The U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Earthshots Initiative aims to accelerate breakthroughs of more abundant, affordable and reliable clean energy solutions, to tackle the toughest remaining barriers to addressing the climate crisis and achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Specifically, the Hydrogen Energy Shot seeks to reduce the cost of clean hydrogen by 80% in […]
Seminar
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This will be a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Levine 307 and virtual attendance on Zoom. ABSTRACT In this talk, I will discuss how we engineered the foundation of the drone show industry, creating a new form of entertainment that rivals traditional fireworks. Our journey began at Pennovation, where we designed and tested our […]
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Abstract: One of the main challenges in the molecular sciences is identifying promising candidates for a target application given the virtually limitless number of possibilities. Computer simulations and machine learning (ML) are integral tools to survey the vast molecular landscape and the thermodynamic conditions to evaluate their performance. Broadly, a typical pipeline for molecular characterization, […] |
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Researchers have documented race and gender bias in STEM for decades, but there has been little parallel examination of LGBTQ status as an axis of inequality. How do LGBTQ-identifying STEM professionals fare in STEM? Drawing on data from her NSF-funded STEM Inclusion Study, which included surveys of over 25,000 STEM workers, Dr. Cech will discuss […] |
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Abstract: Cobalt, nickel, and lithium are essential ingredients in today’s lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), but their continued use presents economic, ethical, and environmental challenges. Society must now begin to consider the implications of a LIB’s full life cycle, including the carbon footprint, the economic and environmental costs, and material access. These challenges motivate the case for […] |
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Many of the colors found in nature, such as those of iridescent, color-shifting organisms like beetles, butterflies, and birds, are structural colors. Structural coloration is often generated by optical interference occurring within nanoscale periodic structures, like diffraction gratings, photonic crystals, or thin films. In these cases, the periodicity of the structure is similar to the […]
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Cells use genetically-encoded molecular circuits to execute diverse biological functions. We are developing novel tools of synthetic biology that allow us to construct regulatory circuitry inside living cells that recapitulate complex functions like those seen in nature. In this talk, I will describe how we use this approach to achieve three objectives. First, I will […] |
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This will be a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Wu and Chen and virtual attendance on Zoom. ABSTRACT Simulation-to-reality transfer is an emerging approach that enables robots to develop skills in simulated environments before applying them in the real world. This method has catalyzed numerous advancements in robotic learning, from locomotion to agile flight. […] |
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Salps and siphonophores are widespread marine animals that occur in centimeters to meters-long colonial chains and employ multiple, pulsed swimming jets. We use a combination of approaches including in situ and lab experiments, flow visualizations and custom high-speed camera systems to understand the morphology, kinematics and fluid mechanics that underpin efficient movement in these colonial […] |
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Many constrained sequential decision-making processes such as safe AV navigation, wireless network control, caching, cloud computing, etc., can be cast as Constrained Markov Decision Processes (CMDP). Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms have been used to learn optimal policies for unknown unconstrained MDP. Extending these RL algorithms to unknown CMDP, brings the additional challenge of not only […]
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Abstract: A chemical process transforms feed materials into desired products, necessitating the exchange of heat and work between the process and the environment. Optimizing process performance requires careful selection of chemical pathways, process parameters, and heat/workflows. The reversible process sets the upper-performance limit for sustainable design, thereby setting a target for process design. We propose […] |
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Existing devices—such as cell phones, computers, and robots – are made from rigid materials, which is in direct contrast to the soft materials that compose the human body. In this talk, I will discuss several topics related to studying and harnessing soft materials within the context of creating devices with tissue like properties. Liquid metal: Gallium-based […]
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Abstract: In this talk, we introduce a new class of problems related to integrating inertial measurements obtained from an IMU that play a significant role in navigation combined with visual data. While there have been tremendous technological advances in the precision of instrumentation, integrating acceleration and angular velocity still suffers from drift in the displacement […]
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*This seminar will be held in-person in Levine 307 as well as virtually via Zoom. ABSTRACT In the realms of health and sports, quantitative analysis of human movement provides guidance for individualized performance characterization, training, and health assessment. Data collection for biomechanical analysis of human motion is typically performed using expensive, specialized hardware that requires experiments […] |
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This will be a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Wu and Chen and virtual attendance on Zoom. ABSTRACT We are witnessing a space renaissance. Tens of thousands of broadband low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites are expected to be launched by the end of this decade. These planned megaconstellations of LEO satellites along with existing […] |
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Enhancing the resistance of human-made brittle materials to fracture is challenging due to the limited microstructural toughening mechanisms. This seminar makes a case for engineering toughening mechanisms in brittle materials by developing purposeful architected arrangements of material inspired by natural systems. Experimental fracture mechanics in hard-soft (cementitious-elastomeric) ‘Nacre-like’ composites based on the tabulated brick-and-mortar arrangement […] |
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This will be a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Levine 307 and virtual attendance on Zoom. ABSTRACT People experience the world through modalities of sight, sound, words, touch, and more. By leveraging their natural relationships and developing multimodal learning methods, my research creates artificial perception systems with diverse skills, including spatial, physical, logical, and […]
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CBE Seminar: “Backbone Modifications in Peptide Natural Products” (James Link, Princeton University)
CBE Seminar: “Backbone Modifications in Peptide Natural Products” (James Link, Princeton University)
Abstract: The posttranslational modifications (PTMs) in RiPPs (ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides) dictate their 3D structure and their bioactivity. An underlying structural feature of many RiPPs is macrocyclization, installed by a growing number of different enzymatic strategies. Another common class of PTM in RiPPs is backbone modification, such as the formation of thiazol(in)es and […] |
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In this talk, I will discuss new inroads in the study of electronic order within classes of metals built from kagome lattices or networks of corner sharing triangles. The electronic band structures of these compounds are known to host a series of features such as Dirac crossings, saddle points, and flat bands at select carrier […]
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Safety-critical control is one of the fundamental problems in autonomous systems. A special class of autonomous systems is the class of hybrid dynamical systems, which involves both continuous dynamic flow and discrete dynamical mode jumps for state evolution. I will introduce how to synthesize safe controllers for hybrid dynamical systems based on local control barrier […] |
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This will be a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Wu and Chen and virtual attendance on Zoom. ABSTRACT In recent years, the rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) with advanced general capabilities has paved the way towards building language-guided agents that can perform complex, multi-step tasks on behalf of users, much like human assistants. […] |
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The reproductive soft tissues that support the fetus undergo some of the most dramatic and unique growth and remodeling events in the human body. The uterus and fetal membrane must grow and stretch during pregnancy to accommodate the fetus. Simultaneously, the cervix must remodel and be a mechanical barrier to keep the fetus within the […] |
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This will be a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Levine 307 and virtual attendance on Zoom. ABSTRACT Safe and efficient motion planning is crucial for robots operating in dynamic and unstructured environments. To accomplish this, one must address key challenges. First, robots must understand the scene geometry to prevent collisions that could harm humans […] |
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Connecting theoretical models for exotic quantum states to real materials is a key goal in quantum materials science. The structure of the crystalline lattice plays a foundational role in this pursuit in the subfield of quantum material synthesis. We here revisit this long-standing perspective in the context low dimensional emergent electronic phases of matter, including […] |
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This will be a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Wu and Chen and virtual attendance on Zoom. ABSTRACT Atomic systems (molecules, crystals, proteins, etc.) are naturally represented by a set of coordinates in 3D space labeled by atom type. This poses a challenge for machine learning due to the sensitivity of coordinates to 3D […] |
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