Programmable shape-shifting materials can take different physical forms to achieve multifunctionality in a dynamic and controllable manner. By introducing holes and cuts in 2D sheets, we demonstrate dramatic color and shape change and super-conformability via collapsing or expanding of the hole arrays in the micro- and macroscales. When choosing the cuts and geometry correctly, we […]
Abstract Control over adhesion of bacteria on solid and liquid interfaces underlies a spectrum of practical applications, ranging from preventing the formation of destructive biofilms on medical devices and on resource pipelines to removing pollutants from water. Because microscale bacteria are similar in size to colloidal particles, bacterial adhesion has long been studied using models […]
Are you looking for a way to expand your understanding of what it means to be a member of LGBTQ+ communities? Do you feel uneducated in conversations surrounding LGBTQ+ language and preferred terms? Join us for this interactive session which provides participants with an overview of LGBTQ+ history, terms, and current issues. It is a […]
Composite materials, such as metal- and polymer-matrix composites, exhibit both elastic and dissipative effects when subjected to macroscopic loadings. Even when the phases of the composite are characterized by a simple Maxwell rheology, the complex viscoelastic interactions between the phases give rise to emergent behavior at the macroscopic scale. Incorporating these ``long-memory'' effects in the […]
*This will be a HYBRID Event with in-person attendance in Wu & Chen Auditorium and Virtual attendance via Zoom here. Balancing performance and safety are crucial to deploying autonomous vehicles in multi-agent environments. In particular, autonomous racing is a domain that penalizes safe but conservative policies, highlighting the need for robust, adaptive strategies. Current approaches […]
Are you an international student at Penn with questions about your resume, cover letters, interviewing, LinkedIn, using Handshake, finding opportunities, career fairs, virtual interviews, networking, negotiations, or other job search topics? Join this informal zoom session where Jillian Cener, Associate Director of Penn Career Services, will answer your questions and have a discussion with the […]
Kick-off LGBTQ+ History Month and warm-up for National Coming Out Day with a bang! Come to our festival featuring queer dance lessons (no experience needed), progressive pride flags galore, and of course yummy food (gluten-free and vegan options available; more TBA. All are welcome.
Periodic media and resonant, acoustic/elastic metamaterials possess extraordinary frequency band gaps where no waves may propagate. In this dissertation, we leverage numerical simulations to gain insight into practical ways to effectively measure and characterize the behavior of these materials from experimental observables and also explore physical mechanisms to optimize their performance, particularly in the context […]
Room: Towne 225/Raisler Lounge For zoom link, contact manu@seas.upenn.edu.
Soft robotics, energy harvesting, large-deformation sensing and actuation, are just some of the applications that can be enabled by soft dielectrics that demonstrate substantive electromechanical coupling. Imagine now also a material that will produce electricity and deform substantively via a contactless, wireless magnetic signal. Unfortunately, truly soft, naturally occurring piezoelectric or magnetoelectric materials essentially do […]
Heterogeneous materials are commonly found in nature (e.g. soil, rock, blood) and engineering applications (e.g. paints, lubricants, sintered materials). Understanding the microstructure-properties relations is crucial to predicting how these materials fail and behave during processing. In this thesis, we develop semi-analytical homogenization estimates for the macroscopic properties and field statistics of viscoplastic composites. A generalization […]
Quantum processors of today are already capable of surpassing classical supercomputers on certain specialized tasks . A current milestone for the quantum information science community is the fulfilment of quantum computational advantage on a practical problem of interest. The beginning of this talk will outline our technical progress on realizing various high-fidelity quantum gates on […]
Yansong Gao Title: "A Free-Energy Principle for Representation Learning" Keshav Patil Title: "Altered protein dynamics delineates the oncogenic potential of various kinase mutations" On Wednesday, October 6 at 12:00, PICS will host a virtual student seminar featuring Yansong Gao, a 4th year PhD in the Chaudhari group; and Keshav Patil, 4th year PhD in the […]
Abstract Electrolytes are critical enabling components for Li-ion batteries to safely operate within a wide temperature range, under extreme fast charging, and under intense abuse conditions without sacrificing energy density and cycle life. Current electrolytes cannot satisfy these requirements. We developed advanced all-fluorinated electrolytes, water-in-sale (WIS) electrolytes and solid-state electrolytes aiming to simultaneously enhance cell […]
Today in the U.S., we deal with the severe, wide ranging effects of climate change from the West to East Coast in the form of heat waves, drought, wildfires, and flooding. To end these disasters, we need to drastically change the way we produce and use energy. For example, in 2020, over 72 % of […]
The past two decades have witnessed incredible advances towards the design of autonomous systems. This talk will discuss the role of motion planning in yielding solutions for an agent that is able to execute a variety of tasks in a variety of settings. Problem decomposition has been and remains a difficult task, and motion planning […]
Room: Towne 225/Raisler Lounge For zoom link, contact manu@seas.upenn.edu.
Most materials suffer from a disease: fatigue. Symptoms include degradation of properties and growth of cracks under cyclic stretch. These materials are unfit for applications involving prolonged and cyclic loads. A crack grows in a material because the crack tip concentrates stress. Recently, we have been developing fatigue-resistant materials by de-concentrating stress, through mechanisms at […]
Scale appears to be the winning recipe in today's leaderboards. And yet, extreme-scale neural models are still brittle to make errors that are often nonsensical and even counterintuitive. In this talk, I will argue for the importance of knowledge, especially commonsense knowledge, and demonstrate how smaller models developed in academia can still have an edge over larger industry-scale models, if powered with knowledge. […]
Launched in May 2021, the Future Leaders in Mechanobiology is a monthly seminar series featuring up-and-coming leaders in mechanobiology–PhD students and postdocs from a wide range of fields, backgrounds, and institutions. By providing an international stage to share one’s work and opportunities to interact with researchers at all career stages, we aim to create an inclusive and […]
Abstract The hydrocarbon processing industry is in the midst of a major shift in feedstocks, structure, and products. Aggressive carbon abatement targets and intrinsic efficiency advantages from electric vehicles strongly undercut the advantages of fossil fuels, which are the majority product of this industry. However, the immense value of the existing hydrocarbon infrastructure suggests that […]
Room: Towne 225/Raisler Lounge For zoom link, contact manu@seas.upenn.edu.
Current technology for decelerating a spacecraft from the high speed of atmospheric entry to the final stages of landing on Mars is based on low-density supersonic decelerators such as low mass and high packaging efficiency parachute systems. To enable future exploration missions featuring sophisticated robots and safely land heavier spacecraft on Mars, larger than before […]
Distributed estimation is a central task in modern data science, where datasets are often generated from distributed sources or are too large to be stored on a centralized machine, and communication is subject to bandwidth and privacy limitations. In this talk, we will consider the problem of estimating high-dimensional distributions and their parameters from distributed […]
Abstract: Online social networks often mirror inequality in real-world networks, from historical prejudice, economic or social factors. Such disparities are often picked up and amplified by algorithms that leverage social data for the purpose of providing recommendations, diffusing information, or forming groups. In this talk, I discuss an overview of my research involving explanations for algorithmic […]
Abstract Metabolic engineering aims to rewire cellular metabolism, typically of microorganisms, to produce fuels, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and other valuable products from renewable resources. However, it is often challenging to achieve the titers, yields, and productivities required for commercial viability. Spatial and dynamical control of engineered metabolic pathways can greatly improve their efficiency to address this […]
There are many intriguing physical phenomena that are associated with topological features --- global properties that are not discernible locally. The best-known examples are quantum Hall effects in electronic systems, where insensitivity to local properties manifests itself as conductance through edge states which are insensitive to defects and disorder. In this talk, Dr. Hafezi will […]
This seminar will be held live and broadcast on zoom - check email for link or contact ksas@seas.upenn.edu. Evolution occurs when selective pressures from the environment shape inherited variation over time. Within the laboratory, evolution is commonly used to engineer proteins and RNA, but experimental constraints have limited our ability to reproducibly and reliably explore […]
Abstract: Soft pneumatic actuators have become a popular implement in modern robotic systems due to their intrinsic mechanical compliance, which affords researchers levels of robustness and adaptability that can be difficult to achieve in rigid-body, motor-driven devices. However, with the physical advantages of these versatile actuators come significant challenges in sensing, feedback control, and sustainable, […]
Arctic sea ice comprises of many ice floes whose dynamics is driven by oceanic/atmospheric currents and floe-floe interaction. Models of the effective sea ice dynamics at large scales typically employ hydrodynamic equations of motion, such as mass and momentum conservation, with complex constitutive laws attempting to capture the rheology of sea ice as a continuum. Although hydrodynamic sea ice models […]
Abstract: "As the catastrophic effects of climate change are felt throughout our global society, we must take immediate action. A portfolio of climate solutions must include both deep and robust decarbonization, and systems to remove carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere. One promising suite of carbon removal technologies is Direct Air Capture (DAC). DAC refers […]
Largely inspired by the observation of the role of soft tissues in living organisms, the use of soft materials for building robots is recognized as one of the current challenges for pushing the boundaries of robotics technologies and building robotic systems for service tasks in natural environments. The study of living organisms sheds light on […]
Speaker: Melissa E. Sanchez, Ph.D. Center for Research in Feminist, Queer, and Transgender Studies Topic: Addressing a More Complex and Encompassing Understanding of Identity Date: Wednesday, October 27, 2021 Time: 12 Noon to 1:00 PM Link: : https://upenn.zoom.us/j/93398784741?pwd=dmpPUFd6d2dHZmYwckRIdjhsWngzdz09
*This will be a HYBRID Event with in-person attendance in Levine 307 and Virtual attendance via Zoom here… Frictional contact is the core underlying behavior of robot locomotion and manipulation, and its nearly-discontinuous dynamics make planning and control challenging even when an accurate model of the robot is available. In this talk, I will first […]
Society of Women Engineers GSK Info Session Wednesday, October 27 from 6-7 PM GSK is hosting an information session for students of all grade levels! GSK is hiring for the Internship and Co-Op Program, and the Future Leaders Program! If you are interested in applying what you are learning in your current classes in […]
Emerging nanotechnologies promise to enable a wide-range of next-generation applications - from energy-efficient computing to personalized healthcare. Yet many emerging nanotechnologies face substantial inherent imperfections and variations that have rendered making working systems - and therefore the next-generation applications they promise to enable - infeasible. In this talk, I will describe how by computing advances […]
Optical nanostructures enable molding the flow of light on the subwavelength scale rendering possible the realization of compact, cost-effective, flat and highly efficient optical components for imaging, spectroscopy, sensing, and communications. From the fundamental science viewpoint, light-matter interactions at the nanoscale reveal themselves in new and often unexpected ways. In fact, the usual linear and […]
This seminar will be held live and broadcast on zoom – check your email for the link or contact ksas@seas.upenn.edu. A major question regarding the human gut microbiota is: by what mechanisms do our most intimately associated organisms affect human health? In this talk, I will present several systems-level approaches that we have developed to […]
*This will be a HYBRID Event with in-person attendance in Wu & Chen Auditorium and Virtual attendance via Zoom Webinar here. Motivated by the challenging problems in planning and control through contact, our group has been working to connect more deeply the motion planning formulations we often use in robotics with a different lineage of […]
The Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania and Dr. Rob Mauck are pleased to announce the Doctoral Dissertation Defense of Tonia Tsinman. Title: "Mechano-regulation of meniscus development and maturation" Date: October 29, 2021 Time: 11:00am The public is welcome to attend via zoom at the following link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/98160257924
Abstract: A wall model for large-eddy simulation is proposed by devising the flow as a collection of building blocks, whose information enables the prediction of the stress as the wall. The core assumption of the model is that simple canonical flows (such as turbulent channel flows, boundary layers, pipes, ducts, speed bumps, etc) contain the […]
Abstract: "Solid tumor cells grow in a stiff microenvironment with dense extracellular matrix (ECM) and condensed packing of adjacent cells. Tumor cells are capable of migrating through constricted pores formed by ECM or surrounded by other cells, and the nuclear envelope can break with repair factor mislocalization, further leading to DNA damage and genetic changes, […]
Room: Towne 225/Raisler Lounge For zoom link, contact manu@seas.upenn.edu.
Natural swarms exhibit sophisticated colony-level behaviors with remarkable scalability and error tolerance. Their evolutionary success stems from more than just intelligent individuals, it hinges on their morphology, their physical interactions, and the way they shape and leverage their environment. Mound-building termites, for instance, are believed to use their own body as a template for construction; […]
Many of the activities in cyberspace, from social networking to the use of mobile apps, leave digital footprints compromising the users’ privacy. As digital tracking technologies become more sophisticated and pervasive, there is a need to understand and quantify the users’ privacy risk, that is, what is the likelihood that users in cyberspace can be […]
Abstract: A "sketch" is a data structure supporting some pre-specified set of queries and updates to a database while consuming space substantially (often exponentially) less than the information theoretic minimum required to store everything seen, and thus can also be seen as some form of functional compression. A "streaming algorithm" is simply a data structure […]
*This will be a HYBRID Event with in-person attendance in Levine 307 and Virtual attendance via Zoom here… Algorithms play a central role in our lives today, mediating our access to civic engagement, social connections, employment opportunities, news media and more. While the sociotechnical systems deploying these algorithms—search engines, social networking sites, and others—have the […]
This special event is part of the virtual programming for Penn Homecoming 2021 and is open to all alumni, parents, and friends. Nemirovsky Family Dean and Professor Vijay Kumar will give a State of the School Update including an overview of the newly established Center for Precision Engineering for Health, which will bring together researchers […]
If cooled sufficiently quickly, the disorder of a liquid can be "quenched" or locked in place; the resulting amorphous solid is glass. Although it appears to be solid on human timescales, glass continues to creep due to thermal vibrations at the molecular scale. Consider now a pile of sand; it too is a disordered system, […]
The African-American Resource Center & Office of Affirmative Action Presents: Critical Race Theory and DEI: From Theory to Practice Join us as we examine the language switch from Critical Race Theory to Diversity Equity and Inclusion, and what each term means and what DEI means and looks like at Penn. Zoom Link: http://upenn.zoom.us/j/7443577924 […]
*This will be a HYBRID Event with in-person attendance in Wu & Chen Auditorium and Virtual attendance via Zoom Webinar here. There has been significant research over the past two decades in developing new systems for spiking neural computation. The impact of neuromorphic concepts on recent developments in optical sensing, display and artificial vision is […]
Abstract: The ability to rapidly learn from high-dimensional data to make reliable predictions about the future is crucial in many contexts. This could be a fly avoiding predators, or the retina processing terabytes of data guiding complex human actions. Modern day artificial intelligence (AI) aims to mimic this fidelity and has been successful in many domains […]
