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ASSET Seminar: “Controlling Language Models”

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

Abstract: Controlling language models is key to unlocking their full potential and making them useful for downstream tasks. Successfully deploying these models often requires both task-specific customization and rigorous auditing of their behavior. In this talk, I will begin by introducing a customization method called Prefix-Tuning, which adapts language models by updating only 0.1% of […]

Spring 2025 GRASP SFI: Danna Ma, Cornell University, “Harnessing Physical Intelligence for Collective Motion in Robotic Matter”

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 In recent years, the field of swarm robotics has seen rapid advancements, from research to industry. While most work focuses on programmed intelligence, swarms in nature demonstrate that physical intelligence—where agents perform tasks based on their morphology […]

ESE Spring Seminar – “Wavelength-Encoded Nanolaser Particles for Highly Multiplexed Single-Cell Analysis”

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

Understanding single-cell heterogeneity in biological systems is considered the holy grail of biomedicine. However, conventional single-cell analysis methods are constrained by the destructive readout process of DNA barcodes and the broad emission linewidths of fluorescence barcodes, limiting their ability to capture dynamic information and achieve high multiplexing capabilities. This seminar explores the transformative potential of […]

IDEAS/STAT Optimization Seminar: “The Size of Teachers as a Measure of Data Complexity: PAC-Bayes Excess Risk Bounds and Scaling Laws”

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

Zoom link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/98220304722 Abstract: We study the generalization properties of neural networks through the lens of data complexity.  Recent work by Buzaglo et al. (2024) shows that random (nearly) interpolating networks generalize, provided there is a small ``teacher'' network that achieves small excess risk. We give a short single-sample PAC-Bayes proof of this result and […]

CIS Seminar: “Unlocking Scalable Robot Learning in the Real World”

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

Many domains of machine learning, from language modeling to computer vision, have recently undergone a shift towards generalist models, whose broad generalization abilities are fueled by large and diverse real-world training datasets and high-capacity model architectures. In robotics, however, it has been challenging to apply the same recipe: after all, we cannot easily scrape millions […]

CIS Seminar: “Learning to Perceive the 4D World”

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

Perceiving the 4D world (i.e., 3D space over time) from visual input is essential for human interaction with the physical environment. While computer vision has made remarkable progress in 3D scene understanding, much of it remains piecemeal—for example, focusing solely on static scenes or specific categories of dynamic objects. How can we model diverse dynamic […]

CIS Seminar: “Pareto-efficient AI systems: Expanding the quality and efficiency frontier of AI”

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

We have made exciting progress in AI by massive models on massive amounts of data center compute. However, the demands for AI are rapidly expanding. I identify how to maximize performance under any compute constraint, expanding the Pareto frontier of AI capabilities.   This talk builds up to an efficient language model architecture that expands […]

Spring 2025 GRASP on Robotics: Mac Schwager, Stanford University, “Perception-Rich Robot Autonomy with Neural Environment 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 Recent advances in computer vision have led to the rise of highly expressive 3D scene models such as NeRFs and GSplats. More than just rendering lifelike images, these models allow robots to ground visual, semantic, physical, […]

CBE Doctoral Dissertation Defense: “Computational Materials Design for Exerting Control over Ice Formation” (Zachariah Vicars)

Room 313, Singh Center for Nanotechnology 3205 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Abstract: Ice formation plays an important role in a wide range of contexts, from serving as nuclei for clouds in the upper atmosphere to forming on the surfaces of aircraft and ships, reducing their performance. Controlling the formation of ice using additives or novel coatings has, consequently, been a long-standing pursuit in materials science. Here, […]

Celebration of Community

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

The Cora Ingrum Center for Community and Outreach is planning its annual Celebration of Community gala to showcase Penn Engineering students, staff, and faculty in their multi-talented richness. The event will consist of guest speakers, performances, presentations from student groups, and a variety of cuisines. Do not hesitate to contact Dr. Ocek Eke (ocek@seas.upenn.edu) and […]