IDEAS/STAT Optimization Seminar: “Negative Stepsizes Make Gradient-Descent-Ascent Converge”

Amy Gutmann Hall, Room 414 3333 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, United States

Zoom link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/98220304722 Abstract: Solving min-max problems is a central question in optimization, games, learning, and controls. Arguably the most natural algorithm is Gradient-Descent-Ascent (GDA), however since the 1970s, conventional wisdom has argued that it fails to converge even on simple problems. This failure spurred the extensive literature on modifying GDA with extragradients, optimism, momentum, anchoring, […]

Spring 2025 GRASP on Robotics: Phillip Isola, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “Robots and Artificial Life from Visual Foundation Models”

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

This will be a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Wu and Chen and virtual attendance on Zoom. ABSTRACT I will talk about two ways we can design agents with the help of powerful vision/graphics models. In the first project, LucidSim, we augment a traditional robotics simulation engine (MuJoCo) with visual detail from an image […]

MEAM Seminar: “Atmospheric Boundary Layer Simulations for Wind Energy”

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

The growth in wind energy is driving a need to understand how wind turbines perform under a range of atmospheric conditions. Under stably stratified conditions, for example, wind turbine wakes can persist for long distances and impact the performance of downwind turbines. Additionally, variations in surface topography, from shallow depressions to steep mountains, can deflect […]

CBE Special Guest Lecture: “Preventing, Understanding and Reducing End-Customers’ Power Supply Outages with Digital Twins” (Panayiotis Moutis, City College of New York)

Raisler Lounge (Room 225), Towne Building 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Abstract: Blackouts have become rarer in the last decade. However, equipment wear and faults (some predictable)affect smaller scales but many parts of Distribution Networks (DNs) more frequently and add up to several hours of interruptions per customer per year. Also, utilities will preemptively de-energize thousands of customers in the path or vicinity of forest fires […]

JOHN A. QUINN DISTINGUISHED LECTURE IN CHEMICAL ENGINEERING: “Sticky Nanoparticles: Electrostatic Assembly of Targeted Delivery Agents” (Paula Hammond, MIT)

Wu & Chen Auditorium

Abstract: Electrostatic assembly can be used to engineer coatings that yield release of different drugs, DNA or protein, resulting in highly tunable multi -agent delivery nanolayered release systems for tissue engineering, biomedical devices, and wound healing applications. Most recently, we have developed a modular nanoparticle approach using liposomal core particles and layering them with an […]

Spring 2025 Robotics MSE Thesis and Capstone Lightning Talks and Poster Session

Wu & Chen Auditorium

This is an in-person event with in-person attendance in Wu and Chen Auditorium for Lightning Talks and Levine Lobby for Poster Session. This year we will have an "Audience Choice" for best Lightning Talk and Poster. Please be sure to vote for your favorite! Voting will take place during the Poster Session using a QR […]

CBE Seminar: “Redox-responsive Interfaces for Selective Electrochemical Separations” (Xiao Su, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)

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

Abstract: Electric fields and electrochemical reactions can unlock new separation pathways. While electrochemical separations have been explored previously for water desalination, their translation to value-added chemical manufacturing or resource recovery has been hampered by the lack of molecular selectivity. Here, we present the molecular design of redox-responsive materials for enabling selective electrochemical separations. Redox electron-transfer […]

Spring 2025 GRASP Seminar: Mike Shou, National University of Singapore, “Video intelligence in the era of multimodal”

Levine 307 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

This will be a hybrid event with a VIRTUAL speaker. The GRASP seminar will be streamed for in-person attendance in Levine 307 and virtual attendance on Zoom. ABSTRACT The past few years have witnessed great success in video intelligence, as supercharged by multimodal models. In this talk, I will start with a brief sharing of our […]

CPE4H Seminar: “Engineering Native Biological Complexity from the Inside–out and Outside–in” (Cole A. DeForest, University of Washington)

Glandt Forum, Singh Center for Nanotechnology 3205 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Abstract: Engineering heterogenous multicellular tissue with native complexity remains one of the holy grails of regenerative medicine and basic biological research. As success in this regard would yield powerful bioengineered constructs useful in functional transplantation, high-throughput drug screening, and fundamental biology investigation, research efforts in our lab have centered around developing and implementing tools to […]

ESE Guest SEminar – “Dynamical control of tip-induced quantum light-matter interactions at the nanoscale”

Greenberg Lounge (Room 114), Skirkanich Hall 210 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

The controllable manipulation of bandgap, radiative emission, and energy transfer in low-dimensional quantum materials provides a versatile platform for a range of quantum photonic devices. Moreover, the understanding and precise regulation of nanoscale behaviors exhibited by excitonic quasiparticles, such as excitons and trions, in low-dimensional semiconductors are paramount for the development of highly efficient nano-excitonic […]