ESE Spring Seminar – “Generalization, Memorization, and Privacy in Trustworthy Machine Learning”

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

Machine learning is transforming numerous aspects of modern society, and its expanding use in high-stakes applications calls for responsible development. In this talk, I will present my research on the foundations and methodologies for building trustworthy ML, centered on three interconnected challenges: generalization, memorization, and privacy. First, I will show how information-theoretic tools can be […]

ESE Spring Seminar – “Can Robots Learn from Machine Dreams? – Robot Learning via GenAI-powered World Models”

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

Over the past decade, large-scale pre-training followed by alignment has revolutionized natural language processing and computer vision. Yet, robotics remains constrained by the scarcity of real-world data. In this talk, I will present our systematic approach to overcoming this bottleneck by building increasingly rich world models from data. I will first introduce our distilled feature […]

IDEAS/STAT Optimization Seminar: “Statistics-Powered ML: Building Trust and Robustness in Black-Box Predictions”

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

Zoom link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/98220304722 Abstract: Modern ML models produce valuable predictions across various applications, influencing people’s lives, opportunities, and scientific advancements. However, these systems can fail in unexpected ways, generating unreliable inferences and perpetuating biases present in the data. These issues are particularly troubling in high-stakes applications, where models are trained on increasingly diverse, incomplete, and […]

ESE Spring Seminar – “Engineering and utilizing interactions between spins and light with molecular qubits”

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

Coupling of spins and light can enable photon-mediated scaling and control in quantum technologies, as demonstrated in trapped atom, ion, and solid-state spin qubits. Molecular analogs of such systems hold promise as a nascent qubit platform that can leverage the tools of synthetic chemistry to tailor quantum properties and integrate in nanoscale devices but have […]

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 […]

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 […]

IDEAS/STAT Optimization Seminar: “Stochastic-Gradient-based Algorithms for Solving Nonconvex Constrained Optimization Problems”

Amy Gutmann Hall, Room 615

Zoom link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/98220304722   Abstract I will present recent work by my research group on the design and analysis of stochastic-gradient-based algorithms for solving nonconvex constrained optimization problems, which may arise, for example, in informed supervised learning.  I will focus in particular on algorithmic strategies that have consistently been shown to exhibit the best practical […]

IDEAS/STAT Optimization Seminar: “Gradient Equilibrium in Online Learning”

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

We present a new perspective on online learning that we refer to as gradient equilibrium: a sequence of iterates achieves gradient equilibrium if the average of gradients of losses along the sequence converges to zero. In general, this condition is not implied by, nor implies, sublinear regret. It turns out that gradient equilibrium is achievable […]

AI Infrastructure: Foundations for Energy Efficiency and Scalability

Jon M. Huntsman Hall 3730 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Click here for more details. The workshop will explore the state of the art in sustainable computing and share recent research at the intersection of technology, economics, and policy. Through invited talks, panel discussions, and breakout sessions, participants will help shape a research agenda for the field. The workshop aims to produce a white paper and publish […]