Physical Sciences in Oncology Center PSOC@Penn Spring 2022 Hybrid-Seminar Series Towne 225 / Raisler Lounge @ Noon (EST) For Zoom link , please contact manu@seas.upenn.edu
Interfaces such as grain boundaries are ubiquitous in crystalline materials and have provided a fertile area of research over decades. Their importance stems from the numerous critical phenomena associated with them, such as grain boundary sliding, migration, and interaction with other defects that govern the mechanical properties of materials. Although these crystalline interfaces exhibit small […]
This seminar will be held in person in Levine 307 as well as via Zoom. Mobile robot systems operate in dynamic environments, such as forests, caves, or roadways, where they must perceive and react to incoming stimuli. Each of these environments presents unique challenges such as perception in low-light conditions, high-speed understanding of objects, and […]
Abstract The rapid global consumption of single-use plastics has caused an unsustainable accumulation of plastic waste in landfills and the environment. Unfortunately, current mechanical recycling methods are expensive and produce lower-quality products. New strategies in targeted chemical upcycling of waste plastics offer unique opportunities for selective depolymerization of polyolefins to higher value chemicals under milder […]
This seminar will be held live and broadcast on zoom – check email for zoom link or contact ksas@seas.upenn.edu. Immunotherapies harness the body’s immune system to fight disease. Such therapies can help unleash an immune attack against diseased tissues but can inadvertently instigate an attack on healthy tissues. As a result, many promising immunotherapies face […]
Physical Sciences in Oncology Center PSOC@Penn Spring 2022 Hybrid-Seminar Series Towne 225 / Raisler Lounge @ Noon (EST) For Zoom link , please contact manu@seas.upenn.edu
When a sheet of paper is crumpled, it spontaneously develops a network of creases. Despite the apparent disorder of this process, statistical properties of crumpled sheets exhibit striking reproducibility. Recent experiments have shown that when a sheet is repeatedly crumpled, the total crease length grows logarithmically . This talk will offer insight into this surprising […]
Abstract DNA can serve purposes beyond conveying hereditary information – its highly specific Watson-Crick base pairing can also be used to direct the assembly of cells, nanoparticles, and proteins. Recently developed in the Sohn lab , high-throughput DNA-directed patterning takes advantage of the versatile and iterative aspects of photolithography to define clearly regions on an […]
Robots are pretty great — they can make some hard tasks easy, some dangerous tasks safe, or some unthinkable tasks possible. And they’re just plain fun to boot. But how many robots have you interacted with recently? And where do you think that puts you compared to the rest of the world’s people? In contrast […]
Physical Sciences in Oncology Center PSOC@Penn Spring 2022 Hybrid-Seminar Series Towne 225 / Raisler Lounge @ Noon (EST) For Zoom link , please contact manu@seas.upenn.edu
Wind energy plays a crucial role in clean energy generation. Currently, horizontal axis wind turbines dominate the wind energy sector. Nevertheless, vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) have some advantages over traditional horizontal axis wind turbines. However, their performance is difficult to predict and they are prone to failure over time. This is because the axis […]
Minimally invasive and chronic physiological monitoring can provide an effective means of disease prevention and early detection while the cumulative big data can unveil hidden patterns in our physiology. Yet, current physiological monitoring tools are often bulky, invasive, and expensive, limiting their sensitivity and applicability. In this talk, I will discuss autonomous microsystems based on […]
Abstract There has been growing interest to drive chemical reactions via the direct use of renewable electricity to address sustainability challenges. The success of the approach rests on the use of the right materials to efficiently catalyze electrochemical reactions. Thus, there have been intense efforts to engineer catalyst materials whose surface contains the desired active […]
Can we use robots to help humans learn a new motor skill, or to improve performance of a motor task? What are the neural substrates that support motor learning under physical interaction with external agents such as robots? How does repeated exposure to motor training induce plasticity in brain networks? These are fundamental neuroscience questions […]
Geometric perception is the task of estimating geometric models (e.g., object pose and 3D structure) from sensor measurements and priors (e.g., point clouds and neural network detections). Geometric perception is a fundamental building block for robotics applications ranging from intelligent transportation to space autonomy. The ubiquitous existence of outliers —measurements that tell no or little […]
This seminar will be held live and broadcast on zoom – check email for zoom link or contact ksas@seas.upenn.edu. Precision medicine envisions a world where diagnostic and therapeutic opportunities are intelligently tailored to individual patient needs. Achieving this vision necessitates access to high quality, accurate, and individualized information about disease state. Engineered probes that sense […]
For decades, the robotics community has been working on developing intelligent autonomous machines that can perform complex tasks in unstructured environments. We are now closer than ever to delivering on this promise. Robotic systems are being developed, tested and deployed for a wide range of applications. In this talk, I will present our work on […]
Many industrial processes involve multiphase soft materials in which solid particles are dispersed or co-exists with a fluid phase and are therefore referred to as Particulate Soft Materials (PSMs). Examples can be found in many industries, including food, cosmetics, pharmaceutical, and energy, as well as in natural settings, e.g., soils and glaciers. PSMs often display […]
Deep networks often achieve better accuracy as we employ larger models. However, modern machine learning applications involve multiple considerations alongside accuracy, such as resource-efficiency, robustness, or fairness. Deploying ML in the real-world requires sound solutions addressing these considerations. In this talk, I will first discuss optimizing fairness objectives for imbalanced data. We observe that a […]
Rapid progress in quantum computing technologies is ushering in a new era for quantum many-body physics. Today's noisy, intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices, while still far from fault-tolerant quantum computers, are exceptional laboratory systems, with large many-body Hilbert spaces and unprecedented capabilities for control and measurement. This allows the exploration of quantum dynamics in new far-from-equilibrium […]
Abstract In my talk, I will present my work on the application of process and systems engineering techniques to the design of integrated biorefineries that produce middle distillates (jet fuel and diesel). Unlike gasoline, demand for middle distillates is expected to increase over the next 30 years, and electrification and decarbonization of sectors where middle […]
Feedback-driven decision-making systems are at the emerging frontier of machine learning applications. Upcoming applications of societal consequence, such as self-driving vehicles and smartwatch-based health interventions, have to contend with the challenge of operating in reactive stateful environments. In this talk, I will describe my work on designing principled robust algorithms for feedback-driven learning, with provable […]
Rapid, sensitive, and specific detection is key to personalized medicine and to the prompt implementation of appropriate mitigation measures to reduce disease transmission, mortality, morbidity, and cost. Conventional molecular detection methods require trained personnel and specialized laboratories, which limits their use to centralized laboratories. Microfluidics enables point-of-care testing. In this talk, I will show how […]
This seminar will be held in person in Wu and Chen Auditorium as well as virtually via Zoom. Reconstructing depth and motion of every pixel for arbitrary scenes is a core problem in 3D vision with many downstream applications. In this talk, I will describe some of our recent efforts toward this goal, including various […]
Physical Sciences in Oncology Center PSOC@Penn Spring 2022 Hybrid-Seminar Series Towne 225 / Raisler Lounge @ Noon (EST) For Zoom link , please contact manu@seas.upenn.edu
Many batteries, including the state-of-the-art Lithium-ion technology, use porous intercalation electrodes. In such electrodes, energy is stored in the form of ions intercalating in particles. The conventional approach to designing such electrodes relies on using the porous electrode theory to upscale particle-scale behavior to the electrode-scale response. In this talk, I will discuss unusual material […]
From autonomous cars in cities to mobile manipulators at home, robots must interact with people. What makes this hard is that human behavior—especially when interacting with other agents—is vastly complex, varying between individuals, environments, and over time. Thus, robots rely on data and machine learning throughout the design process and during deployment to build and […]
In recent years, a variety of approaches to robotic control have gained popularity as robots play an increasingly larger role in our everyday lives. In this talk I will give an introduction to modern-day robot learning, covering engineering and research challenges. After establishing the foundations of popular methods, I will present why I believe that end-to-end […]
Abstract The allocation of sugars from photosynthetic leaves to storage tissues in seeds, fruits, and tubers is an essential determinant of crop yields. In plants, transporters play critical roles in allocating carbon to different organs. Transgenic modifications of plant membrane transporters have been shown to enhance crop yield and increase plants' resistance to biotic and […]
Robotics stands as one of the most impactful and promising endeavors of our times. Learning to interact with the world is fundamental for solving some of our most pressing societal challenges: from taking care of our aging population and aiding with labor-intensive jobs to assisting in climate-related disasters and rescue emergencies. In this talk, I […]
