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MEAM Seminar: “Physics and Engineering of Moisture-Capturing Hydrogels for Freshwater and Heat Harvesting”

Towne 319 220 S. 33rd Street, Philadelphia, United States

Humidity in the air is a vast water and energy resource available in any location. Air in the atmosphere contains six times more freshwater than that of all rivers and lakes. This moisture also carries over a thousand times more power than the global electricity demand. For over two centuries, numerous water sorbent materials have […]

Spring 2024 GRASP on Robotics: Zac Manchester, Carnegie Mellon University, “Composable Optimization for Robotic Motion Planning and Control”

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

This is a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Wu and Chen and virtual attendance on Zoom. ABSTRACT Contact interactions are pervasive in real-world robotics tasks like manipulation and walking. However, the non-smooth dynamics associated with impacts and friction remain challenging to model, and motion planning and control algorithms that can fluently and efficiently reason about […]

Spring 2024 GRASP SFI: Madhur Behl, University of Virginia, “Bringing AI Up To Speed”

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

This will be a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Levine 307 and virtual attendance on Zoom. ABSTRACT Why has autonomous driving, a task demanding significant intelligence, not met the high expectations set by many? Which hurdles have turned out to be more formidable than expected, and how can we refine our testing methodologies for […]

CBE Seminar: “Dynamics and Reactivity of Supported Catalysts in the Subnanometer Regime” (Ayman Karim, Virginia Tech)

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

Abstract Supported noble metal catalysts are extensively used in industry and their catalytic performance is strongly affected by particle size and shape. In the last decade, supported single atoms and subnanometer clusters have attracted a lot of interest since they maximize the metal utilization and have shown extraordinary catalytic properties for many reactions. In this […]

MSE Seminar: “The Surface Dynamics of the Initial Stages of CU Oxidation”

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

Much is known about oxygen interaction with metal surfaces and about the macroscopic growth of thermodynamically stable oxides. At present, however, the transient stages of oxidation - from nucleation of the metal oxide to formation of the thermodynamically stable oxide - represent a scientifically challenging and technologically important terra incognito. These issues can only be […]

BE Seminar: “A Task-Optimized Approach to Systems Neuroscience” (Aran Nayebi, MIT)

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

Note that this seminar will be held in Wu & Chen Auditorium (Levine 101). Humans and animals exhibit a range of interesting behaviors in complex environments, and it is unclear how the brain reformats dense sensory information to enable these behaviors. To gain traction on this problem, new recording paradigms now facilitate the ability to […]

Spring 2024 GRASP SFI: Michel Hidalgo, Ekumen, “Doing robotics in digital labs: Or how simulations fuel robotics development”

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

This will be a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Levine 307 and virtual attendance on Zoom. This week's speaker will be virtual. Seminar attendees are also invited to a group discussion with Michel Hidalgo on Thursday, April 11th from 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM on this link. ABSTRACT How do you do robotics without robots? […]

CBE Seminar: “Role of Water in Underwater Adhesion” (Ali Dhinojwala, University of Akron)

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

Abstract Roughness and wetness can disrupt interfacial bonding and reduce adhesion, and this phenomenon is of relevance for many biological and engineering applications. I will discuss how roughness affects both dry and wet adhesion as well as provide an overview of our current theoretical understanding in this area. My specific interest is in underwater adhesion, […]

MSE Seminar: “Thermal Architecture”

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

Air conditioning accounts for nearly 20% of the total electricity used in buildings globally and cooling energy demand is predicted to significantly increase over the next decades due to urbanization, population growth, and global warming. Heat stress is a major environmental justice concern, disproportionally impacting disadvantaged communities. What are the paths to reduce the massive energy […]

Spring 2024 GRASP on Robotics: David Fridovich-Keil, University of Texas at Austin, “Information-Aware Algorithms for Smooth Dynamic Games”

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

This is a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Wu and Chen and virtual attendance on Zoom. ABSTRACT This talk introduces dynamic game theory as a natural modeling tool for multi-agent interactions ranging from large, abstract systems such as ride-hailing networks to more concrete, physically-embodied robotic settings such as collision-avoidance in traffic. We present the […]