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ESE Seminar – “A changing grid powered by the new generations of power conversion, control, and energy management”

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

The electric grid is undergoing a transformative paradigm shift, driven by sweeping changes in generation, demand, and energy storage. By 2035, solar PV alone is expected to supply 40% of U.S. electricity, with substantial additional contributions from wind, geothermal, and hydroelectric sources—creating a renewable-dominant energy landscape. Meanwhile, electricity demand is accelerating due to rapid growth […]

BE Seminar – “The Neurobiology of Mistakes” (Becket Ebitz, Université de Montréal)

Berger Auditorium (Room 13), Skirkanich Hall 210 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Humans and other animals do not always choose the most rewarding course of action, even when we have ample time and computational resources. Why do we make mistakes? The noiseLab uses a combination of theoretical, behavioral, and neurobiological techniques to address this question. In this talk, Dr. Becket Ebitz will discuss converging evidence that mistakes are the product of representational and temporal nonlinearities in neural activity that constrain our ability to make good decisions. The talk will argue that some of these nonlinearities have long-term adaptive benefits, even when they fail to produce the best decision in the moment.

Berger Auditorium (Room 13), Skirkanich Hall 210 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Humans and other animals do not always choose the most rewarding course of action, even when we have ample time and computational resources.Why do we make mistakes? The noiseLab uses a combination of theoretical, behavioral, and neurobiological techniques to address this question. In this talk, Dr. Becket Ebitz will discuss converging evidence that mistakes are […]

LRSM Seminar: “Expanding Our Vision of Glasses: Physical Vapor Deposition Prepares Ultrastable and Anisotropic Materials”

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

Glasses are generally regarded as disordered and the idea of “controlling” molecular packing in glasses is reasonably met with skepticism.  However, as glasses are non-equilibrium materials, a vast array of amorphous structures are possible in principle. Physical vapor deposition (PVD) produces glasses with properties that cannot be achieved by other preparation routes, including high stability […]

MEAM Seminar: “Robots that Evolve on Demand”

Wu & Chen Auditorium

Soft robots have the potential to adapt their morphologies and behavioral control policies to changing tasks and environments. Inspired by the dynamic plasticity of living organisms and the general adaptability of animals, this talk will discuss several shape-shifting soft robot platforms for multi-task performance and multi-environment locomotion—for example, robotic skins, robotic fabrics, and robots with […]

CIS Seminar: “Decentralized Mechanism Design: Cryptography Meets Game Theory”

Wu & Chen Auditorium

In classical auction design, we take it for granted that the auctioneer is trusted and always implements the auction's rules honestly. This assumption, however, no longer holds in modern auctions based on blockchains, or those mediated by third-party platforms such as Google. For example, in blockchain-based auctions, the consensus nodes that partly act as the […]

ASSET Seminar: “Efficient Sharing of AI Infrastructures with Specialized Serverless Computing”

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

Abstract: The efficient sharing of AI infrastructures is becoming increasingly important in both public and private data centers. This demand is driven by two key factors: the proliferation of specialized AI models tailored for different users and applications, and the highly dynamic nature of requests, which are often on-demand. Dedicated GPU allocation in such scenarios […]

Spring 2025 GRASP SFI: Guandao Yang, Stanford University, “Toward Spatial Intelligence with Limited Data”

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 Modern artificial intelligences (AIs) rely heavily on internet-scale data with unified representations. However, such large-scale homogeneous data isn't readily available for spatial computing applications involving 3D geometry, hindering the development of spatial intelligence— AIs that can generate […]

CBE Seminar: “Engineering Technologies for Enhanced Modeling, Detection, and Treatment of Neurological Disease” (Alice Stanton, MIT)

Wu & Chen Auditorium

Abstract: Neurological conditions are the leading cause of illness worldwide, though over 92% of clinically tested CNS drug candidates fail to become treatments. Contributing to this high failure rate is a lack of understanding of human disease mechanisms, technologies to address them, and the restrictive blood-brain barrier (BBB), which most compounds fail to cross. New […]