential for applications such as large-scale quantum networks and quantum-enhanced sensing. Furthermore, photons provide new paradigms for quantum simulations and a testbed for benchmarking the advantage of quantum simulators over the classical ones. These applications demand novel resources such as efficient single-photon sources, large clusters of entangled photons, and […]