12-1:30 p.m. Lightning Talks Session I (five-minute talks)
1:30-3:30 p.m. Poster Presentations and Reception
3:30-4:30 p.m. Lightning Talks Session II (five-minute talks)
4:45 p.m. Award Presentations
Abstracts can be submitted at this link until Sunday, August 18, 2019 at 11:59 pm. You will be notified if you will present a poster or a lightning talk by August 26, 2019.
The Georgia Tech Postdoctoral Research Symposium awards are the only campus-wide source of travel funds available to postdocs. Visit the Postdoc Symposium website to see the list of awards confirmed so far, and stay tuned because there are more to come!
Academic and research faculty are needed to serve as judges for the talks and posters. Please volunteer to judge by signing up here.
Visit Postdoc Symposium website for updated information. Questions can be sent to to postdocs@gatech.edu.
]]>How does a wombat produce cube-shaped feces? How long does it take an elephant to urinate?
Answering these two questions have landed David Hu two Ig Nobel Prizes, awards given at Harvard University for research that makes people laugh, and then think. Hu will talk about his lab's latest adventures catching elephant pee in trash cans, inflating wombat intestines with clown balloons, and dressing up as a gigantic piece of cubed poo at this year's Ig Nobel Ceremony.
About the Speaker
David Hu is a mechanical engineer who studies the mysteries of animal movement. His team has discovered how dogs shake dry, how insects walk on water, and how eyelashes protect the eyes from drying.
Originally from Rockville, Maryland, Hu earned degrees in mathematics and mechanical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Currently he is a professor in the Georgia Tech Schools of Mechanical Engineering and Biological Sciences and an adjunct professor in the School of Physics.
Hu is a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER award for young scientists, two Ig Nobel Prizes in Physics, and the Pineapple Science Prize (the Ig Nobel of China). He serves on the editorial board of Nature Scientific Reports, PLoS One, and The Journal of Experimental Biology.
His work has been featured in The Economist, The New York Times, Saturday Night Live, and Highlights for Children. He is the author of the book "How to Walk on Water and Climb Up Walls: Animal Motion and the Robots of the Future," published by Princeton University Press.
He lives with his wife and two children in Atlanta, Georgia. His profile is in the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/05/science/hu-robotics.html.
]]>If you DO NOT speak French – do not worry! You don’t need to speak French to spend a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine! Courses are taught in English by Georgia Tech faculty.
If you DO speak French - you can participate in the new French-Sciences-Sustainability: French Immersion Program at Georgia Tech-Lorraine.
EITHER WAY, come to this info session from 11-11:50am to learn everything you ever wanted to know about studying at Georgia Tech’s campus in France. All of your questions regarding Georgia Tech-Lorraine and the SLS-France Program will be answered!
Apply now or learn more at lorraine.gatech.edu.
Don't miss out on spending a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine!
]]>For all undergraduate majors and AE, CS, ECE & ME graduate students! (Fall and Spring only for grad students)
]]>If you DO NOT speak French – do not worry! You don’t need to speak French to spend a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine! Courses are taught in English by Georgia Tech faculty.
If you DO speak French - you can participate in the new French-Sciences-Sustainability: French Immersion Program at Georgia Tech-Lorraine.
EITHER WAY, come to this info session from 11-11:50am to learn everything you ever wanted to know about studying at Georgia Tech’s campus in France. All of your questions regarding Georgia Tech-Lorraine and the SLS-France Program will be answered!
PLUS hear from a panel of Georgia Tech-Lorraine alumni who will discuss their experiences abroad, give advice and answer questions!
Apply now or learn more at lorraine.gatech.edu.
Don't miss out on spending a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine!
]]>For all undergraduate majors and AE, CS, ECE & ME graduate students! (Fall and Spring only for grad students)
]]>Sung Jin Park, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
Georgia Tech/Emory University
The cellular phenotypes caused by inherited arrhythmia mutations have been studied using human induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs). However, arrhythmias are the emergent properties of cells assembled into tissues, and the impact of these mutations on tissue-level properties of human myocardium has not been reported. In this talk, I will present an in vitro hiPSC-CM-based platform to study the tissue-level properties of engineered human myocardium. I will illustrate how this hiPSC-CM-based platform can be used to investigate pathogenic mechanisms in the deadly, exercise-triggered inherited arrhythmia catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (CPVT). In addition, I will show how we combined this novel platform with genome editing and identified new therapeutic target for CPVT.
]]>Upcoming Dates:
Immediately Following Graduate Student Welcome
Students are invited to enjoy food, festivities, and fun at the Grad Picnic at Tech Green from 5-8 p.m. This is a free event for all graduate students, faculty, and staff.
404.385.3426
]]>Upcoming Dates:
If you DO NOT speak French – do not worry! You don’t need to speak French to spend a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine! Courses are taught in English by Georgia Tech faculty.
If you DO speak French - you can participate in the new French-Sciences-Sustainability: French Immersion Program at Georgia Tech-Lorraine.
EITHER WAY, come to this info session from 11-11:50am to learn everything you ever wanted to know about studying at Georgia Tech’s campus in France. All of your questions regarding Georgia Tech-Lorraine and the SLS-France Program will be answered!
Apply now or learn more at lorraine.gatech.edu.
Don't miss out on spending a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine!
]]>For all undergraduate majors and AE, CS, ECE & ME graduate students! (Fall and Spring only for grad students)
]]>Upcoming Dates:
If you DO NOT speak French – do not worry! You don’t need to speak French to spend a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine! Courses are taught in English by Georgia Tech faculty.
If you DO speak French - you can participate in the new French-Sciences-Sustainability: French Immersion Program at Georgia Tech-Lorraine.
EITHER WAY, come to this info session from 11-11:50am to learn everything you ever wanted to know about studying at Georgia Tech’s campus in France. All of your questions regarding Georgia Tech-Lorraine and the SLS-France Program will be answered!
PLUS hear from a panel of Georgia Tech-Lorraine alumni who will discuss their experiences abroad, give advice and answer questions!
Apply now or learn more at lorraine.gatech.edu.
Don't miss out on spending a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine!
]]>For all undergraduate majors and AE, CS, ECE & ME graduate students! (Fall and Spring only for grad students)
]]>Upcoming Dates:
Upcoming Dates:
If you DO NOT speak French – do not worry! You don’t need to speak French to spend a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine! Courses are taught in English by Georgia Tech faculty.
If you DO speak French - you can participate in the new French-Sciences-Sustainability: French Immersion Program at Georgia Tech-Lorraine.
EITHER WAY, come to this info session from 11-11:50am to learn everything you ever wanted to know about studying at Georgia Tech’s campus in France. All of your questions regarding Georgia Tech-Lorraine and the SLS-France Program will be answered!
Apply now or learn more at lorraine.gatech.edu.
Don't miss out on spending a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine!
]]>For all undergraduate majors and AE, CS, ECE & ME graduate students! (Fall and Spring only for grad students)
]]>Upcoming Dates:
If you DO NOT speak French – do not worry! You don’t need to speak French to spend a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine! Courses are taught in English by Georgia Tech faculty.
If you DO speak French - you can participate in the new French-Sciences-Sustainability: French Immersion Program at Georgia Tech-Lorraine.
EITHER WAY, come to this info session from 11-11:50am to learn everything you ever wanted to know about studying at Georgia Tech’s campus in France. All of your questions regarding Georgia Tech-Lorraine and the SLS-France Program will be answered!
Apply now or learn more at lorraine.gatech.edu.
Don't miss out on spending a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine!
]]>For all undergraduate majors and AE, CS, ECE & ME graduate students! (Fall and Spring only for grad students)
]]>Upcoming Dates:
If you DO NOT speak French – do not worry! You don’t need to speak French to spend a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine! Courses are taught in English by Georgia Tech faculty.
If you DO speak French - you can participate in the new French-Sciences-Sustainability: French Immersion Program at Georgia Tech-Lorraine.
EITHER WAY, come to this info session from 11-11:50am to learn everything you ever wanted to know about studying at Georgia Tech’s campus in France. All of your questions regarding Georgia Tech-Lorraine and the SLS-France Program will be answered! PLUS hear from a panel of Georgia Tech-Lorraine alumni who will discuss their experience abroad, give advice and answer questions!
Apply now or learn more at lorraine.gatech.edu.
Don't miss out on spending a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine!
]]>For all undergraduate majors and AE, CS, ECE & ME graduate students! (Fall and Spring only for grad students)
]]>Upcoming Dates:
If you DO NOT speak French – do not worry! You don’t need to speak French to spend a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine! Courses are taught in English by Georgia Tech faculty.
If you DO speak French - you can participate in the new French-Sciences-Sustainability: French Immersion Program at Georgia Tech-Lorraine.
EITHER WAY, come to this info session from 11-11:50am to learn everything you ever wanted to know about studying at Georgia Tech’s campus in France. All of your questions regarding Georgia Tech-Lorraine and the SLS-France Program will be answered!
Apply now or learn more at lorraine.gatech.edu.
Don't miss out on spending a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine!
]]>For all undergraduate majors and AE, CS, ECE & ME graduate students! (Fall and Spring only for grad students)
]]>Upcoming Dates:
If you DO NOT speak French – do not worry! You don’t need to speak French to spend a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine! Courses are taught in English by Georgia Tech faculty.
If you DO speak French - you can participate in the new French-Sciences-Sustainability: French Immersion Program at Georgia Tech-Lorraine.
EITHER WAY, come to this info session from 11-11:50am to learn everything you ever wanted to know about studying at Georgia Tech’s campus in France. All of your questions regarding Georgia Tech-Lorraine and the SLS-France Program will be answered!
Apply now or learn more at lorraine.gatech.edu.
Don't miss out on spending a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine!
]]>For all undergraduate majors and AE, CS, ECE & ME graduate students! (Fall and Spring only for grad students)
]]>Upcoming Dates:
If you DO NOT speak French – do not worry! You don’t need to speak French to spend a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine! Courses are taught in English by Georgia Tech faculty.
If you DO speak French - you can participate in the new French-Sciences-Sustainability: French Immersion Program at Georgia Tech-Lorraine.
EITHER WAY, come to this info session from 11-11:50am to learn everything you ever wanted to know about studying at Georgia Tech’s campus in France. All of your questions regarding Georgia Tech-Lorraine and the SLS-France Program will be answered!
Apply now or learn more at lorraine.gatech.edu.
Don't miss out on spending a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine!
]]>For all undergraduate majors and AE, CS, ECE & ME graduate students! (Fall and Spring only for grad students)
]]>The event has two sections: (1) space exploration technology and planetary science and (2) the chemistry and biology of the origins and the search for life. The event comprises presentations and talks by early-career scientists – graduate students, undergraduates, and postdoctoral fellows – working in the exciting fields of space and planetary science, engineering, and astrobiology across Georgia Tech and greater Atlanta.
Confirmed Plenary Speakers
Distinguished members of the global astrobiology community will deliver plenary lectures. Confirmed speakers include:
Kevin Hand is a deputy project scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He founded the nonprofit organization Cosmos Education and was its president until 2007.
As a planetary scientist and astrobiologist, his research focuses on numerical modeling, laboratory experiments, and instrument development to advance our understanding of the physics and chemistry of icy moons in the outer solar system. He is also interested in characterizing the connection between terrestrial cryosphere processes and the climate change record.
He is currently involved in projects connected to NASA’s Europa mission which will conduct detailed investigation on whether the icy moon could harbor conditions suitable for life.
Sara Walker is an assistant professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University (ASU). She is deputy director of ASU’s Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, and associate director of the ASU-Santa Fe Institute Center for Biosocial Complex Systems.
She co-founded the astrobiology-themed social website SAGANet and is a member of the board of directors of Blue Marble Space Institute of Science.
Her work centers on in the origin of life and how to find life on other worlds. She is most interested in whether there are “laws of life” – related to how information structures the physical world – that could universally describe life here Earth and other planets.
She is active in public engagement in science, with appearances at the World Science Festival, the television series “Through the Wormhole,” and the public radio program “Science Friday.”
Paul Steffes is a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He performed his doctoral research at Stanford University, where he concentrated on microwave radio occultation experiments using the Voyager and Mariner spacecraft, with specific interest in microwave absorption in planetary atmospheres.
In 1982, he joined the faculty of Georgia. His research, focusing on microwave and millimeter-wave remote sensing and radio astronomy, has been sponsored by NASA, NSF, the SETI Institute, and industry.
He has been involved with numerous NASA missions, including Pioneer-Venus, Magellan, the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS), the High Resolution Microwave Survey (HRMS), and Juno (Jupiter Polar Orbiter).
Registration and Abstract Submission
Registration for the 2019 Exploration and Origins Colloquium is open. Please note:
To submit an abstract and register as a presenter, click here.
For general registration (for those who are not presenters), click here.
Locations:
Keynote and oral presentations will take place in room 1005, Krone Engineered Biosystems Building (EBB), 950 Atlantic Drive, NW, Atlanta. GA 30332.
The poster session and networking event will be in held in the first- and second-floor atriums of the Molecular Science and Engineering Building (MoSE), 901 Atlantic Drive NW, Atlanta, GA 30318.
For more information, visit the website here. For other questions, contact us
Organizing Committee
Faculty Advisor: Martha Grover, professor, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
]]>Monday, August 26, 2019| 10am - 2pm
Tech Walkway, southwest corner (tent and tables) weather permitting OR ISyE Atrium if we are rained out.
Stop by to chat with Amazon representatives and learn about the opportunities they are currently hiring for.
Tuesday, August 27, 2019 | 12pm - 2pm
ISyE 2nd floor Atrium (Main Building, 755 Ferst Drive)
Learn about Amazon Operation's culture and how your background can contribute to our growing network.
Tuesday, August 27 | 2–5 PM | ISyE Rooms 226 & 202 (Groseclose/765 Ferst)
Wednesday and Thursday, August 28 & 29 | 8 AM – 5 PM | ISyE Rooms 226 & 202 (Groseclose/765 Ferst)
Meet Amazon team members, learn more about the culture, and ask any questions...
]]>
]]>
The Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellowship seeks to attract talented, committed individuals with backgrounds in the STEM fields—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—into teaching in high-need secondary schools in Georgia and Pennsylvania schools.
The Fellowship also works to change the way top teachers are prepared, partnering with colleges and universities that have agreed to provide Fellows with innovative, year-long classroom experiences, rigorous academic work, and ongoing mentoring.
https://woodrow.org/fellowships/ww-teaching-fellowships/
Susan Belmonte, Georgia Tech Pre-Teaching Advisor, can help you with your application. sbelmonte@gatech.edu
]]>joliva7@gatech.edu
]]>Abstract : The mechanical properties of metastatic cancer cells can be modulated to better migrate through tissues. We evaluate cell stiffness as a biomarker for isolating of cancer cells and subtypes of cells. In this case, the heterogeneity of cancer cells can be reduced through rapid label-free isolation and sorting to improve our understanding of invasive or drug-resistant subpopulations. Microfluidic channels are designed that reposition flowing cells in proportion to important biomechanical properties of stiffness, size, and adhesion. The repositioned cells are then collected at the outlets. We demonstrate three examples of how this sorting process can be used to collect invasive ovarian cancer, drug resistant leukemia, and purer stem cell cultures.
Bio: Todd Sulchek conducts fundamental and applied research in the field of biomechanics. His research program focuses on creating new micro-technologies to apply to questions in cellular mechanics and adhesion. He joined Georgia Tech in July 2008 as an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Sulchek also holds program faculty positions in Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering. Prior to Georgia Tech, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher and Staff Scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Dr. Sulchek graduated with his PhD in Applied Physics from Stanford University. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER award, the CETL/BP Junior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award, the Lockheed Inspirational Young Faculty award, 2012 Petit Institute Above and Beyond Award, Class of 1940 Course Survey Teaching Effectiveness Award, and is a Woodruff Fellow. Over his research career he has published 74 journal papers (H-index of 34 on Google Scholar) and has filed or been issued 12 patents.
*Pizza lunch will be provided, however we ask that you limit yourself to two slices so that all attendees are accommodated.
]]>Abstract
In robotics and computer vision, simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) and structure from motion (SFM) are important and closely related problems. I will review how SLAM, SFM, and other problems in robotics and vision can be posed in terms of factor graphs, which provide a graphical language in which to develop and collaborate on such problems. The theme of the talk will be to emphasize the advantages and intuition that come with analyzing factor graphs. I will show how using these insights we have developed both batch and incremental algorithms defined on graphs in the SLAM/SFM domain, as well as more sophisticated approaches to trajectory optimization. Many of these ideas are embodied in the Skydio R1, a commercially available, fully autonomous drone I helped develop at Skydio, a San Francisco Bay area startup.
Bio
Frank Dellaert is a professor in the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. While on leave from Tech in 2016-2018, he served as a technical project lead at Facebook Reality Labs. Before that, he completed a stint as chief scientist at Skydio, a startup founded by MIT grads to create intuitive interfaces for micro-aerial vehicles.
Dellaert’s research interests lie in the overlap of robotics and computer vision, and he is particularly interested in graphical model techniques to solve large-scale problems in mapping and 3D reconstruction. The GTSAM toolbox embodies many of the ideas his research group has worked on in the past few years and is available for download at https://bitbucket.org/gtborg/gtsam.
]]>If you DO NOT speak French – do not worry! You don’t need to speak French to spend a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine! Courses are taught in English by Georgia Tech faculty.
If you DO speak French - you can participate in the new French-Sciences-Sustainability: French Immersion Program at Georgia Tech-Lorraine.
EITHER WAY, come to this info session from 11-11:50am to learn everything you ever wanted to know about studying at Georgia Tech’s campus in France. All of your questions regarding Georgia Tech-Lorraine and the new French Immersion Program will be answered!
Apply now or learn more at lorraine.gatech.edu
Don't miss out on spending a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine!
]]>For all undergraduate majors and AE, CS, ECE & ME graduate students! (Fall and Spring only for grad students)
]]>The #APSTIC is a technology competition for 3rd - 12th-grade students in the Atlanta Public Schools District, including all charter, private, and home schools.
All first place winners will advance to The Georgia Student Technology Competition (GaSTC), an annual student technology competition produced by the Georgia Educational Technology Consortium. The GaSTC is the highest level of student technology competition in Georgia with over 750 projects, representing the work of over 1000 students, which are judged at the competition each March.
For more information please visit https://apstic.weebly.com/
]]>Communications Officer
allie.mcfadden@cc.gatech.edu
]]>Elizabeth Hillman, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Columbia University
There is a crucial biological system that reaches every crevice of the brain, and yet goes unstudied by most neuroscientists. It is the vascular system, the network of vessels that carries oxygen-rich blood to hardworking nerve cells, called neurons. Elizabeth Hillman, PhD, a principal investigator at Columbia’s Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, studies neurovascular coupling — or how neural activity in the brain drives changes in brain blood flow. Despite its importance, little is known about this critical aspect of brain function.
This presentation can be seen via BlueJeans
]]>The last decade has seen significant advancements in our understanding of ice sheet hydrology and in particular, the role of subsurface drainage hidden within and beneath the ice sheets.
Radar sounding is one of the few unique geophysical tools that allow us to image and constrain processes occur in these traditionally difficult-to-observe subsurface environments. Nonetheless, despite their usefulness, robust analysis of radar sounding data face several technical challenges.
These include uncertainties related to spatially variable attenuation losses and roughness scattering. As a result, applications of ice-penetrating radar have so far been limited to local-scale studies and mapping distribution of static water within and beneath the glaciers.
In this talk, I will present novel methods where I combine ice-penetrating radar and numerical ice-sheet modeling to extract additional information from radar sounding data. I will demonstrate how we can apply this joint radar-model technique to gain new geophysical insights into the structure and dynamics of subsurface drainage systems in the Greenland ice sheet.
I will delve into the importance of understanding the large-scale characteristics of these systems for the overall dynamics of ice sheets and their response to surface melting.
]]>Corporate Partnership Program Manager
Center for Career Discovery and Development
404-894-2554
]]>joliva7@gatech.edu
]]>If you DO NOT speak French – do not worry! You don’t need to speak French to spend a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine! Courses are taught in English by Georgia Tech faculty.
If you DO speak French - you can participate in the new French-Sciences-Sustainability: French Immersion Program at Georgia Tech-Lorraine.
EITHER WAY, come to this info session from 11-11:50am to learn everything you ever wanted to know about studying at Georgia Tech’s campus in France. All of your questions regarding Georgia Tech-Lorraine and the new French Immersion Program will be answered!
Apply now or learn more at lorraine.gatech.edu
Don't miss out on spending a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine!
]]>For all undergraduate majors and AE, CS, ECE & ME graduate students! (Fall and Spring only for grad students)
]]>The development of next generation lithium-metal alloy electrodes which make us of Si, Sn, Al, Au, and Ge can revolutionize the energy storage industry. In practice, however, the high volume expansion of the host material, and accompanying generation of stresses, can have a significant deleterious effect on the electrochemical performance of these electrodes. One promising path for circumventing these mechanical degradation issues is through the use elastic instabilities. However, at present there is no numerical tool to enable the rational design of nano-architected electrodes which buckle.
In this work, we develop numerical tools for modeling the electrochemical performance of nano-architected electrodes undergoing buckling. Our approach makes use of two types of simulations, i) a detailed fully-coupled finite-element model which accurately resolves the transient behavior of these complex systems, and ii) a simplified reduced order model which integrates enough physics to provide a reasonably accurate estimation of the electrochemical performance at a fraction of the computational cost.
Bio:
Claudio V. Di Leo is an assistant professor of Aerospace Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Di Leo received his Ph.D. (2015), M.S. (2013), and B.S. (2010) in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where his research focused on modeling hydrogen diffusion in metals and the chemo-mechanics of Li-ion batteries. In November 2016, Dr. Di Leo joined Georgia Tech as an assistant professor of Aerospace engineering. His research interests lie in the coupling between chemistry and mechanics of materials, particular how we harness this coupling for improved chemical and mechanical performance.
]]>The Robotarium project provides a remotely accessible swarm robotics research platform that remains freely accessible to anyone. Opened on August 22, 2017, the 725-square-foot facility houses more than 100 rolling and flying swarm robots that are accessible to anyone. Researchers from around the globe can write their own computer programs, upload them, then get the results as the Georgia Tech machines carry out the commands.
The event includes tours of the facility and demonstrations, following an open house format. Feel free to drop by at any time from 10:30–11:30 a.m. All are welcome.
Please Note: If you plan to bring a large group (more than 10 people), please contact Josie Giles to confirm space.
]]>Visit: www.engage.gatech.edu.
]]>Born 150 years ago, the periodic table is one of the most important and recognizable tools of science. To celebrate the table’s staying power, the United Nations proclaimed 2019 as the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements.
At Georgia Tech, the College of Sciences is leading an all-year-round celebration, #IYPT2019GT. It has partnered with other units to engage students, faculty, and staff in reconnecting with the periodic table, through athletics, art, and academics.
Kicking off the celebration is “The Periodic Table at Georgia Tech vs Notre Dame” men’s basketball match on Jan. 22. Partnering with Georgia Tech Athletics, the College of Sciences will bring #IYPT2019GT to McCamish Pavilion. Fans will have a chance to play games with the periodic table and element cards featuring the Yellow Jackets basketball team and Georgia Tech researchers. Prizes await lucky winners.
Admission is free to Georgia Tech students with a valid BuzzCard.
Discounted tickets are available to Georgia Tech faculty and staff here.
To purchase guaranteed gameday parking in advance ($12 plus service fee), visit the Click and Park website. Cash payments ($15) are also accepted at each parking location listed below (attendants from Standard Parking Plus will be collecting parking fees).
Fans are allowed to park in E40, E52, ER55 (Fowler Street only), E63, E65, ER66 and W23. Click here for more information on parking zones. For weekend games, parking areas open four (4) hours before tipoff. For weekday games, parking areas open at 5:00 p.m.
Visitors who arrive before these areas open are welcome to park in the GT Hotel and Conference Center parking deck (E81) in Tech Square or in Visitors’ Area 6 at $1.50 per hour.
Please note the following regulations:
The lecture will be on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2019, at 7:00pm at Georgia Tech's Ferst Center for the Arts. Doors will open at 6:30pm. Dr. Jemison will honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy and discuss her experiences with students, faculty, staff, and community members. Tickets will be available at tickets.studentcenter.gatech.edu for FREE on January 7, 2019.
]]>The lecture will be on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2019, at 7:00pm at Georgia Tech's Ferst Center for the Arts. Doors will open at 6:30pm. Dr. Jemison will honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy and discuss her experiences with students, faculty, staff, and community members. Tickets will be available at tickets.studentcenter.gatech.edu for FREE on Monday, January 7, 2019 at 10am. Seats are limited.
For questions or accommodations, please email etc@scpc.gatech.edu.
Abstract: With seabirds trapped in multipack drink rings, and mid-ocean islands of indestructible rubbish, the idea that plastics could play a big part in a sustainable future world might seem far-fetched. However, new smart photonic and electronic plastics may yet rescue the reputation of this all-consuming 20th century material. Research into such functional plastics for cars and buildings could drastically reduce the need for air conditioning and, thus, improve their energy efficiency. We will present recent efforts to design new plastics of desired photonic and electronic functions targeted for a greener world. One line of our enquiry is to explore the potential of new polymer-based systems that can offer the same flexibility, softness and light weight as commodity plastics but can control the flow of light therefore assisting energy (light) harvesting, e.g., of photovoltaic devices, or light out-coupling from light-emitting diodes. Other opportunities for such systems include photonic heat mirrors that can prevent undesired heat built up of solar cells limiting performance degradation during operation of the cells. Such mirrors also can be exploited to reduce the energy we waste to keep buildings at the temperature we want.
Bio: Natalie Stingelin (Stutzmann) FRSC is Professor of Functional Organic Materials at the Georgia Institute of Technology, with prior positions at Imperial College London, London, UK; the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK; Queen Mary University of London, London, UK; the Philips Research Laboratories, Eindhoven, The Netherlands; and ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland. She was awarded a ‘Chaire Internationale Associée’ by the Excellence Initiative of the Université de Bordeaux (2016), the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining's Rosenhain Medal and Prize (2014) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) President's International Fellowship Initiative (PIFI) Award for Visiting Scientists (2015). She was the Chair of the 2016 Gordon Conference on “Electronic Processes in Organic Materials” as well as the Zing conference on “Organic Semiconductors.” She has published >160 papers and has 6 issued patents. Her research interests encompass organic electronics & photonics, bioelectronics, physical chemistry of organic functional materials, and smart inorganic/organic hybrid systems
]]>Abstract
While robots dominate repetitive works in factories, the design and control of these robots are not suitable for relatively complex tasks that humans do easily. These tasks typically require force sensing and interaction force control. Conventional robots are not built to control force or to be flexible to perform like human arms.
This talk will discuss how the new design paradigm allows dynamic interactive force control within environments. As an embodiment of such a robot design paradigm, the latest version of the Cheetah robot and force-feedback teleoperation arms will be presented. This new class of robots will play a crucial role in future robot applications such as elderly care, home service, delivery, and services in environments unfavorable for humans.
Bio
Sangbae Kim is the director of the Biomimetic Robotics Laboratory and an associate professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. His research focuses on the bio-inspired robot design achieved by extracting principles from animals.
Kim’s achievements in bio-inspired robot development include creating the world’s first directional adhesive inspired by gecko lizards and a climbing robot named Stickybot that utilizes the directional adhesive to climb smooth surfaces. TIME Magazine named Stickybot one of the best inventions of 2006.
One of Kim’s recent achievements is the development of the MIT Cheetah, a robot capable of stable running outdoors up to 13 mph and autonomous jumping over obstacles at the efficiency of animals. More than 300 media articles covered his work on Cheetah.
Kim is a recipient of best paper awards from the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (2007), King-Sun Fu Memorial Transactions on Robotics (2008) and IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics (2016). Additionally, he received a DARPA Young Faculty Award (2013), an NSF CAREER award (2014), and a Ruth and Joel Spira Award for Distinguished Teaching (2015).
]]>If you DO NOT speak French – do not worry! You don’t need to speak French to spend a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine! Courses are taught in English by Georgia Tech faculty.
If you DO speak French - you can participate in the new French-Sciences-Sustainability: French Immersion Program at Georgia Tech-Lorraine.
EITHER WAY, come to this BIG info session from 11-11:50am to learn everything you ever wanted to know about studying at Georgia Tech’s campus in France from staff, and a panel of students who have already been there. All of your questions regarding Georgia Tech-Lorraine and the new French Immersion Program will be answered!
Apply now or learn more at lorraine.gatech.edu
Don't miss the biggest info session of the semester!
]]>For all undergraduate majors and AE, CS, ECE & ME graduate students! (Fall and Spring only for grad students)
]]>Information security certifications, frameworks, and regulatory requirements provide a good foundation for startups to build an information security program. Since a security breach could put a startup out of business, they tend to treat security differently. However, if unchecked, security could eat a big piece of the total budgetary pie, starving innovation and business growth. This presentation will share Nir’s lessons learned as the first CISO at Kabbage.
Nir Valtman heads information security at Kabbage, a unicorn FinTech company. Beforehand, Nir worked at NCR Corporation in several roles, including heading the application security across the software solutions portfolio and leading the divisional information security group as the Retail CISO. Furthermore, as part of his previous positions, he was working in several security leadership, application security, penetration testing and systems infrastructure security positions. Nir is a frequent speaker at leading conferences around the world, including Black Hat, Defcon, RSA, BSides, and OWASP. Nir has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science but his knowledge is mainly based on cowboy learning and information sharing with the techno-oriented communities.
]]>The Cybersecurity Lecture Series at Georgia Tech is a free, one-hour lecture from a thought leader who is advancing the field of information security and privacy. Invited speakers include executives and researchers from Fortune 500 companies, federal intelligence agencies, start-ups, and incubators, as well as Georgia Tech faculty and students presenting their research. Lectures are open to all -- students, faculty, industry, government, or simply the curious.
Karun Rajasekharan is a Product Security Architecture Leader at Honeywell Building Technologies. He has 30 years’ experience in software development and product management with a focus on networking, security, and cloud infrastructure/operations. Previously he has worked as a consultant for various cloud and healthcare companies in security, cloud migration, and compliance as well as being a co-founder at Virima Technologies.
Emil Man’s career in cybersecurity spans 15 years and includes engineering roles, as well as security architecture roles and now as a product security leader for Honeywell Safety and Productivity Solutions. Working for Internet Security Systems (acquired by IBM) helping customers with deployment of security solutions from the perimeter of their infrastructure all the way to the desktop at small companies as well as governmental institutions in Europe as well as the United States. Lately, within Honeywell Emil is working to help teams all over the world build security into innovative solutions for customers in a wide range of industries and geographical locations.
]]>
Lyft’s whole app experience is geared towards getting new users from the App Store or the Play Store to their first ride as quickly as possible. This streamlined process is great for users, but presents an ever-present problem — how do we prevent bad actors from abusing the lightweight onboarding process? In this talk, Dr. King will discuss how the best way to protect accounts is by changing products. He will describe the systems and techniques used at Twitter and Lyft to secure user's accounts, as well as extract general principles on how one should go about changing products to improve security. He will also discuss his research lab's recent work on preventing card-not-present - credit card fraud, where deep learning is used to create and detect fake credit cards.
Dr. Sam King was a professor for eight years at University Illinois Urbana-Champaign; however, five years ago he left his tenured position at UIUC to push himself intellectually and professionally in the industry. During these years, he started a company, sold his company to Twitter, worked as a code committing software engineer, fought fake accounts, managed a small team, managed a big team, secured Lyft’s phone-based accounts, battled fraudsters, and led a massive nine-month project (which is an eternity in industry) that ended up being the largest growth initiative in the history of Twitter. Now he's back in academia in the CS Department at UC Davis. He plans to continue to research topics in the computer security area and is especially interested in building systems for fighting fraud and rethinking our notion of digital identity. Dr. King received his Ph.D. from The University of Michigan, his Masters from Stanford, and his Bachelor’s degree from UCLA.
]]>The creation of the elements in the universe took billions of years and required various processes.
The first few minutes of the big bang produced only hydrogen (H) and helium (He). No new elements were formed until a few hundred million years later when the first generation of stars were born and they started fusing H and He into slightly higher-mass elements, such as carbon and oxygen. Various fusion reactions by multiple generations of stars eventually created elements up to iron (Fe).
However, normal stars cannot produce elements beyond Fe. Creation of elements heavier than Fe required the cataclysmic explosions of supernovas. These violent deaths of massive stars not only completed the natural elements in the periodic table. They also enabled human life, because certain life processes require heavy elements.
About the Speaker
James “Jim” Sowell is an astronomer at Georgia Tech and the director of the Georgia Tech Observatory. He has taught Georgia Tech’s two Introductory Astronomy courses for 27 years and the advanced Stellar Astrophysics course for 20 years.
He won the inaugural CETL Undergraduate Educator Award in 2009. He often performs public outreach and education, including the widely popular, monthly Public Nights at the Observatory; presentations at schools; and workshops for K-12 teachers. He developed the Aloha Telescope. This remotely controlled facility in Hawaii allows Atlanta area K-12 teachers and students to view live images of the Moon during regular school hours.
Sowell earned B.S. and M.S. degrees from Vanderbilt University and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He joined Georgia Tech in 1989.
About Frontiers in Science Lectures
Lectures in this series are intended to inform, engage, and inspire students, faculty, staff, and the public on developments, breakthroughs, and topics of general interest in the sciences and mathematics. Lecturers tailor their talks for nonexpert audiences.
About the Periodic Table Frontiers in Science Lecture Series
Throughout 2019, the College of Sciences will bring prominent researchers from Georgia Tech and beyond to expound on little-discussed aspects of chemical elements:
Closest public parking is Visitors Area 2, on Ferst Street by the Student Center, http://pts.gatech.edu/visitors#l3
5:30 - 6 p.m. Networking
6 - 7 pm Presentation
During this session of Deep Startups, Rackley will discuss how to go from idea to conception to a successful business. In 25 years, Rackley has founded 4 successful startups in multiple industries including mobile technology, automotive, event and sports technology, and banking. He is currently the CEO of Kenzie Lane Innovation, a company that builds technology companies from the ground up.
About Tripp Rackley:
Tripp Rackley is a true visionary and consummate inventor. Over the past 20 years,
he has founded and scaled multiple businesses spanning a variety of unique
industries including financial services, payments, sports and entertainment, as well
as automotive. Rackley’s technology has been implemented by thousands of
partners and used by millions of consumers nationwide.
With an initial focus on financial services, Rackley founded nFront, Inc., the pioneer
of Internet banking. nFront provided consumer and business banking for thousands
of financial institutions nationwide. Rackley took nFront public in June of 1999. The
company later merged with Digital Insight in 2000, creating over $800 million in
value for nFront’s shareholders. Ultimately, the company was sold to Intuit in 2007
for $1.35 billion and then to NCR in 2014 for $1.65 billion.
In 2005, Rackley again pushed the boundaries of financial services, technology and
innovation by founding Firethorn, the first mobile payments company. Firethorn
struck up partnerships with the two largest carriers, AT&T and Verizon Wireless, to
deliver mobile payments to the consumer market. Firethorn was sold to chip giant
Qualcomm in November of 2007 for $210 million.
Rackley’s third company, Experience, founded in 2011, is an award-winning mobile
technology company that empowers fans to personalize their live event experience.
Experience was selected as the winner of the Sports Business Award in 2014 for Best
in Sports Technology and in 2016 for Best in Mobile Fan Experience. The company
was acquired by Cox Enterprises in 2014.
Rackley also founded Clutch Technologies, a software platform that enables vehicle
subscription for the automotive industry. Today, Clutch is powering subscription
access for dealer groups and OEMs across the country. Cox Automotive acquired
Clutch in 2018.
Tripp Rackley has been honored with various Awards over the years
including:
• John Imlay Leadership Award Recipient, 2018
• TAG FinTech Hall of Fame Inductee, 2018
• Significant Sig Award from Sigma Chi International Fraternity, 2013
• Technology Hall of Fame of Georgia Inductee, 2011
• MIT Distinguished Entrepreneur Achievement Award, 2010
• TechAmerica; Entrepreneur of the Year, 2008
• Bank Technology News Innovators Hall of Fame; Banking Top Innovator, 2007
• TechAmerica; Spirit of Innovation, 2007
• Ernst & Young Technology Entrepreneur of the Year, 2000
• Georgia Institute of Technology Engineering Hall of Fame, 2000
Food will be served.
]]>create-x@gatech.edu
]]>If you DO NOT speak French – do not worry! You don’t need to speak French to spend a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine! Courses are taught in English by Georgia Tech faculty.
If you DO speak French - you can participate in the new French-Sciences-Sustainability: French Immersion Program at Georgia Tech-Lorraine.
EITHER WAY, come to this info session from 11-11:50am to learn everything you ever wanted to know about studying at Georgia Tech’s campus in France. All of your questions regarding Georgia Tech-Lorraine and the new French Immersion Program will be answered!
Apply now or learn more at lorraine.gatech.edu
Don't miss out on spending a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine!
]]>For all undergraduate majors and AE, CS, ECE & ME graduate students! (Fall and Spring only for grad students)
]]>
Check out the Challenges here!
*RSVP WILL OPEN MONDAY, JANUARY 14TH*
]]>Secure software development can be categorized into two major tasks: designing secure software and validating secure software. In this talk, we will review both categories as well as some resources helpful for continuous learning. Designing secure software requires being aware of good design patterns as well as avoiding patterns that are famous for introducing common bugs. Validating the security of a particular piece of software is an undecidable problem: there is no analysis that can guarantee that software is bug-free, this doesn’t mean that the attempt shouldn’t be made. By narrowing the scope of what guarantees are made during analysis, one can collect actionable information both by statically inspecting code/binaries and dynamically running the program under analysis. We will discuss various techniques for both types of analysis.
Shelby Allen is a Research Scientist at Georgia Tech Research Institute, focusing on R&D for software security and assurance. He received his bachelor’s from Georgia Tech for electrical engineering in 2007 and is expecting to finish the OMS CS program this semester. Before returning to Tech, he worked for various industries including cybersecurity, high-frequency trading, and embedded lighting control.
]]>
Abstract
A goal of interactive machine learning (IML) is to create robots or intelligent agents that can be easily taught how to perform tasks by individuals with no specialized training. To achieve that goal, researchers and designers must understand how certain design decisions impact the human’s experience of teaching the agent, such as influencing the agent’s perceived intelligence. We posit that the type of feedback a robot can learn from effects the perceived intelligence of the robot, similar to its physical appearance. This talk will discuss different methods of natural language instruction including critique and action advice. We conducted multiple human-in-the-loop experiments, in which people trained agents with different teaching methods but, unknown to each participant, the same underlying machine learning algorithm. The results show that the mechanism of teaching has an impact on a human teacher’s perception of the agent, including feelings of frustration, perceptions of intelligence, and performance, while only minimally impacting the agent’s performance.
Bio
Karen Feigh is an associate professor in Georgia Tech's Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering. She holds a B.S. in aerospace engineering from Georgia Tech, an MPhil in aeronautics from Cranfield University, UK, and a Ph.D. in industrial and systems engineering from Georgia Tech.
Feigh has previously worked on fast-time air traffic simulation, conducted ethnographic studies of airline and fractional ownership operation control centers, and designed expert systems for air traffic control towers and NextGen concepts. She is also experienced in conducting human-in-the-loop experiments for concept validation.
]]>Abstract
Mason will discuss a rambling mashup of topics in robotic manipulation, manipulation by apes and humans, early research on manipulation in the blocks world, more recent research motivated by e-commerce and logistics, with a brave attempt to identify cross-cutting principles and future directions.
Bio
Matthew T. Mason is a researcher in the area of robotic manipulation and is the author of two highly cited textbooks in the field. In 2004, he received widespread media attention for developing the first origami-folding robot, demonstrating advances in difficult manipulation tasks.
Mason received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1976, 1978, and 1982, respectively. His M.S. Thesis Compliance and Force Control for Computer Controlled Manipulators was advised by Berthold K. P. Horn, and his Ph.D. thesis Manipulator Grasping and Pushing Operations was advised by Tomas Lozano-Perez and Berthold K. P. Horn.
He worked at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center as a research visitor in 1978 and has been teaching at the School of Computer Science and the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University since 1982. At CMU, Mason served as the chair of the robotics doctoral program from 1995–2004 and is a past director of the Robotics Institute.
Mason served as the North American editor of the Butterworths Series in Computer Automation from 1988 to 1994, the technical editor of the IEEE Journal Robotics and Automation from 1989 to 1992, and on the board of editors for the MIT Robotics Review from 1988 to 1992. He is currently a member of the editorial and advisory board for the International Journal of Robotics Research.
He was a National Science Foundation Fellow from 1976 to 1980. In 1983, he received the System Development Foundation Prize. In 1992, he became a fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, and in 2000, he became a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
]]>Abstract
We, as robot engineers, have to think hard about our role in the design of robots and how it interacts with learning, both in “the factory” (that is, at engineering time) and in “the wild” (that is, when the robot is delivered to a customer). I will share some general thoughts about the strategies for robot design and then talk in detail about some work I have been involved in, both in the design of an overall architecture for an intelligent robot and in strategies for learning to integrate new skills into the repertoire of an already competent robot.
Bio
Leslie Pack Kaelbling is a professor of Computer Science and Engineering at MIT. She has previously held positions at Brown University, the Artificial Intelligence Center of SRI International, and at Teleos Research.
Kaelbling has completed substantial research on designing situated agents, mobile robotics, reinforcement learning, and decision-theoretic planning. In 2000, she founded the Journal of Machine Learning Research, a high-quality journal that is both freely available electronically as well as published in archival form; she currently serves as editor-in-chief.
She is an NSF Presidential Faculty Fellow, a former member of the AAAI Executive Council, the 1997 recipient of the IJCAI Computers and Thought Award, a trustee of IJCAII, and a fellow of the AAAI.
Kaelbling received an A.B. in Philosophy in 1983 and a Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1990, both from Stanford University.
]]>Abstract
Making use of visual display technology and human-robotic interfaces, many researchers have illustrated various opportunities to distort visual and physical realities. We have had success with interventions such as error augmentation, sensory crossover, and negative viscosity. Judicial application of these techniques leads to training situations that enhance the learning process and can restore movement ability after neural injury. I will trace out clinical studies that have employed such technologies to improve the health and function, as well as share some leading-edge insights that include deceiving the patient, moving the “smarts” of software into the hardware, and examining clinical effectiveness.
Bio
James L. Patton is a professor in the Richard and Loan Hill Department of Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a senior research scientist at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. Previously, he worked in automotive manufacturing and in nuclear medicine before discovering the control of human movement. His general interests involve robotic teaching, dynamic balance control, haptics, modeling of the human-machine interface, and robot-facilitated recovery from a brain injury.
He received B.S. degrees in mechanical engineering and engineering science from the University of Michigan in 1989, an M.S. degree in theoretical mechanics from Michigan State in 1993, and a Ph.D. degree in biomedical engineering from Northwestern University in 1998.
Patton is vice president of conferences in the IEEE-EMB Society and associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering and IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics. He’s also chair of the 2019 ICORR conference.
Mark Goldman, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior
University of California, Davis
A major goal in neuroscience is to determine the neural circuit dynamics and plasticity underlying behavior. In the first half of the talk, I will discuss our efforts to dissect the cellular and circuit mechanisms underlying a neural integrator circuit that accumulates and stores information in a short-term memory buffer. Using a simple computational modeling framework that enables the direct incorporation of data on cellular properties, neural recordings, perturbations of activity, and anatomical constraints, we show what features of the network connectivity can, and cannot, be directly inferred from the data. In the second half of the talk, I will discuss our work seeking to determine the sites of plasticity underlying the tuning of a simple reflexive eye movement behavior that has been at the center of a decades-old debate in the field of motor learning. Despite the seeming simplicity of this reflexive behavior, we show that inferring even the sites and signs (potentiation vs. depression) of plasticity can be highly challenging due to the presence of feedback loops in the neural circuitry and through the environment. In both halves of the talk, challenges and approaches for disambiguating different possible models underlying neural and behavioral data will be highlighted.
Prof. John Lipor
Assistant Professor at Portland State University
Abstract. In this lecture we will discuss a novel approach to the subspace clustering problem that leverages ensembles of the K-subspaces (KSS) algorithm with random initializations. We will extend existing results in subspace clustering to show that correct clustering can be achieved by any algorithm that obtains measurements of any monotonic function of the inner product between points. We then show that a single iteration of KSS with random initialization produces such a measurement, and hence our algorithm can provably recover subspaces under the same conditions as state-of-the-art algorithms. The finding is, to the best of our knowledge, the first recovery guarantee for evidence accumulation clustering and for KSS variants. It also provides insight into random initializations of subspace arrangements.
Biography. John Lipor is an assistant professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Portland State University. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2017 and was an awardee of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. He received his M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in 2013 and his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2009. His research interests include active learning and subspace methods, with an emphasis on problems in environmental sensing and monitoring.
Parking. Best parrking option is to use the Centergy Parking garage accessible from Spring Street. Optionally, you can park at the Georgia Tech Hotel guest parking or in any metered spot on Tech Square
12:00 PM - 12:05 PM - Introductions
12:05 PM - 12:45 PM - Seminar by Prof. John Lipor
12:45 PM - 1:00 PM - Discussion and Q&A
1:00 PM - 1:30 PM - Reception and networking
Professor Lipor will present a lecture on the topic of subspace clustering. Prof. Lipor is an Assistant Professor at Portland State University in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department. His research focuses on the design and analysis of machine learning and signal processing algorithms, with applications in environmental sensing and monitoring.
For a list of publications, check out his Google Scholar Profile
PLEASE RSVP to the link: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/189435
]]>404-407-8217
]]>Abstract: The distribution and interactions of single molecules in three-dimensionally organized cellular networks are fundamental to the function of living systems. Today, we still lack a complete understanding of how local molecular mechanisms are integrated and dynamically mapped over larger scales onto functional activities. The challenges pose high demands for imaging technologies to provide molecular specificity, nanometer-scale resolution, ultrafast speed, and accessibility across larger volumes of tissues. In this presentation, I will talk about my laboratory’s recently developed super-resolution and light-field microscopy, and functional imaging tools for high-throughput extraction of molecular information in cells and tissues with ultrahigh-spatiotemporal resolution and accessibility.
Bio: Dr. Jia is currently an Assistant Professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University. He completed postdoctoral training at Harvard University and received a PhD in Electrical Engineering at Princeton University. Dr. Jia has been recognized for his research with the DARPA Young Faculty Award and NIH MIRA Award.
]]>TALK TITLE
Featurespace: Real-time fraud prevention at scale
ABSTRACT
Featurespace spun out of the Engineering Department at the University of Cambridge and have commercialized a platform that applies adaptive Machine Learning algorithms to identify fraud in financial transactions at scale. Fraud attack vectors constantly change, as new methods of transferring money appear, fraudsters quickly identify their weaknesses and generate exploits. We’ve solved this problem by focusing on good behavior, learning the customer activity that we want to allow. This enables new fraud patterns and attacks to be quickly identified. However, deploying these techniques at scale within banking and payments organizations represents its own challenges beyond just algorithm development. In this talk, we’ll discuss the challenges we’ve had to overcome and ideas about how future research could help in the on-going fight against fraud.
BIO
Dave is Featurespace's Founder and CTO. Dave is an experienced technology innovator with over 18 years dedicated to the study of engineering. He has received several accolades in his field, including the ITC Enterprise Award for Young Entrepreneur. Under his leadership, Featurespace has progressed from a concept to commercial success. Dave currently resides in the U.S. and is managing the Featurespace global expansion from Atlanta, Georgia.
]]>Communications Officer
allie.mcfadden@cc.gatech.edu
]]>If you're planning to apply to Startup Launch, come share your ideas with members of the selection team to gain instant feedback and learn more about Startup Launch.
]]>joliva7@gatech.edu
]]>John Serences, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Psychology
University of California, San Diego
Navigating through complex environments requires keeping relevant information in mind, or in working memory, while simultaneously processing new sensory inputs. For example, when frantically looking for your car keys in the morning, you need to hold in mind an image of what your keys look like while you scan each object in your living room for a match. Feature selective responses in early visual cortex are thought to play a role in maintaining information in working memory. However, these areas also must process new sensory inputs as you search the visual scene, and processing new inputs may wipe out information that you are trying to remember. I will discuss a recent set of studies that demonstrate region-wide multiplexing abilities in early visual areas, with population-level response patterns in visual cortex simultaneously representing the contents of working memory concurrently with new sensory inputs.
This presentation can be seen via BlueJeans
]]>John P. Cunningham, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Statistics
Columbia University
One central challenge in neuroscience is to understand how neural populations represent and produce the remarkable computational abilities of our brains. Indeed, neuroscientists increasingly form scientific hypotheses that can only be studied at the level of the neural population, and exciting new large-scale datasets have followed. Capitalizing on this trend, however, requires two major efforts from applied statistical and machine learning researchers: (i) methods for finding latent structure in this data, and (ii) methods for statistically validating that structure. First, I will discuss our machine learning research that combines latent variable modeling, deep learning, dynamical systems, and dimensionality reduction, and I will discuss how we have applied those models to advance understanding of the computational structure in various neural systems, including in particular the primate and rodent motor cortices. Second, I will detail a problem of growing importance throughout unsupervised learning: how to understand when these analysis techniques artificially create structure, rather than that structure being a true feature of the data. I will review our recent work in this space, which uses deep neural network architectures in the flavor of implicit generative models, and describe our current application of these methods to a number of active debates in the neuroscience community about the triviality of certain results.
If you're planning to apply to Startup Launch, come share your ideas with members of the selection team to gain instant feedback and learn more about Startup Launch
]]>joliva7@gatech.edu
]]>If you're planning to apply to Startup Launch, come share your ideas with members of the selection team to gain instant feedback and learn more about Startup Launch.
]]>joliva7@gatech.edu
]]>Check out this link to see what kind of questions have been asked in the past.
]]>joliva7@gatech.edu
]]>What kinds of shapes can you make by folding a sheet of paper? How strong can you make them, or how flexible? Although we've been folding paper for centuries, we're still discovering fascinating new answers to these questions. Origami-inspired structures can improve the energy-efficiency of massive buildings, deliver drugs deep within the body, power spacecraft and even stop bullets. As we learn to manipulate sheets as thin as a single atom, humanity approaches the ultimate origami challenge--folding structures as rich and varied as those nature achieves through folding proteins. We will discuss how all of these structures are achieved by mastering the geometrical structure hidden within every sheet of paper.
About the Speaker:
D. Zeb Rocklin joined the School of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology as an Assistant Professor in 2017. He received his undergraduate degree from the California Institute of Technology in 2008 and his PhD from the University of Illinois in 2013. He conducts theoretical research into the mechanics of a wide variety of soft and flexible systems. He has received fellowships from the Delta Institute of Physics, the Institute for Complex and Adaptive Matter, the DoD and Illinois.
]]>Widespread adoption of networking technologies has brought about tremendous economic and social growth, but also exposed individuals and organization to new threats from malicious cyber actors. For example, attacks by WannaCry and NotPetya ransomware crypto works, infected hundreds of thousands of computer systems worldwide, compromising data and critical infrastructure. In order to limit their impact, it is, therefore, critical to detect—and even predict— cyber attacks before they spread. In this talk, I will introduce DISCOVER, an early cyber threat warning system, that mines online chatter from cyber actors on social media, security blogs, and dark web forums, to identify words that signal potential cyber attacks. DISCOVER also generates a timeline of related online discussions on different web sources that can be useful for monitoring emerging cyber threats.
Sindhu Ernala is a Computer Science Ph.D. student at Georgia Tech and is a member of the Social Dynamics and Wellbeing lab at the School of Interactive Computing. Her research, which intersects Computational Social Science, Human-Computer Interaction and Applied Machine Learning, aims to study human behavior as manifested on social media in relation to questions around mental health and wellbeing. Specifically, her dissertation focuses on examining the role of social media as a mental health intervention platform. She became interested in the topic of online social data and cyber threats during her internship at the Information Science Institute, University of Southern California.
This week’s workshop will focus on planning for unintended consequences, and the recommended reading/video to help you prepare is: Want to Improve Development Outcomes? Anticipate the Failures, Suggested readings: Engineers don’t solve problems (Logic Failure, pg 189).
Participation in the Ideas to Serve Competition fulfils the Final Deliverable requirement for the SLS Innovating for Social Impact Program.
Please note this workshop series is part of MGT4803 J: Social Impact, but you don’t have to be enrolled in the course to attend the workshops.
]]>Faculty/Staff Forum
4 to 5 p.m., Student Center Theater
Student Forum hosted by Student Government Association
5:30 to 6:30 p.m., Student Center Theater
Faculty/Staff Forum
2 to 3 p.m., Clary Theatre, Bill Moore Student Success Center
More information about the search
]]>Institute Communications
]]>
Abstract: The history of silicon is usually told as a history of electronic materials and devices. However, it may be better told as a history of manufacturing innovation. This talk will take a journey through the manufacturing innovations that transformed silicon from its humble beginnings as the most abundant metal in Earth’s crust to the enabler of the computer chips that underpin the modern economy. The journey begins with the extraction of silicon from sand and its processing into the most compositionally pure and structurally perfect human-made material. It continues through the mid-20th century breakthroughs that allowed for the fabrication and interconnection of high-quality electronic devices to form integrated circuits. It is from this perspective that we can most easily appreciate silicon’s impact on modern society and why it is finding increasing utility in technology areas as diverse as renewable energy, environmental sensing, and augmented reality. It is also from this perspective that we can understand the limitations of today’s manufacturing paradigm and begin to see what innovations might be necessary to enable silicon’s next act.
Bio: Michael A. Filler is an associate professor and the Traylor Faculty Fellow in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech. His research program lies at the intersection of chemical engineering and materials science, focusing on the synthesis, understanding, and deployment of nanoscale materials for applications in electronics, photonics, and energy conversion. He is co-director of the Community for Research on Active Surfaces and Interfaces (CRĀSI) and the host of Nanovation, a bimonthly podcast about the intersection of nanoscience, technology, manufacturing, and society. Filler has received numerous awards for his research and teaching, including the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, Georgia Tech Sigma Xi Young Faculty Award, and the CETL/BP Junior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award. He also has been recognized as a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Environmental Chemistry Mentor.
PLEASE NOTE LOCATION CHANGE: Pettit Microelectronics Building | 791 Atlantic Dr NW | Atlanta GA | 30332
]]>RSVP at http://bit.ly/2WVYf9I
TITLE
Ranking from Ratings and Comparisons
ABSTRACT
Ranking items based on ratings or pairwise comparisons is ubiquitous, with applications ranging from product recommendations to teaching evaluations. This talk describes ongoing research in two directions. First, I present a new approach to deriving confidence intervals tailored to rating systems using techniques from information theory, including Sanov and Csiszar inequalities. The new intervals are often considerably tighter than commonly used bounds such as Hoeffding and Bernstein inequalities. The utility of the new confidence intervals is illustrated with applications to recommender systems and multi-armed bandits. Second, I will discuss ranking algorithms based on adaptively collecting ratings or comparisons. Consider an algorithm that can draw samples from K unknown distributions. The goal is to order the distributions according to their (unknown) means using a minimal number of samples. This model encompasses many problems including best-arms identification in multi-armed bandits, noisy sorting and ranking, and outlier detection. Ranking urban scenes based on human-perceived safety motivates our work. A challenge in such applications is that correctly ordering distributions with nearly equal means is an expensive task (in terms of number of required samples). Moreover, it is arguably unnecessary to resolve the order of very similar distributions. This observation motivates the recovery of a partial ordering into clusters of distributions with similar means (e.g., safety ratings). Clustering requires locating large “gaps” in the ordered sequence of means, and I will focus on the fundamental problem of quickly finding the largest gap.
BIO
Robert Nowak received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1990, 1992, and 1995, respectively. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Rice University in 1995-1996, an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University from 1996-1999, held Assistant and Associate Professor positions at Rice University from 1999-2003, and is now the McFarland-Bascom Professor of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Professor Nowak has held visiting positions at INRIA, Sophia-Antipolis (2001), and Trinity College, Cambridge (2010). He has served as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Image Processing and the ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks, and as the Secretary of the SIAM Activity Group on Imaging Science. He was General Chair for the 2007 IEEE Statistical Signal Processing workshop and Technical Program Chair for the 2003 IEEE Statistical Signal Processing Workshop and the 2004 IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Information Processing in Sensor Networks. Professor Nowak received the General Electric Genius of Invention Award (1993), the National Science Foundation CAREER Award (1997), the Army Research Office Young Investigator Program Award (1999), the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program Award (2000), the IEEE Signal Processing Society Young Author Best Paper Award (2000), the IEEE Signal Processing Society Best Paper Award (2011), and the ASPRS Talbert Abrams Paper Award (2012). He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). His research interests include signal processing, machine learning, imaging, and network science, and applications in communications, bioimaging, and systems biology. His Google Scholar page contains further information about his research and publications.
For scheduling information please contact Yao Xie at yao.xie@isye.gatech.edu
]]>Communications Officer
allie.mcfadden@cc.gatech.edu
]]>If you're planning to apply to Startup Launch, come share your ideas with members of the selection team to gain instant feedback and learn more about Startup Launch.
]]>joliva7@gatech.edu
]]>*This event is sponsored by Adobe.
Connect with Adobe's Talent team.
]]>
Communications Officer
allie.mcfadden@cc.gatech.edu
]]>If you DO NOT speak French – do not worry! You don’t need to speak French to spend a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine! Courses are taught in English by Georgia Tech faculty.
If you DO speak French - you can participate in the new French-Sciences-Sustainability: French Immersion Program at Georgia Tech-Lorraine.
EITHER WAY, come to this BIG info session from 11-11:50am to learn everything you ever wanted to know about studying at Georgia Tech’s campus in France. All of your questions regarding Georgia Tech-Lorraine and the new French Immersion Program will be answered!
Apply now or learn more at lorraine.gatech.edu
Don't miss out on spending a semester at Georgia Tech-Lorraine!
]]>For all undergraduate majors and AE, CS, ECE & ME graduate students! (Fall and Spring only for grad students)
]]>As software security breaches continue to increase in frequency and sophistication, there has been an increase in the research and development of new methods for improving software security. One such method that has seen a surge of new research recently is software debloating. Several software debloating techniques have been proposed that promise to improve security by removing code bloat at various stages of the software lifecycle. However, effectively measuring security improvement remains a challenge. In this lecture, I will review recently published software debloating techniques and the measures used to assess their impact on security. I will then present my work that demonstrates these measures are inadequate and propose a set of new measures for effectively measuring the security impact of software debloating.
Michael Brown is a Research Scientist in the CIPHER lab at the Georgia Tech Research Institute. At GTRI, Michael works on a variety of applied and fundamental research projects focused on software assurance. Michael is currently a Ph.D. student at the Georgia Institute of Technology with research interests centered on using software transformations to improve the security computing systems. Michael earned his M.S. in Computer Science at Georgia Tech and his B.S. in Computer Science at the University of Cincinnati.
]]>This week’s workshop will focus on Customer Discovery, and the recommended reading/video to help you prepare is: The Trouble with ‘Free’: Why Treating the Poor as Customers Works Better than Charity, Suggested reading: Juan Lucena, Engineering for Sustainable Community Development (Chapter 3).
Participation in the Ideas to Serve Competition fulfils the Final Deliverable requirement for the SLS Innovating for Social Impact Program.
Please note this workshop series is part of MGT4803 J: Social Impact, but you don’t have to be enrolled in the course to attend the workshops.
]]>
The history of silicon is usually told as a history of electronic materials and devices. However, it is better told as a history of manufacturing innovation. This talk will take a journey through the manufacturing innovations that transformed silicon from its humble beginnings as the most abundant metal in Earth’s crust to the enabler of the computer chips that underpin the modern economy.
The journey begins with the extraction of silicon from sand and its processing into the most compositionally pure and structurally perfect human-made material. It continues through the mid-20th century breakthroughs that allowed fabrication and interconnection of high-quality electronic devices to form integrated circuits.
It is from this perspective that we can most easily appreciate silicon’s impact on modern society and why it is finding increasing utility in technology areas as diverse as renewable energy, environmental sensing, and augmented reality. It is also from this perspective that we can understand silicon’s limitations and begin to see what innovations might be necessary to enable silicon’s next act.
About the Speaker
Michael A. Filler is an associate professor and the Traylor Faculty Fellow in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech. His research program lies at the intersection of chemical engineering and materials science, focusing on the synthesis, understanding, and deployment of nanoscale materials for applications in electronics, photonics, and energy conversion.
He is co-director of the Community for Research on Active Surfaces and Interfaces (CRĀSI) and the host of Nanovation, a bimonthly podcast about the intersection of nanoscience, technology, manufacturing, and society.
Filler has received numerous awards for his research and teaching, including the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, Georgia Tech Sigma Xi Young Faculty Award, and the CETL/BP Junior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award. He also has been recognized as a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Environmental Chemistry Mentor.
About Frontiers in Science Lectures
Lectures in this series are intended to inform, engage, and inspire students, faculty, staff, and the public on developments, breakthroughs, and topics of general interest in the sciences and mathematics. Lecturers tailor their talks for nonexpert audiences.
About the Periodic Table Frontiers in Science Lecture Series
Throughout 2019, the College of Sciences will bring prominent researchers from Georgia Tech and beyond to expound on little-discussed aspects of chemical elements:
March 5, Michael Filler, Celebrating Silicon: Its Success, Hidden History, and Next Act
joliva7@gatech.edu
]]>Abstract
There is a perceivable trend for robots to serve as networked mobile sensing platforms that are able to collect data in aquatic environments in unprecedented ways. We argue that the effective transformation between Eulerian and Lagrangian data streams represents a fundamental principle underlying many ongoing research efforts. Timely transformation of data streams is the major challenge to construct cyber cycles that are needed by marine autonomy. Data-driven machine learning methods have great potential but are constrained by special difficulties for underwater communication. A distributed autonomy structure that is able to cope with the limited information sharing is envisioned as the future. This challenge can only be addressed by interdisciplinary efforts from researchers in underwater acoustics, underwater networking, and marine robotics.
This talk will discuss recent advancements towards integrating marine robotic platforms with underwater communication and networking technology. In particular, we will address the influences from both environmental motions (caused by ocean flow) and controllable platform motion on the transformation of the data streams. Even though such motions have been known to degrade the performance of acoustic communication and networking, the quantitative relationships have yet to be established, calling for tremendous efforts for theoretical analysis, simulations, and experimental study. One of our approaches, named motion tomography (MT), develop generic environmental models (GEMs) to combine computational ocean models with real-time data streams collected by mobile sensing platforms to provide high-resolution predictions of ocean current in a small spatial area around the mobile platforms. With better known environmental motion, the performance of acoustic networking can be better analyzed as demonstrated through lab-based experiments leveraging micro autonomous vehicles equipped with acoustic modems. Our efforts also indicate that future research requires an open and cost-effective experimental infrastructure that integrates marine robotic platforms, an underwater acoustic device, and underwater networking equipment.
Bio
Fumin Zhang is a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received B.S. and M.S. degrees from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 1995 and 1998, respectively. Afterward, he received a Ph.D. degree in 2004, from the University of Maryland, College Park in electrical engineering, and then held a postdoctoral position at Princeton University from 2004 to 2007. Zhang’s research interests include mobile sensor networks, maritime robotics, control systems, and theoretical foundations for cyber-physical systems.
Zhang received an NSF CAREER Award in September 2009, and the ONR Young Investigator Program Award in April 2010. He is currently serving as the co-chair for the IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Marine Robotics, as an associate editor for the IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, Robotics and Automation Letters, the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, and the IEEE Transactions on Control of Networked Systems. He also serves as the deputy editor-in-chief for the Cyber-Physical Systems Journal.
]]>If you are familiar with startups, you have probably heard the term VC or Venture Capital, but what does it mean? How do startups gain venture capital? Startup Launch Associate Director, Rahul Saxena, was a venture capitalist for 10 years at the Seraph Group. Learn how VC's think, operate, and why it could be the best and worst decision to partner with them.
About Deep Startups
Deep Startups is an Idea Series that features knowledgeable entrepreneurs who discuss their experiences forming companies that solve big-picture current problems. These individuals speak to the concept of ‘deep startups’ and how to create companies that make a difference. Each Deep Startups event focuses on a different broad topic in engineering/technology and allows for student Q&A at the end of the event.
About Rahul Saxena
Rahul Saxena is the Associate Director for CREATE-X Launch. In his role, he works with students to help them launch and scale successful startups. Leading up to this role, Rahul had a career as a Venture Capitalist, startup CEO, entrepreneur, mechatronic design engineer, and published academic researcher. He received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech where he also conducted research on the fluid mechanics of mechanical heart valves, both as an undergrad and then as a research engineer. He then pursued a European Masters at the von Karman Institute for Fluid Mechanics under a NATO fellowship.
After returning, Rahul went to Silicon Valley where he worked as a mechatronic engineer at a startup company that was developing and selling high-throughput automation equipment for genetics research. As the bubble burst, he moved back to Atlanta where he worked on a few different startups while also pursuing his MBA at Emory University's Goizueta School of Business.
After finishing the degree, he joined an early-stage venture capital firm, Seraph Group, where he worked for 10 years evaluating and investing in companies while also serving on several Boards of companies that went on to be acquired. During this time, Rahul took a direct operating role as CEO of one of its portfolio companies that faced numerous issues and was able to successfully exit it to the leading provider in the market. The company is a SaaS provider to government agencies for one of the leading restaurant permitting and inspections software.
Food will be served.
]]>joliva7@gatech.edu
]]>In the first part of the talk, I will describe my work on learning a simple model that maps raw observations and instruction to actions. We train this model using a sample efficient contextual bandit learning algorithm. This allows us to learn to reason about language, complex visual cues, and action planning from a limited amount of natural language data. In the second part, I will describe recent work on designing agents that perform explicit spatial reasoning for navigation in 3D environments. We focus on the task of goal prediction and introduce LingUNET, a language conditioned image-to-image generation architecture. We use LingUNET in a model that separates goal prediction from action generation. This simplifies training and allows to examine the model decisions for better interpretability and safety.
BIO
Dipendra Misra is a Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University. His research focuses on developing models and learning algorithms for problems in natural language understanding. His work spans instruction following, semantic parsing, question answering, and reinforcement learning theory. He is a member of the CLIC (Cornell Language in Context Lab) group and is advised by Yoav Artzi. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur where he was an OPJEMS scholar. He is active in the program committees of natural language understanding and machine learning. In 2018, he co-organized the third workshop on representation learning for natural language processing (Rep4NLP) at ACL.
Program Manager
khanson@cc.gatech.edu
]]>This week’s workshop will focus on Human Center Design, and the recommended reading/video to help you prepare is: Look at one case studies from designkit.org and one from Juan Lucena’s book (pg 153 and 167 on the pdf), Suggested reading: Design is not going to save the world; Juan Lucena, Engineering for Sustainable Community Development (Chapter 3).
Participation in the Ideas to Serve Competition fulfils the Final Deliverable requirement for the SLS Innovating for Social Impact Program.
Please note this workshop series is part of MGT4803 J: Social Impact, but you don’t have to be enrolled in the course to attend the workshops.
Directions to Room 312
Take main elevator to 3rd floor, walk straight ahead, through the glass doors, until you hit the next hallway – there take a right through the large glass panels. Room 312 will be on your left.
]]>Take main elevator to 3rd floor, walk straight ahead, through the glass doors, until you hit the next hallway – there take a right through the large glass panels. Room 312 will be on your left.
See you there.
]]>Abstract: In this talk, we will discuss how printable organic conjugated semiconducting molecules and polymers are creating new disruptive technologies that are impacting all industries. We will present recent advances in various solid-state device platforms including, organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), organic photodetectors (OPDs), organic photovoltaic devices (OPVs), and organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs). We will emphasize the importance of interfaces in devices and show examples on how to engineer their electrical properties. We will present a simple processing technique for the electrical doping of organic semiconductors over a limited depth near the surface of the film that is based on immersing the film into a polyoxometalate solution. Such approached can drastically reduce the fabrication cost of such devices, simplify device architecture, and lead to all-organic devices fabricated by all-additive printing techniques. As an illustration of the simplicity and versatility of this process we will discuss how high-performance organic solar cells with simplified architecture can be implemented. Finally, we will present the results of a detailed operational lifetime study of OTFTs showing that organic photonics and electronics can yield a stability level superior to that of amorphous silicon.
Bio: Bernard Kippelen is the Joseph M. Pettit Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech. His research interests range from the investigation of fundamental physical processes (nonlinear optical activity, charge transport, light harvesting and emission) in organic-based nanostructured thin films, to the design, fabrication and testing of light-weight flexible optoelectronic devices based on hybrid printable materials. He is a co-founder and co-President of the Institut Lafayette, an innovation platform located on Georgia Tech’s European campus Georgia Tech Lorraine (Metz, France), and he serves as Director of the Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics
]]>Recha R Reid
Program and Operations Manager
Student Innovation
Center for Academic Enrichment
Office of Undergraduate Education
Georgia Institute of Technology
Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons (CULC), Suite 205
266 Fourth Street, NW
Atlanta, GA 30332-0940
404.385.5379 (o) | 404.385.8366 (f)
enrichment.gatech.edu | innovation.cae.gatech.edu]]>joliva7@gatech.edu
]]>TITLE
Big Data, Analytics and Machine Learning in Finance
ABSTRACT
Financial Markets and trading have changed dramatically over the past few years with the advent of algorithmic and high frequency trading. Billions of stocks, bonds, derivatives and other financial securities are bought and sold in the financial markets every day with some of the securities held only for a few milliseconds. Apart from trading, the explosion in the availability of structured and unstructured data has opened up many applications for data analytics and machine learning in the finance domain. Applications include: development of trading strategies, Fintech, Fraud detection, Compliance, Credit Risk, Risk Management, RegTech, analyzing and understanding social media and speech of executives. In addition, applying ML models in finance raises a number of interesting questions about fairness, ethics and financial inclusion. Apart from prediction, establishing causality and explainable ML are of major interest in finance. In this talk, I will give an overview of my recent research in these areas and discuss some resources and collaboration possibilities at Georgia Tech.
BIO
Sudheer Chava received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 2003. Prior to that he has an MBA degree from Indian Institute of Management – Bangalore and worked as a fixed income analyst at a leading investment bank in India. He has held academic positions at University of Houston and Texas A&M University before joining Georgia Tech in 2010.
Dr. Chava has taught a variety of courses at the undergraduate and master’s level including Derivatives, Risk Management, Valuation, Cases in Financial Crisis and Credit Risk Analysis. He has also taught both theoretical and empirical finance courses at the doctoral level.
Dr. Chava’s research interests are in Credit Risk, Banking and Corporate Finance. He has published extensively in all the top journals in Finance including Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, and Review of Financial Studies. His research has won a Ross award for the best paper published in Finance Research Letters in 2008, was a finalist for Brattle Prize for the best paper published in Journal of Finance in 2008 and was nominated for the Goldman Sachs award for the best paper for published in Review of Finance during 2004. Dr. Chava is the recipient of multiple external research grants such as FDIC-CFR Fellowship, Morgan Stanley Research grant and Financial Service Exchange Research grant. His papers have been presented at numerous finance conferences such as AFA, WFA, EFA, FDIC and Federal Reserve Banks and at many universities in the U.S. and abroad.
SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=292365
]]>Program Manager
khanson@cc.gatech.edu
]]>Parking is available in Visitors Area 4 (State Street and Ferst Drive) and 5 (North Campus Parking Deck) on the Georgia Tech campus. See more info here.
Presented by Georgia Tech Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology; Southeastern Nanotechnology Infrastructure Corridor
The Cybersecurity Lecture Series at Georgia Tech is a free, one-hour lecture from a thought leader who is advancing the field of information security and privacy. Invited speakers include executives and researchers from Fortune 500 companies, federal intelligence agencies, start-ups, and incubators, as well as Georgia Tech faculty and students presenting their research. Lectures are open to all -- students, faculty, industry, government, or simply the curious.
Ron will discuss some of the harder questions in cyber we've not come to terms with such as quantifying cyber risk and the government's responsibility for keeping us "cyber safe" and how these grand cyber issues impact cyber start-ups.
Ron Gula started his cybersecurity career as a network penetration tester for the NSA. At BBN, he developed network honeypots to lure hackers and he ran US Internetworking's team of penetration testers and incident responders. As CTO of Network Security Wizards, Ron pioneered the art of network security monitoring and produced the Dragon Intrusion Detection System which was recognized as a market leader by Gartner in 2001. As CEO and co-founder of Tenable Network Security, Ron led the company's rapid growth and product vision from 2002 through 2016. He helped them scale to more than 20,000 customers worldwide, raise $300m in venture capital and achieve revenues in excess of $100m annually which enabled an IPO in 2018. Ron is President at Gula Tech Adventures which focuses on investing and advisement of next-generation cyber-security start-ups companies. Ron was honored and humbled to receive the 2017 Betamore BETA award, be named a 2016 Baltimore Tech 10 leader and a 2013 Maryland entrepreneur of the year award by Ernest and Young. Ron is also a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center and helps educate congressional staff on cyber issues.
]]>Gina Turrigiano, Ph.D.
Levitan Professor and Chair
Department of Biology
Brandeis University
Neocortical networks must generate and maintain stable activity patterns despite perturbations induced by learning and experience- dependent plasticity, and this stability must be maintained across distinct behavioral states with very different sensory drive and modulatory tone. There is abundant theoretical and experimental evidence that network stability is achieved through homeostatic plasticity mechanisms that adjust synaptic and neuronal properties to stabilize some measure of average activity, and this process has been extensively studied in primary visual cortex (V1), where chronic visual deprivation induces an initial drop in activity and ensemble average firing rates (FRs), but over time activity is restored to baseline despite continued deprivation. Here I discuss recent work from the lab in which we follow bidirectional FR homeostasis in individual V1 neurons in freely behaving animals, as they cycle between natural periods of sleep and wake. We find that - when FRs are perturbed by visual deprivation or eye re-opening - over time they return precisely to a cell-autonomous set-point. Intriguingly, this firing rate homeostasis is gated by sleep/wake states in a manner that depends on the direction of homeostatic regulation: upward firing rate homeostasis occurs selectively during periods of active wake, while downward firing rate homeostasis occurs selectively during periods of sleep. These data indicate that neocortical plasticity is regulated in a complex manner by vigilance state, and raise the possibility that temporal segregation of distinct plasticity mechanisms is important for proper circuit refinement.
This presentation can be seen via BlueJeans
]]>Abstract: Perovskite Chalcogenides are a new class of semiconductors which have tunable band gap in the visible to infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Besides this band gap tunability, they offer a unique opportunity to realize large density of states semiconductors with high carrier mobility. In this talk, I will discuss some of the experimental advances made both in my research group and in the research community on the theory, synthesis of these materials and understanding their optoelectronic properties. Perovskite chalcogenides have a large structural and chemical phase, which allows us finer knobs to tailor light-matter interaction precisely over a broad energy range spanning the visible to infrared spectrum. I will show that controlling dimensionality of these materials has profound influence on the light-matter interaction, which results in novel properties such as highly anisotropic absorption and refraction, unconventional band gap evolution. Finally, I will provide a general outlook for future studies on these exciting new class of materials
Bio: Jayakanth Ravichandran is an Assistant Professor in the Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science with courtesy appointment in Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Southern California. He received his Ph.D. degree from University of California, Berkeley in 2011. He performed post-doctoral research at Columbia University and briefly at Harvard University, before beginning this current position. His research interests are in materials design, synthesis, characterization, and physical properties of complex materials for electronic, photonic, and energy applications. He was named an Early Career Scholar by the Journal of Materials Research in 2017 and was a Link Energy Fellow.
]]>Marketing and Event Coordinator for CREATE-X
joliva7@gatech.edu
]]>The Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines will hold the second annual Robotics Research Showcase on Thursday, March 28th, from 3:00 until 6:00 p.m., in the Technology Square Research Building auditorium and banquet hall.
This year, we’ve planned another exciting event immediately before the Showcase: a Manufacturing and Robotics Workshop on Wednesday afternoon through Thursday afternoon (March 27th–28th) in the GTRI Conference Center. This workshop is co-organized and co-sponsored by IRIM, Georgia Tech Research Institute, and the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI).
Our events bring together students, faculty, and our industry partners, offering opportunities for employee recruitment and networking.
Manufacturing and Robotics Workshop Agenda
March 27th: 1:00–6:00 p.m.
March 28th: 7:30 a.m.–1:45 p.m.
The joint IRIM-GTRI-GTMI workshop will focus on the future of robotics in manufacturing, emerging trends in robotics and manufacturing, and bridging the gap between the manufacturing and robotics communities. Wednesday events include talks by industry experts on the challenges and future needs for robotics in various manufacturing sectors and breakout discussions at the end of the day to further explore the industry needs. Thursday events include presentations by Georgia Tech researchers on autonomy, perception, human-robot interaction, exoskeletons, and manufacturing. This will be followed by breakout discussions to discuss the future research agenda for the next generation of robotic systems for manufacturing.
Parking: The Georgia Public Broadcasting parking deck (E70) is adjacent to the venue and complimentary parking is available.
Refreshments: A Continental breakfast and lunch will be served on Thursday; beverages and snacks will be provided during breaks on both days
March 28th: 3:00–6:00 p.m.
In addition to having opportunities to interact one-on-one with our robotics students, attendees will enjoy a more in-depth review of current research projects during a poster session, learn more about GT Robotics’ thought leadership through presentations by some of our most robust research-centered professors, and learn more about trends in robotics during a panel discussion.
Parking: The Centergy deck and the Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center deck are the closest parking options. Prices vary.
Refreshments: A reception will be held during the event.
The Research Showcase takes place one day before the Robotarium Open House on Friday, March 29th from 10:30–11:30 a.m. We invite you to stay in Atlanta and participate in the event where you’ll see a robotics lab like none other.
]]>It is also aligned with the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students' Graduate-Professional Student Appreciation Week.
Here's a listing of some of the events that will be held throughout the week (the full list can be found at http://grad.gatech.edu/gsaw):
The Data Science for Social Good Workshop will focus on the application of data science techniques to problems of significant societal impact, such as healthcare, data privacy, renewable energy, and transportation. Bringing together disciplines in Computer Science, Industrial and Systems Engineering and Public Policy, it will include research domains such as algorithmic fairness, mechanism design, artificial intelligence, simulation, machine learning, and optimization. The schedule is designed for attendees to form meaningful connections, including 2-minute lightning talks as an icebreaker, and breakout sessions separated by academic stage (for mentoring) and research area (for technical discussions).
This workshop is organized by ML@GT faculty including Omar Isaac Asensio, Rachel Cummings, and Jamie Morgenstern.
Please note that workshop attendance is by application only. Applications are now closed.
For more information, please visit the workshop's website.
]]>TITLE
AI Driven Design Approach
ABSTRACT
Design Space Exploration (DSE) is an activity that is performed to systematically analyze several design points and then select the design(s) based on parameters of interest and design requirements. For complex systems, design engineers spend a lot of time generating new design iterations using simulation-based tools. However, they do not explore the complete design space due to time-consuming design creation and analyses process, and hence do not generate optimal design but rather settle for a sub-optimal design that meets the requirements. Recently, there have been advances in the areas of Artificial Intelligence (AI), cognitive computing, Internet of Things, 3D printing, advanced robotics, that provide capabilities to transform the current design process by automating various design steps, speeding up the design and analysis toolchain, and creative decision making. Within Siemens CT we have been developing a Generative Design framework, which utilizes the AI and knowledge representation techniques in combination with traditional design methods to generate better designs in a faster manner. The talk will address various technical areas of this framework and the various AI methods which we are currently applying to optimally design parts, systems, and processes.
BIO
Dr. Sanjeev Srivastava currently works as a Senior Key Expert Scientist at Siemens Corporation, Corporate Technology, Princeton, NJ. He received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University in 2003 and MBA from Florida State University in 2008. Dr. Srivastava’s research interests and expertise includes machine learning and optimization techniques for various complex engineering problems; knowledge representation; modeling and simulation of engineering systems; advanced manufacturing; power and energy management and distributed controls. He has >25 patents and authored more than 100 technical papers for several international peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. He has done several projects, with internal Siemens funding as wells as Government funding, in the above-mentioned areas. Dr. Srivastava has been the PI and co-PI and technical lead on numerous projects funded internally as well by government agencies including the Office of Naval Research (ONR), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Department of Energy (DOE), National Science Foundation (NSF), and Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute (DMDII).
]]>Communications Officer
allie.mcfadden@cc.gatech.edu
]]>This event is part of the Grad Student Appreciation Week celebration. This celebration is sponsored by the Graduate Resource and Information Network (GRIN) and is aligned with the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students' Graduate-Professional Student Appreciation Week.
For the latest schedule of events for Grad Student Appreciation Week, click here.
]]>Recent years have seen impressive progress in robot perception, including accurate visual-inertial odometry, dense metric reconstruction, and object recognition in real time. Surprisingly, however, most existing approaches to simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) rely on low-level geometric features and do not take advantage of object-level information. This talk will focus on a unifying view of geometry, semantics, and data association in SLAM. A major contribution of our approach is the use of structured object-models to build meaningful maps online and probabilistic data association that avoids making hard, potentially wrong associations between semantic features and objects in ambiguous environments. Next, we will consider the active SLAM problem in which a team of robots aims to explore and build a model of the autonomously. This problem offers promising applications in environmental monitoring, search and rescue, and security and surveillance. We will discuss how to manage the complexity of active SLAM with respect to long planning horizons and large robot teams. These results lead to computationally scalable, non-myopic algorithms with quantified performance for exploration and autonomous mapping.
Bio:
]]>Nikolay A. Atanasov is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA. His research focuses on robotics, control theory, and machine learning and in particular on autonomous information collection using ground wheeled and aerial rotorcraft robots for localization and mapping, environmental monitoring, and security and surveillance. He works on probabilistic environment models that unify geometry and semantics and on optimal control and reinforcement learning approaches for minimizing uncertainty in these models. Dr. Atanasov's work has been recognized by the Joseph and Rosaline Wolf award for the best Ph.D. dissertation in Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania in 2015 and the best conference paper award at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in 2017.
Professor Christoph Brabec
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Friedrich-Alexander-Universität
Erlangen-Nürnberg
Professor Christoph Brabec
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Friedrich-Alexander-Universität
Erlangen-Nürnberg
Tuesday, April 9, 2019
Student Center, Third Floor
Abstract: Neuro-inspired computing is a new computing paradigm that emulates the neural network for information processing. To enable the large-scale neuromorphic system, it is important to develop compact nanoscale devices to support the synaptic and neuronal functions. In this talk, I will discuss recent progress in this domain that integrates oxide based synaptic and neuronal devices in neuromorphic hardware such as machine/deep learning accelerators. First, I will discuss the desired characteristics of HfO2 based resistive synaptic devices (e.g. analog multilevel states, weight tuning linearity, variation/noises) and NbO2 based oscillation neuron devices, and show the principles of offline training and online training. Next, I will introduce the crossbar array architecture to efficiently implement the weighted sum and weight update operations that are commonly used in the machine/deep learning algorithms, and show array-level experimental demonstrations for these key operations. Lastly, I will show our recent work on doped HfO2 based ferroelectric transistor based synaptic cell design that overcomes the challenges to achieve high training accuracy for online training.
Bio: Shimeng Yu is an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Georgia Tech. He received the B.S. degree in microelectronics from Peking University in 2009, and the M.S. degree and Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 2011 and 2013, respectively. From 2013 to 2018, he was an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Arizona State University. Prof. Yu’s research interests are nanoelectronic devices and circuits for energy-efficient computing systems. His expertise is on the emerging non-volatile memories (e.g., RRAM, ferroelectrics) for different applications, such as machine/deep learning accelerator, neuromorphic computing, monolithic 3D integration, and hardware security, etc. Among Prof. Yu’s honors, he was a recipient of the DOD-DTRA Young Investigator Award in 2015, the NSF Faculty Early CAREER Award in 2016, the ASU Fulton Outstanding Assistant Professor in 2017, the IEEE Electron Devices Society (EDS) Early Career Award in 2017, and the ACM Special Interests Group on Design Automation (SIGDA) Outstanding New Faculty Award in 2018. He is a senior member of the IEEE.
]]>Finals Schedule
We are excited to announce a new philosophy for our competition – one that focuses on an in-depth understanding of the social/environmental issue a student is passionate about.
We are morphing our previous tracks - Ideas and Advanced - into two new tracks: Problem Discovery Track - for students who are exploring a social/environmental issue with the intent of gaining a deep understanding of that space and where their skills fit in, and Solutions Discovery Track - for students who are more advanced on their discovery journey and are formulating community-based solutions.
We will award several teams in both tracks and all teams are eligible to compete in our specialty awards (Best Video, Best Poster, People's Choice).
Participating in I2S also fulfills the Final Deliverable requirement for the Serve-Learn-Sustain Innovating for Social Impact Program.
List of teams and judges will be available here.
I2S funding is made possible through the generous support of our Georgia Tech and Community Partners:
The Cecil B. Day Program for Business Ethics (Solution Discovery Track Awards)
Center for Serve - Learn - Sustain (Problem Discovery Track Awards)
Steven A. Denning Technology and Management Program
Design Bloc Georgia Tech
LEAD Program
Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business
Speechworks
Join us for an afternoon of immersion, innovation, and ice-cold pops.
]]>
Students (any university) + GT Staff/Faculty:
$15 - Early Bird Single Ticket -- (first 100)
$20 - Single Ticket
Other/Professionals:
$50 - Early Bird Single Ticket -- (first 50)
$60 - Single Ticket
Groups (10 or more):
Please contact us for more information (community.tedxgeorgiatech@gmail.com)
HackGT presents Catalyst, a free day of STEAM directed towards underserved high school students in the Metro Atlanta area. We are eager to welcome 400+ students on April 13th to Georgia Tech's Campus, making it one of the largest high school learn-a-thon events hosted in the country.
This will be an opportunity for participants to:
• Learn about the world of STEAM and Computer Science as a career path
• Gain insight into impactful, widely known tech companies
• Receive mentorship from college students, industry professionals, and executives who were once in their shoes.
• Connect with summer camp opportunities at Georgia Tech and in the city to further their education and exposure
At the end of the day, we hope to inspire the students to pursue computer science, expand their opportunity horizon, and leave them with a glimpse of their future potential.
About HackGT
HackGT is a student organization at Georgia Tech and a registered 501(c)4 nonprofit dedicated to promoting computer science education. We work throughout the year to organize events for college and high school students ranging from small scale workshops to our fall marquee 1200+ person collegiate hackathon.
Event Details
Date: April 13th
Cost: Free for attendees (includes breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, t-shirts, swag, etc.)
Location: Klaus Advanced Computing Building, Atlanta, GA, 30332
]]>hello@hack.gt
]]>James L. McClelland, Ph.D.
Lucie Stern Professor in the Social Sciences
Director, Center for Mind, Brain and Computation
Department of Psychology
Stanford University, Stanford, CA
According to complementary learning systems theory, integrating new memories into a multi-layer neural network without interfering with what is already known depends on interleaving presentation of the new memories with ongoing presentations of items previously learned. This putative dependence is both costly for machine learning and biologically implausible for real brains which are unlikely to have sufficient time for such massive interleaving, even during sleep. We use deep linear neural networks in hierarchically structured environments previously analyzed by Saxe, McClelland, and Ganguli () to gain new insights into how integration of new knowledge might be made more efficient. For this type of environment, its content can be described by the singular value decomposition (SVD) of the environment's input-output covariance matrix, in which each successive dimension corresponds to categorical split in the hierarchical environment. Prior work showed that deep linear networks are sufficient to learn the content of the environment, and they do so in a stage-line way, with each dimension strength rising from near-zero to its maximum strength after a delay inversely proportional to the strength of the dimension, as previously demonstrated by Saxe et al capturing patterns previously observed in deeper non-linear neural networks by Rogers and McClelland (2004). Several observations are then accessible when we consider learning a new item previously not encountered in the micro-environment. (1) The item can be examined in terms of its projection onto the existing structure, and the degree to which it adds a new categorical split. (2) To the extent the item projects onto existing structure, including it in the training corpus leads to the rapid adjustment of the representation of the categories involved, and effectively no adjustment occurs to categories onto which the new item does not project at all. (3) Learning a new split, however, is slow, and its learning dynamics show the same delayed rise to maximum that depends on the dimension's strength. These observations then motivate the development of ideas about how the new information might be acquired efficiently, combining interleaved learning with other strategies.
This presentation can be seen via BlueJeans: https://bluejeans.com/824485104/
]]>This year’s distinguished judges include John Schanz (TDV Ventures), Richard Telljohann (IBM Security), and Blake Patton (Tech Square Ventures).
Hors d'oeuvres and drinks will be served. Attendees are asked to pre-register.
To register and for more information click here
IISP Cybersecurity Demo Day Finale
April 16, 2019 | 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Klaus Auditorium
Klaus Advanced Computing Building
266 Ferst Dr. NW
Atlanta, GA 30332
lindsey.panetta@gtri.gatech.edu
]]>
Program Manager
khanson@cc.gatech.edu
]]>TITLE
Towards a Lasting Human-AI Interaction
ABSTRACT
Artificial intelligence, including extensive data processing, decision making and execution, and learning from experience, offers new challenges for effective human-AI interaction. This talk delves into multiple roles humans can have in such interaction, as well as the underlying challenges to AI in particular in terms of collaboration and interpretability. The presentation is grounded within the context of autonomous mobile service robots, and applications to other areas.
BIO
Manuela M. Veloso is the Head of J.P. Morgan AI Research, which pursues fundamental research in areas of core relevance to financial services, including data mining and cryptography, machine learning, explainability, and human-AI interaction. J.P. Morgan AI Research partners with applied data analytics teams across the firm as well as with leading academic institutions globally.
Professor Veloso is on leave from Carnegie Mellon University as the Herbert A. Simon University Professor in the School of Computer Science, and the past Head of the Machine Learning Department. With her students, she had led research in AI, with a focus on robotics and machine learning, having concretely researched and developed a variety of autonomous robots, including teams of soccer robots, and mobile service robots. Her robot soccer teams have been RoboCup world champions several times, and the CoBot mobile robots have autonomously navigated for more than 1,000km in university buildings.
Professor Veloso is the Past President of AAAI, (the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence), and the co-founder, Trustee, and Past President of RoboCup. Professor Veloso has been recognized with multiple honors, including being a Fellow of the ACM, IEEE, AAAS, and AAAI. She is the recipient of several best paper awards, the Einstein Chair of the Chinese Academy of Science, the ACM/SIGART Autonomous Agents Research Award, an NSF Career Award, and the Allen Newell Medal for Excellence in Research.
See www.cs.cmu.edu/~mmv/Veloso.html for her scientific publications.
For scheduling information, please contact Tucker Balch at tucker@cc.gatech.edu
]]>Program Manager
khanson@cc.gatech.edu
]]>ABSTRACT
This talk presents the importance of Computer Vision and Deep learning techniques in making Magic Leap an effective spatial computing platform. The four fundamental modalities are introduced: head pose tracking, world reconstruction, eye tracking, and hand tracking; emphasizing on the two main general themes: Understanding the world (spatial localization, environment mapping) and Understanding user’s intent (eye, gaze, and hands). The talk will provide a deep dive into the main modalities along with key challenges and open problems. We will go over some technical challenges that our team of researchers and engineers are tacking to make computer vision work for see-through wearable Mixed Reality device. We will start with an overview of the past 5 years of development in inside-out pose estimation (Visual Inertial Odometry), scene reconstruction, eye tracking, and sensor calibration and then dive into the long list of technical challenges that are left to solve.
BIO
Ashwin Swaminathan is part of computer vision team at Magic Leap where he leads a team researching on simultaneous localization and mapping, object recognition, visual inertial odometry, and scene semantics.
Prior to joining Magic Leap, he was with Qualcomm Research in San Diego from 2008 to 2015. At Qualcomm Research, he was involved in various computer vision and machine learning projects for applications in augmented reality and context-aware computing on mobile phones. In addition, he was involved in Qualcomm’s efforts in robotics and drones.
Ashwin Swaminathan holds a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park where he conducted research on several topics in image processing, multimedia forensics, security and watermarking.
Ashwin holds 30+ patents in the field of computer vision, machine learning and Augmented Reality. He has authored 7 journal papers, 30+ conference papers with a combined 3200+ citations.
For scheduling information please contact Zsolt Kira at Zsolt.Kira@gtri.gatech.edu
]]>Communications Officer
allie.mcfadden@cc.gatech.edu
]]>Abstract: New advancements in cloud computing and machine learning have created an opportunity for a revolutionary advancement in how hardware engineering is performed. In this talk, Ryan Diestelhorst will discuss his experiences founding a successful MEMS sensor company as a Georgia Tech graduate, and how that journey informed his vision of the future of engineering. He will describe how OnScale is redefining the boundaries of high-performance simulation by giving engineers immediate and unlimited access to super computers to solve their most difficult problems.
Bio: Ryan Dietelhorst is an experienced semiconductor and hardware engineer as well as an accomplished entrepreneur and technologist. He co-founded NextInput, which brought a world-class MEMS force sensing technology to market for mobile, automotive, and industrial applications. In his capacity as CTO he developed a broad IP portfolio, helped raise $30M in seed and venture capital funding, and brought multiple high-volume design wins to mass production. Prior to NextInput, Ryan designed specialized integrated circuits with NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Argonne National Laboratory while completing his PhD in Electrical Engineering at Georgia Tech. Ryan is now the VP of Strategy at OnScale, a cloud-based engineering simulation company seeking to break the legacy simulation model.
]]>
5:00 - 6:30 p.m. - Meet I2P teams and view prototypes
6:30 - 7:00 p.m. - Judging and presentation of awards
Parking directions: The closest paid parking lot is in Area #4 on this map.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Team CREATE-X
]]>joliva7@gatech.edu
]]>The bachelor's cermeony is a ticketed event. Students are required to RSVP to attend the ceremony and receive guest tickets. Ticketing information and policies can be found at www.commencement.gatech.edu/tickets.
More information can be found at www.commencement.gatech.edu.
]]>General information can be found at www.commencement.gatech.edu.
]]>The bachelor's cermeony is a ticketed event. Students are required to RSVP to attend the ceremony and receive guest tickets. Ticketing information and policies can be found at www.commencement.gatech.edu/tickets.
More information can be found at www.commencement.gatech.edu.
]]>General information can be found at www.commencement.gatech.edu.
]]>Admission is free to all graduates and their families. More information can be found at http://www.commencement.gatech.edu/presidents-graduation-celebration.
]]>For all questions and logistical information, consult our Commencement webpage at www.commencement.gatech.edu.
Students are required to RSVP to attend the ceremony; however, no tickets are required for this event. Students are encouraged to attend the President's Graduation Celebration prior to their commencement ceremony.
]]>For all questions and logistical information, consult our Commencement webpage at www.commencement.gatech.edu.
Students are required to RSVP to attend the ceremony. No tickets are required for guests to attend.
Afterward, graduates and their families are encouraged to attend the President's Graduation Celebration.
]]>One of the most important scientific and technological frontiers of our time is the interfacing of electronics with the human brain. This endeavour promises to help understand how the brain works and deliver new tools for diagnosis and treatment of pathologies including epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease. Current solutions, however, are limited by the materials that are brought in contact with the tissue and transduce signals across the biotic/abiotic interface. Recent advances in organic electronics have made available materials with a unique combination of attractive properties, including mechanical flexibility, mixed ionic/electronic conduction, enhanced biocompatibility, and capability for drug delivery. I will present examples of novel devices for recording and stimulation of neurons and show that organic electronic materials offer tremendous opportunities to study the brain and treat its pathologies.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
George Malliaras is the Prince Philip Professor of Technology at the University of Cambridge. He received a PhD from the University of Groningen and did a postdoc at the IBM Almaden Research Center. Before joining Cambridge, he was a faculty member at Ecole des Mines de St. Etienne and at Cornell University, and served as the Director of the Cornell NanoScale Facility. His research has been recognized with awards from the New York Academy of Sciences, the US National Science Foundation, and DuPont. He is a Fellow of the Materials Research Society and of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
]]>bernard.kippelen@ece.gatech.edu
]]>One of the most important scientific and technological frontiers of our time is the interfacing of electronics Owing to both electronic and dielectric confinement effects, two-dimensional organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites sustain strongly bound excitons at room temperature. In this seminar, we demonstrate that there are non-negligible contributions to the excitonic correlations that are specific to the lattice structure and its polar fluctuations, both of which are controlled via the chemical nature of the organic counter-cation. In these systems, organic cations not only serve as spacers between slabs consisting of corner-sharing metal-halide octahedra, but also determine lattice structure by inducing varying degree of distortion of the octahedra via the organic-inorganic interactions. We present a phenomenological yet quantitative framework to simulate excitonic absorption line shapes in single-layer organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites, based on the two-dimensional Wannier formalism. We include four distinct excitonic states separated by 35±5 meV, and additional vibronic progressions. Intriguingly, the associated Huang-Rhys factors and the relevant phonon energies show substantial variation with temperature and the nature of the organic cation. This points to the hybrid nature of the line shape, with a form well described by a Wannier formalism, but with signatures of strong coupling to localized vibrations, and polaronic effects perceived through excitonic correlations. Furthermore, by means of high-resolution resonant impulsive stimulated Raman spectroscopy, we identify vibrational wavepacket dynamics that evolve along different configurational coordinates for distinct excitons and photocarriers. Employing density functional theory calculations, we assign the observed coherent vibrational modes to various low-frequency (≲50 cm−1) optical phonons involving motion in the lead iodide layers. This supports our conclusion that different excitons induce specific lattice reorganizations, which are signatures of polaronic binding. Excitonic correlations (exciton and biexciton binding energies) and exciton dynamics (e.g. uni- and bimolecular population decay mechanisms, pure dephasing processes, excitation-induced dephasing, etc.) reflect the polar solvation-like processes induced by organic cation components of the hybrid lattice in a broad structural space. I will address how ultrafast nonlinear spectroscopies yield deep insight on the multiparticle properties in compelx semiconductor materials.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Carlos Silva received a Ph.D. in chemical physics from the the University of Minnesota in 1998, and was Postdoctoral Associate in the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge. In 2001 he became EPSRC Advanced Research Fellow at the Cavendish Laboratory, and Research Fellow in Darwin College, Cambridge. In 2005, he moved on as Assistant Professor at the Université de Montréal, where he held the Canada Research Chair in Organic Semiconductor Materials from 2005 to 2015, and a Université de Montréal Research Chair from 2014 to 2017. He was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor in 2009 and to Professor in 2016. He moved his academic program to Georgia Institute of Technology in 2017, where he is currently Professor with joint appointment in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the School of Physics. Amongst other recognitions, we was awarded the 2010 Herzberg Medal and the 2016 Brockhouse Medal of the Canadian Association of Physicists, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. His group focuses on optical and electronic properties of organic and hybrid semiconductor materials, mainly probed by ultrafast spectroscopies, and on quantum-optical spectroscopies.
]]>bernard.kippelen@ece.gatech.edu
]]>This month's presenter is Reid Maulsby of Mogean, an ATDC Signature company that consists of a leading edge data science platform that uses passively collected mobile GPS device location data with along with Places of Interest data to provide consumer insights that drive sales, improve consumer engagement, and brand loyalty.
After the presentation, there will be a demo of location-based technology developed by Sneh Parma of Parka Solutions, another ATDC portfolio company.
The work plan is an outline of the Institute’s intended approach to address the four administrative functions — information technology, human resources, finance, and communications — identified as priorities during the internal assessment in late 2017.
]]>
Check back soon for a RSVP link.
]]>]]>
joliva7@gatech.edu
]]>For more information on how to apply visit: Raspberry Pi Educator Workshop at Georgia Tech
]]>Global, national, and entrepreneurial companies want to meet you at the Virtual Career Fair on July 10th. Students/alumni can connect real-time with employers online via chat sessions during the event (a camera is not required for the text chat - video chats will be scheduled by appointment).
Register at https://www.careereco.com/events/gatech.
]]>Abstract
Human centered robots provide embodiments whose purpose is to increase human productivity and comfort in complex non-structured environments. On one hand, operating in such environments demands new embodiments that enhance mobility and dexterous manipulation. On the other hand, productivity is an ill-defined term that often ignores key cognitive factors such as mental comfort or perceived workload.
We posit that new embodiments consisting of legged manipulators endowed with high performance control and models of human workload behavior could ultimately result in new areas of enhanced productivity compared to simpler set ups. To make this point we need to demonstrate that teams made out of collaborating humans and human-centered robots will ultimately be more effective than teams with humans alone.
In order to demonstrate these capabilities in an academic setup, my laboratory has spun-out a company to build some of the most advanced yet easy-to-use, human centered robots that exist today. I will delve in robot control theory and models of workload behavior as well as showcase videos of our new adult-size bipedal robots and full-body iron-man-like suit for heavy-duty logistic operations to emphasize our commitment towards experimental long-term studies.
Bio
Luis Sentis is the General Dynamics Associate Professor in Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also co-founder of the robotics company Apptronik Systems. He received a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and was a La Caixa Foundation Fellow.
Sentis leads the Human Centered Robotics Laboratory, an experimental facility focusing on control, embodiment, and intelligence of humanoid robots as well as strength augmentation exoskeletons. He publishes and teaches in areas related to realtime decision and control of human-centered robots, hardware design of high performance humanoid robots, and safety capabilities for mobile humanoid robots.
He was awarded the NASA Elite Team Award for his contributions to NASA’s Johnson Space Center Software Robotics and Simulation Division and has been a speaker in popular events such as SXSW and the NASA Thoughts Leader seminar series.
]]>Presentations will be held in 1116 E&W and a poster session will be located in the Klaus Atrium.
9:30 Registration (includes coffee and snacks)
10:00 Seth Hutchinson
Opening Remarks
10:15 Panos Tsiotras
Autonomy Research in IRIM
10:35 Zsolt Kira
Challenges and Opportunities for Deep Learning in Robotics
10:50 Ani Mazumdar
Multi-scale Adaptation for Versatile Autonomy
11:05 Greg Sawicki
Merging Terradynamics and Musculotendon Neuromechanics: Toward
Wearable Robots for Augmented Human Locomotion on Non-Uniform
Surfaces
11:20 Maggie Kosal
Emerging Technologies and International Security
11:35 Gary McMurray
IRIM Research in GTRI
11:55 Lunch/Poster Session
1:00 Jaydev Desai
Medical Robotics and Human Augmentation in IRIM
1:20 Annie Anton
Privacy and Robotics
1:35 Frank Dellaert
Factor Graphs for Dynamics and Control
1:50 Ye Zhao
Safe Robot Planning and Decision — And Why Physics Matters?
2:05 Ai-Ping Hu
High-Precision MRI-guided Direct Cell Injection Robot
2:20 Christopher Rozell
Machine Learning for Human Interaction with Autonomous Systems
2:35 Mick West
Homogenous Undersea Network Teaming (HUNT) with Lagrangian Profilers
2:50 Dhruv Bhatra
Reproducible Robotics Research via Simulation (or Why Vision People
Believe They Can Do Robotics Better than Robotics People)
3:05 Poster Session (includes coffee and snacks)
The #RATS Digital Scavenger Hunt is open to everyone on campus. All you need to do is post pictures of the following areas to your social accounts, all tagged #RATS.
On Friday, Aug. 23 from 3-5, everyone who can verify they’ve taken the photos can come to a pizza party in the seventh floor reading room. We’ll have all the projection screens down running retroTECH’s Time Machine emulator and several vintage systems.
Questions? Just hit up the Georgia Tech Library on social (Facebook, Twitter or Instagram), DM us on the Georgia Tech sub-Reddit or e-mail jason.wright@library.gatech.edu.
]]>Part of campus celebrations of the International Year of the Periodic Table, the Georgia Tech Scavenger Hunt for Chemical Elements will introduce players to fun facts about five chemical elements and to historical tidbits about their associated buildings:
Download a playing card here or pick up a card from any of the five buildings or from the second floor of Tech Tower.
Visit each of the buildings and find the poster with information about the building and the element. Answer the questions on the playing card. Present the card for the building's stamp.
Winning cards must have all five building stamps and correct answers to all questions.
Present your winning card to Room 2100Q in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, in the Molecular Sciences and Engineering (MoSE) building, at 901 Atlantic Dr, Atlanta, GA 30318. You may claim a prize from 9 AM to 4 PM on Aug. 19-23, 2019, or until supplies last.
Form a team to divide the hunting. However, each team member must present a completed playing card to claim a prize.
Fabulous prizes await successful scavenger hunters, including the wildly popular periodic table T-shirts, small beaker mugs, large periodic table beaker mugs, and frame-worthy Georgia Tech posters. Supplies are limited, so don't tarry; win early.
]]>https://registrar.gatech.edu/calendar
]]>Parents and guests may attend to celebrate their student's entry into Georgia Tech. Tickets are not required.
Immediately Following Convocation
Students will attend a special welcome party sponsored by Auxiliary Services - Rock, Ramble, and Roll - which celebrates their first night as a Georgia Tech college student. Held in the Student Center, students may take a shuttle or walk over after the Convocation ceremony. This is a free event for new students.
404.385.3426
]]>Please join us as we host our VIP Poster Session! It's a great way to learn more about our 70+ student teams, ask questions about our program, and meet faculty members from all over campus. Refreshments will be provided.
Please forward all questions to cmurray62@gatech.edu or visit http://www.vip.gatech.edu/ for more information.
]]>There will be startups from all industries, ranging from fashion to B2B to agriculture. Do not miss your opportunity to be the first to hear about 40+ industry breaking startups.
]]>Marketing and Event Coordinator for CREATE-X
joliva7@gatech.edu
]]>RSVP: http://bit.ly/2zdkSvB
TITLE
The Geometry of Community Detection via the MMSE Matrix
ABSTRACT
The information-theoretic limits of community detection have been studied extensively for network models with high levels of symmetry or homogeneity. In this talk, Reeves will present a new approach that applies to a broader class of network models that allow for variability in the sizes and behaviors of the different communities, and thus better reflect the behaviors observed in real-world networks. The results show that the ability to detect communities can be described succinctly in terms of a matrix of effective signal-to-noise ratios that provides a geometrical representation of the relationships between the different communities. This characterization follows from a matrix version of the I-MMSE relationship and generalizes the concept of an effective scalar signal-to-noise ratio introduced in previous work.
This work can be found online at https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.02496
BIO
Galen Reeves joined the faculty at Duke University in Fall 2013, and is currently an Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering and the Department of Statistical Science. He completed his PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley in 2011. From 2011 to 2013 he was a postdoctoral associate in the Departments of Statistics at Stanford University, where he was supported by an NSF VIGRE fellowship. In the summer of 2011, he was a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Computer and Communication Sciences at EPFL, Switzerland; in the spring of 2009, he was a visiting scholar at the Technical University of Delft, The Netherlands; and in the summer of 2008, he was a research intern in the Networked Embedded Computing Group at Microsoft Research, Redmond. He received his MS in Electrical Engineering from UC Berkeley in 2007, and BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University in 2005.
]]>Communications Officer
allie.mcfadden@cc.gatech.edu
]]>Admission is free to all graduates and their families. More information can be found at http://www.commencement.gatech.edu/presidents-graduation-celebration.
]]>The event will be live streamed on president.gatech.edu.
Submit questions to townhall@gatech.edu by 5 p.m. on Friday, August 30.
]]>5:15-5:45 PM Free dinner and social time with our members and officers
5:45-6 PM: Announcements and Upcoming Events Reminders
6-7 PM: Social Hour or Company Sponsored Event (Please check our weekly newletter for the upcoming company or activity of the week!)
If you have any questions, please feel free to email our President, Toral Kadakia, at swepresident@gmail.com
]]>Abstract
Dynamic, tactical, remote operations in which unmanned systems must manage multiple, changing objectives in uncertain, evolving and potentially adversarial environments, without the benefit of prior scripting, present an extreme challenge that necessitates high levels of autonomy and physical capability. While robots’ ability to geometrically map and autonomously navigate environments is relatively mature, to achieve higher-level operational goals requires the further technical leap of abstractly, or semantically, understanding surroundings. As biological systems have learned, efficient abstract perception requires not only that observations be intelligently processed over time, but also that sensors be actively controlled to acquire the best knowledge that minimizes uncertainties. The challenges and results of several ongoing projects in “active perception” will be discussed. These include work in which interior environments are rapidly mapped with both geometric and semantic information, as well as work in which threats are detected, localized, distinguished from false alarms, and identified via autonomous sensor control and real-time object classification. The talk will also describe R&D underway at Sandia in other technology areas essential to dynamic, remote operations, including novel robotic mobility systems capable of providing the obstacle traversal and energy efficiency needed for challenging real-world operations, novel robotic manipulation approaches, and real-time control applications for specific effectors including rock-drilling systems.
Bio
Stephen Buerger of Sandia's High Consequence Automation and Robotics group conducts research and development in physically interactive manipulation, energy-efficient and high-performance actuator technologies, autonomy and advanced controls for unmanned systems, advanced mobility, specialized small-scale electromechanical systems and sensors, and biomedical and human-interactive technologies.
]]>Abstract
Robots will soon move from the factory floor and into our lives (e.g., autonomous cars, package delivery drones, and search-and-rescue devices). However, compared to living systems, robot capabilities in complex environments are limited. I believe the mindset and tools of physics can help facilitate the creation of robust self-propelled autonomous systems. This “robophysics” approach – the systematic search for novel dynamics and principles in robotic systems – can aid the computer science and engineering approaches that have proven successful in less complex environments. The rapidly decreasing cost of constructing sophisticated robot models with easy access to significant computational power bodes well for such interactions. Drawing from examples in the work of my group and our collaborators, I will discuss how robophysical studies have inspired new physics questions in low dimensional dynamical systems (e.g., creation of analog quantum mechanics and gravity systems) and soft matter physics (e.g., emergent capabilities in ensembles of active “particles”). These studies have been useful to develop insight for biological locomotion in complex terrain (e.g., control targets via optimizing geometric phase) and have begun to aid engineers in the creation of devices that begin to achieve life-like locomotor abilities on and within complex environments (e.g., semi-soft myriapod robots).
Bio
Daniel I. Goldman is the Dunn Family Professor in the School of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Georgia Power Professor of Excellence. Goldman became a faculty member at Georgia Tech in 2007. He is an adjunct member of the School of Biology and is a member of the Interdisciplinary Bioengineering Graduate Program.
Goldman's research program broadly investigates the interaction of biological and physical systems with complex materials like granular media. In particular, he integrates laboratory experiments, computer simulation, and physical and mathematical models to discover principles of movement in a diversity of animals and robots in controlled laboratory substrates.
He received his S.B. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994, and his Ph.D. in Physics, in 2002, from the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied nonlinear dynamics and granular media. From 2003-2007, he completed postdoctoral work in the Department of Integrative Biology at U.C. Berkeley studying locomotion biomechanics.
Goldman is a fellow of the American Physical Society. He received an NSF CAREER/PECASE award, a DARPA Young Faculty Award, a Burroughs Welcome Fund Career Award from the Scientific Interface, and the U.T. Austin Outstanding Dissertation award in Physics.
]]>Deep Learning Motion and Task Planning
To complete a task a planning agent must be able to control the robot, understand the abilities and limitations of the control policy, prioritize and select attainable subgoals, and come up with a safe and a feasible plan in a timely manner. In this talk, I will discuss our current progress and the role of the deep learning in each planning phase to learn plans and motions that generalize to unseen real-world environments. First, evolutionary algorithms automate reward design in reinforcement learning and result in end-to-end policies that avoid moving obstacles and transfer from simulation to reality. Those policies incorporate, not only robot space occupancy, but also uncertainties coming from sensors and dynamics for wide classes of robots: differential drive robots with kinodynamic constraints: car, legged robot, etc. with both 1D and 2D depth sensors. Second, deep neural networks learn to estimate the difficulty of the motion to aid the selection of task subgoals, and even to identify important and feasible milestones that the agent needs to reach in order to complete the task. Third, we discuss how curriculum learning and quantization techniques aimed at enabling deep learning to run in real world.
Aleksandra Faust is a Staff Research Scientist at Google Brain Robotics, specializing in robot motion planning and reinforcement learning. Previously, Aleksandra led machine learning efforts for self-driving car planning and controls in Waymo, and was a researcher in Sandia National Laboratories. She earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of New Mexico (with distinction), and a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include machine learning for safe, scalable, and socially-aware motion planning, decision-making, and robot behavior. Aleksandra won the Tom L. Popejoy Award for the best doctoral dissertation at the University of New Mexico in Engineering, Mathematics, and Sciences in the period of 2011-2014, and was named Distinguished Alumna by the University of New Mexico School of Engineering. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, PC Magazine, ZdNet, and was awarded Best Paper in Service Robotics at ICRA 2018 and Best Paper in Reinforcement Learning for Real Life (RL4RL) at ICML.
]]>Communications Officer
allie.mcfadden@cc.gatech.edu
]]>The seminar will be held in the Klaus Advanced Computing Building, Rooms 1116 E & W, from 12:15-1:15 p.m. and is open to the public.
Abstract
Minimally invasive techniques have revolutionized many areas of surgery, but heart surgery has seen limited progress. We are working to combine ultrasound imaging and robotic manipulation to enable cardiac procedures that minimize patient impacts. One robotic system automatically points ultrasound catheters. This four-DOF robotic system enables panoramic views of internal heart structures and automatically tracks catheters working within the beating heart during minimally invasive procedures. Another robotic system uses real-time 3D ultrasound imaging for dynamic visualization of internal cardiac anatomy through the opaque blood pool. We have developed image processing algorithms that can track tissue structures and surgical instruments in real time, despite poor resolution, acoustic artifacts, and data rates of over 30 million voxels per second. For manipulation of rapidly moving cardiac tissue we have created robotic catheters that can keep pace with fast-moving tissue. This allows the surgeon to interact with the heart as if it was stationary. In vivo validation of this technology in atrial septal defect closure and mitral valve annuloplasty procedures demonstrate the potential for improved patient outcomes.
Bio
Robert D. Howe is the Abbott and James Lawrence Professor of Engineering in the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and faculty chair of the Harvard MS/MBA Program in Engineering Sciences.
In 1990, Howe founded the Harvard BioRobotics Laboratory, which investigates the roles of sensing and mechanical design in motor control, in both humans and robots. His research interests focus on manipulation, the sense of touch, and human-machine interfaces. Biomedical applications of this work include the development of robotic and image-guided surgical procedures.
Howe earned a bachelor's degree in physics from Reed College, then worked as a design engineer in the electronics industry in Silicon Valley. He received a doctoral degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford University in 1990, and then joined the faculty at Harvard. Howe is a Fellow of the IEEE and the AIMBE, and he has won best paper awards at mechanical engineering, robotics, and surgery conferences.
Howe's lab web site is http://biorobotics.harvard.edu.
]]>The seminar will be held in the Klaus Advanced Computing Building, Rooms 1116 E & W, from 12:15-1:15 p.m. and is open to the public.
]]>Abstract
Robotic technologies have greatly advanced in recent years, enabling the creation of new wearable sensors and motorized devices. Robotic exoskeletons for human performance augmentation or neurological rehabilitation are in development and testing at many locations around the globe. Bionic lower limb prostheses are becoming practical solutions for amputees. However, one of the fundamental roadblocks for both robotic exoskeletons and bionic prostheses is the control. Better control approaches are needed to make the devices move in smooth coordination with the human users. One possibility to get better control of wearable robotic devices is to obtain feedforward neural commands from the user. Ferris will present on research aimed at merging humans and machines, outlining the major obstacles remaining to produce truly cooperative human-machine systems.
Bio
Dan Ferris’ research focuses on the biomechanics and neural control of human locomotion. Most of his research involves human-machine interactions, mechanically and electrically. Specifically, he studies human walking and running using mobile brain imaging, robotic lower limb exoskeletons, and bionic lower limb prostheses. The goal is to identify principles of how humans control their movements, how humans and machines interact, and develop better devices and controllers for machines assisting human locomotion.
His laboratory has developed a number of robotic lower limb exoskeletons to determine how assistance at the ankle, knee, and hip can reduce the energetic cost of locomotion, and might be used to assist gait rehabilitation after incomplete spinal cord injury. They have used the principles they have learned from robotic lower limb exoskeletons to develop a bionic lower limb prosthesis under proportional myoelectric control. More recently, Ferris and his group are pioneering the use of high-density electroencephalography (EEG) to perform mobile brain imaging with high temporal resolution. This last effort includes both new hardware and software innovations to facilitate removal of motion and muscle artifacts from EEG during walking and running.
]]>Abstract
Multi-fingered hands offer autonomous robots increased dexterity, versatility, and stability over simple two-fingered grippers. Naturally, this increased ability comes with increased complexity in planning and executing manipulation actions. As such, I propose combining model-based planning with learned components to improve over purely data-driven or purely-model based approaches to manipulation.
This talk examines multi-fingered autonomous manipulation when the robot has only partial knowledge of the object of interest. I will first present results on planning multi-fingered grasps for novel objects using a learned neural network. I will then present our approach to planning in-hand manipulation tasks when dynamic properties of objects are not known. I will conclude with a discussion of our ongoing and future research to further unify these two approaches.
Bio
Tucker Hermans is an assistant professor in the School of Computing at the University of Utah, where he is a founding member of the University of Utah Robotics Center. He was a visiting professor at NVIDIA Research during summer 2019. Hermans is a recipient of the NSF CAREER award and the 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award. His research has been nominated for multiple conference paper awards, including winning the Best Medical Robotics Paper Award at ICRA 2017.
Previously, Hermans was a postdoctoral fellow at TU Darmstadt working with Jan Peters. He attended Georgia Tech from 2009 to 2014, in the School of Interactive Computing where he earned his Ph.D. in Robotics under the supervision of Aaron Bobick and Jim Rehg. At Georgia Tech he earned a M.Sc. in Computer Science. Additionally, Hermans received an A.B. in German and Computer Science from Bowdoin College in 2009.
]]>
Industry representatives interested in meeting students researching robotics and automation are welcome to attend the event. Please RSVP. Students may register here.
The event will provide an overview of the broad research areas in IRIM, followed by a speed-networking event: Every 5 minutes our industry guests will have the opportunity to speak to a different student.
Representatives from the robotics and automation industries will meet talented M.S. and Ph.D. robotics students enrolled in engineering programs in Mechanical, Electrical & Computer, Aerospace, and Biomedical, as well as those enrolled in Computer Science. Additionally, this year you will have the opportunity to meet undergraduate students in the RoboJackets club. They participate in robotics-related competitions around the world every year. The group as a whole is a mixture of students nearing graduation, mid-career students looking for internship opportunities, and new students hoping to find promising research directions.
IRIM will also provide additional information about the benefits of joining our Industrial Affiliates program, which includes:
Visit Georgia Tech Parking & Transportation for parking details. The closest lot is Visitors Area 4, located at the corner of Ferst Drive and State Street.
Beverages and light appetizers will be served during the mixer.
]]>Industry representatives interested in meeting students researching robotics and automation are welcome to attend the event. Please register online.
]]>Title: Learning Augmented Optimization: Faster, Better and Guaranteed
Abstract:
Learning and optimization are closely related: state-of-the-art learning problems hinge on the sophisticated design of optimizers. On the other hand, the optimization cannot be considered as independent from data, since data may implicitly contain important information that guides optimization, as seen in the recent waves of meta-learning or learning to optimize. This talk will discuss Learning Augmented Optimization (LAO), a nascent area that bridges classical optimization with the latest data-driven learning, by augmenting classical model-based optimization with learning-based components. By adapting their behavior to the properties of the input distribution, the ``augmented'' algorithms may reduce their complexities by magnitudes, and/or improve their accuracy, while still preserving favorable theoretical guarantees such as convergence. I will start by diving into a case study on exploiting deep learning to solve the convex LASSO problem, showing its linear convergence in addition to superior parameter efficiency. Then, our discussions will be extended to applying LAO approaches to solving plug-and-play (PnP) optimization, and population-based optimization. I will next demonstrate our recent results on ensuring the robustness of LAO, say how applicable the algorithm remains to be, if the testing problem instances deviate from the training problem distribution. The talk will be concluded by a few thoughts and reflections, as well as pointers to potential future directions.
Bio:
Dr. Zhangyang (Atlas) Wang is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University, since 2017. During 2012-2016, he was a Ph.D. student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), working with Professor Thomas S. Huang. Dr. Wang is broadly interested in the fields of machine learning, computer vision, optimization, and their interdisciplinary applications. His latest interests focus on addressing automated machine learning (AutoML), learning-based optimization, and efficient deep learning. He has published over 90 papers (NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, etc.), 2 books and 1 chapter; has been granted 3 patents, and has received over 20 research awards and scholarships. His research has been gratefully supported by NSF, DARPA, ARL, as well as a number of industry and university grants. More information can be found at https://www.atlaswang.com/
Program and Operations Manager
khanson@cc.gatech.edu
]]>
TITLE
A Structural Result for Personalized PageRank and its Algorithmic Consequences
ABSTRACT
Many systems, such as the Internet, social networks, and the power grid, can be represented as graphs. When analyzing graphs, it is often useful to compute scores describing the relative importance or distance between nodes. One example is Personalized PageRank (PPR), which assigns to each node v a vector whose i-th entry describes the importance of the i-th node from the perspective of v. PPR has proven useful in many applications, such as recommending who users should follow on social networks (if this i-th entry is large, v may be interested in following the i-th user). Unfortunately, computing n PPR vectors exactly for a graph of n nodes has complexity O(n^3), which is infeasible for many graphs of interest.
In this work, we devise a scheme to estimate all n PPR vectors with bounded l1 error and complexity O(n^c), where c< 2 depends on the degrees of the graph at hand, the desired error tolerance, and a parameter that defines PPR. This improves upon existing methods, the best of which have complexity O(n^2 log n) in our setting. Our complexity guarantee holds with high probability, for certain choices of the PPR parameter, and for a certain class of random graphs (roughly speaking, the sparse directed configuration model with heavy-tailed in-degrees); our accuracy guarantee holds with probability 1 and for arbitrary graphs and PPR parameters. The complexity result arises as a consequence of our main (structural) result, which shows that the dimensionality of the set of PPR vectors scales sublinearly in n with high probability, for the same class of random graphs and for a notion of dimensionality similar to matrix rank. It is this coupling of the PPR vectors for the nodes on a common underlying graph that allows for estimating them faster. Hence, at a high level, our scheme is analogous to (but distinct from) low-rank matrix approximation. We also note that our scheme is similar to one that was proposed in Jeh and Widom (2003) but lacked accuracy and complexity guarantees, so another contribution of our paper is to address this gap in the literature.
This is joint work with Daniel Vial, Univ. of Michigan.
BIO
Vijay Subramanian is an Associate Professor in the EECS Department at the University of Michigan. His main research interests are in stochastic modeling, communications, information theory, and applied mathematics. A large portion of his past work has been on probabilistic analysis of communication networks, especially the analysis of scheduling and routing algorithms. In the past, he has also done some work with applications in immunology and coding of stochastic processes. His current research interests are on random graphs, game-theoretic and economic modeling of socio-technological systems and networks, and the analysis of associated stochastic processes.
]]>Communications Officer
allie.mcfadden@cc.gatech.edu
]]>TITLE
Learning the Koopman Operator for Dynamic Data
ABSTRACT
Recent work in the study of dynamic systems has focussed on data-driven decomposition techniques that approximate the action of the Koopman operator on observable functions of the underlying phenomena.
In particular, the data-driven method of dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) has been explored, with multiple variants of the algorithm in existence, including extended DMD, DMD in reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces, a Bayesian framework, a variant for stochastic dynamical systems, and a variant that uses deep neural networks.
In this talk, I shall briefly summarize the large existing work on data-driven learning of Koopman operator models, and then describe new sampling-based sketching approaches (SketchyCoreSVD, SketchyCoreTucker) together with matrix-valued Kernels, to achieve accelerated Koopman operator approximations of dynamic observable data. Examples are drawn from remote sensing and FTIR hyperspectral tensor images, bio-medical cardiac magnetic resonance video, and time series reactive flow simulations of a single ejector combustion process.
BIO
Chandrajit Bajaj is the Computational Applied Mathematics Chair in Visualization, professor of computer science, and director of the Center for Computational Visualization at the University of Texas at Austin. Bajaj earned his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, and his master's and Ph.D. in computer science from Cornell University. He is an IEEE, ACM, and AAAS Fellow, and has won numerous best paper awards throughout his career. Bajaj has also served as the editor of various publications including ACM Computing Survey, SIAM Journal on Imaging Sciences, and the International Journal of Computational Geometry and Applications. He has authored several books.
Communications Officer
allie.mcfadden@cc.gatech.edu
]]>
Ever wonder what the other people in the IEN facilities are working on? Want to share your research with an interdisciplinary community? Join us for IEN’s annual User Science and Engineering Review (USER) Day. This special event will provide an opportunity to learn about the latest research activities in IEN and will provide a great opportunity to share a glimpse of your work with a diverse audience.
The keynote speaker and IEN 2019 Meindl Lecturer is Julia Greer, Professor of Materials Science, Mechanics, and Medical Engineering at CalTech, who will speak on “Materials by Design: Three-Dimensional (3D) Nano-Architected Meta-Materials”.
This event is open to the entire community with registration required by August 30, 2019. Facility users are strongly encouraged to prepare a poster with all presenters eligible for $100 poster awards. In addition, users who want the opportunity to present their work in one of three oral presentations (15 min. each) should submit a 1-paragraph abstract (no more than 250 words and 1-2 figures) describing their research activities using IEN facilities. The abstract must include a title, authors (indicating clearly the presenting author), and their affiliations. Abstracts selected for oral presentation will be notified by email. Please email your abstract to amy.duke@ien.gatech.edu by the August 21, 2019 deadline.
While registration for the event is required, there is no cost to attend, and lunch and snacks will be provided.
“Functional Imaging of the Human Brain: A Window into the Architecture of the Mind”
The last 20 years of brain imaging research has revealed the functional organization of the human brain in glorious detail, including dozens of cortical regions each of which is specifically engaged in a particular mental task, like recognizing faces, perceiving speech sounds, and understanding the meaning of a sentence. Each of these regions is present, in approximately the same location, in every normal person. This initial rough sketch of the functional organization of the brain counts as real progress, giving us a kind of diagram of the major components of the human mind. But at the same time, it is just the barest beginning. Really what our new map of the human brain offers is a vast landscape of new questions. In this talk I will first broadly survey some of the most widely replicated functionally distinctive cortical regions, and then describe ongoing work into three such questions. First, in light of widespread findings that functionally specific cortical regions contain information about “nonpreferred” stimuli, do some patches of cortex really play a highly specific causal role in processing just one class of stimuli? Second, how does all this complex structure, that is so similar across subjects, arise in development? I will discuss the developmental origins of cortical specificity, including a new finding of what appears to be a fusiform face area in the ventral visual pathway of congenitally blind people. Third, why do we have the particular functionally specific cortical regions we do, and apparently not others, and why, from a computational point of view, is functional specificity a good design feature for brains in the first place?
Panelists
Mahdi Roozbahani
Filio
‘18 alumni
Alex Madison
Countable
‘19 Alumni
Khanna Bell
Prettytech
‘18 Alumni
Academic and research faculty are needed to serve as judges for the talks and posters. Please volunteer to judge by signing up here.
CREATE-X Marketing and Event Coordinator
]]>“Using Human Brain Organoids to Unveil Neuron-Glial Interactions During Development”
Glia are the most abundant cell types in the mammalian nervous system. They are integral to normal brain physiology, yet we still understand very little about what functions they perform, how they develop, and how they are involved in disease. We understand even less about these cells in humans because of the lack of direct access to intact, functioning human brain tissue. Our lab is using pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived non-invasively from skin samples to generate brain cells in the lab. Because the brain is a 3D structure and studying cells growing on a plate does not recapitulate its complexity, we are using human iPSCs to generate functional 3D structures that are patterned to mirror specific regions of the human brain. We can culture these 'brains-in-a-dish' for long periods of time to ask how normal brain development is occurring in a human system. Additionally, this method allows us to ask questions about how neurons and glia interact with each other in both healthy and diseased contexts, and to manipulate specific variables of brain development in an otherwise complex developmental system.
]]>Abstract: Electrospinning is a valuable production method for nanoscale polymeric fibers. However, a major limitation of the technology is the requirement for the use of high molecular weight polymers as a major part of the matrix. Many applications would benefit from a more expansive range in the materials able to be electrospun, including pharmaceuticals, wearable devices and diagnostics, and active filtration. In order to realize these more advanced functional materials, composites of polymers and particles must be developed and a strong understanding of how particle inclusion affects the electrospinning process and mat properties is essential. In this work, we examine material systems containing various polymers and active particles, focusing on how inclusion of particles affects electrospinnability and functionality of the fibrous mat. We have found that polymer solutions with high conductivity, hence narrow fiber diameters, tend to trap particles in a web-like structure, rather than within individual fibers. Other polymer-particle systems exhibit a ‘bunches of grapes’ morphology where the particles agglomerate yet the polymer matrix still surrounds them and connects the bunches with fibers. These interesting morphologies can be explained by conductivity, rheology, and particle interactions in the polymer solution. We also examine how particle inclusion affects the viscoelasticity of the solutions and tie this to the electrospinning process window; showing that a finite window of viscoelasticity yields optimal electrospinnability. We use these fundamental results to electrospin materials for advanced functional applications such as pharmaceuticals and conducting polymers and provide outlook for further work in increasing the range of materials that are electrospinnable.
Bio: Blair Brettmann is an Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech. She received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin and her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at MIT. Following her Ph.D., Dr. Brettmann was a Senior Research Engineer at Saint-Gobain and a postdoctoral researcher in the Institute for Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago. She was the recipient of the Ralph E. Powe Award in 2018 and an IUPAC Young Observer and Air Force Research Lab Summer Faculty Fellow in 2019.
]]>“Perturbation-imaging Approaches to Study Functional Contributions of Cortical Activity to Human Movement”
The ability to learn and produce skilled movements is required for humans to successfully engage with each other and their environment. A principal role of the brain is to guide current, and plan future, movements based on past actions and potential rewards. In this talk, I will describe ongoing work in our lab employing multiple approaches to investigate the functional contributions of brain activity to normal and abnormal human movement. I will discuss how transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a form of non-invasive brain stimulation, can be used both characterize and modulate cortical activity and connectivity during movement. I will also describe our recent findings showing abnormal TMS-evoked cortical reactivity post-stroke that is related to persistent paretic arm impairment. Lastly, I will discuss preliminary work applying alternative perturbation paradigms to study brain-behavior relationships in health and disease.
]]>Shachar Oren is a thought leader in music business and technology and founder of the company, Neurotic Media, which he grew to being a leading force in music distribution for all the major music labels. In 2018, he sold the company to Peloton and served as VP of Music in charge of music innovation for a year. Shachar stepped down from Peloton in May and has been advising TechStars and ATDC companies and while also serving as volunteer President of Georgia Music Partners.
Deep Startups is an event series that features knowledgeable entrepreneurs who discuss their experiences forming companies that solve big-picture current problems. These individuals speak to the concept of ‘deep startups’ and how to create companies that make a difference. Each Deep Startups event focuses on a different broad topic in engineering/technology, and allows for student Q&A at the end of the event.
]]>Marketing and Event Coordinator for CREATE-X
joliva7@gatech.edu
]]>Omer Inan, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Georgia Tech
"Wearable Joint Health Sensing using Acoustics and Electrical Bioimpedance"
Longitudinally assessing the structural and physiological health of joints, such as the knee, can enable personalized rehabilitation following injuries or titration of care for patients with arthritis. Current technologies for joint health evaluation comprise physical examination by a trained clinician, medical imaging (e.g. magnetic resonance imaging, MRI), or wearable sensing systems focused on joint kinematics or overall actigraphy.
Our group has developed novel technologies for comprehensive joint health evaluation based on wearable measurement of the sounds emitted by joints during movement and electrical bioimpedance spectroscopy. This talk will describe our latest findings focused on elucidating the origin and physiological underpinnings of these measurements, development of algorithms for extracting meaningful digital biomarkers, and clinical validation studies in patients with acute knee injuries and arthritis.
]]>
• Meghan Caputo, Director, Global Crisis Management
• Diana Dudas, Director, Security Risk
• Courtney Healey, Senior Director, Security Awareness
• Jamila Ramsay, Senior Director, Enterprise Application, Security and Analysis & Metrics Reporting
The terms security and cybersecurity are often used interchangeably referring to the profession narrowly defined as a team of professionals who leverage technologies and processes to defend an organization’s systems and networks from attack. However, this narrow use of security sells the field short – there are in fact a number of key functions under the security umbrella, one of which is cybersecurity, all of which are essential to the success of the organization. Some such functions are: physical security, fraud prevention, privacy, business continuity, disaster recovery, and risk management, although there are still more. And though the security field is defined by the technical “hacker” persona, people with backgrounds, skills, and interests of a wide variety have all found success under the umbrella of work in the security field.
]]>Location: Klaus 1116EW
]]>The entire campus community is invited to come out and support the graduate students competing in the 2019 competition. This is the first of four preliminary rounds held in October. Winners from each round will compete in the final round on Nov. 14.
For more information about 3MT, visit grad.gatech.edu/3MT.
]]>Office of Graduate Studies
]]>Cosmology studies the universe at the largest scales, applying the laws of physics over billions of light years and all the way back to the universe's infancy. In dozens of groundbreaking publications, Jim Peebles laid the foundations for theoretical cosmology, painting a picture of how matter evolves from the moments after the Big Bang into a cosmic web of dark matter and galaxies. His work set the stage for current research that routinely uses supercomputer simulations to study the astrophysics of galaxies.
Closer to home, people have speculated the existence of planets outside of our own solar system for centuries. However, there was no way of knowing whether they exist and how common they are. In 1995, the first discovery of an extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, orbiting a Sun-like star was made by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, who detected the signatures of the planet 51 Pegasi b as it pulls its host star. This discovery marked a breakthrough in astrophysics and led to various fields of interests, including the formation and habitability of exoplanets.
John Wise is an associate professor in the School of Physics. He uses numerical simulations to study the formation and evolution of galaxies and their black holes. He is one of the lead developers of the community-driven, open-source astrophysics code Enzo and has vast experience running state-of-the-art simulations on the world’s largest supercomputers.
He received his B.S. in Physics from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2001. He then studied at Stanford University, where he received his Ph.D. in Physics in 2007. He went on to work at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center just outside of Washington, D.C., as a NASA postdoctoral fellow. In 2009, he was awarded the prestigious Hubble Fellowship, which he took to Princeton University before joining Georgia Tech in 2011, coming back home after 10 years roaming the nation.
Gongjie Li is an assistant professor in the School of Physics and the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. She studies the dynamics and formation mechanism of planetary systems, as well as stars around supermassive black holes.
She received her B.S. in Astrophysics from the California Institute of Technology in 2010 and her Ph.D. in Astronomy and Astrophysics from Harvard University in 2015. She stayed at Harvard as a Junior Fellow before joining Georgia Tech in 2018.
]]>CREATE-X Marketing and Event Coordinator
joliva7@gatech.edu
]]>The Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) Program would like to invite you to attend our VIP Poster Session on October 22nd!
Through the VIP program, students earn 1-2 credits per semester for work on large-scale research and design projects led by faculty.
Previous experience is not required, but a willingness to learn and work with others is a must.
We will have a poster session on Tuesday, October 22nd at 4:00pm Klaus Atrium, but teams do fill up, so we encourage you to browse teams and apply sooner if you are interested.
http://www.vip.gatech.edu/teams
Learn more in person – the session will feature teams that are able to make it, but the online listing includes all teams, and the online application indicates which teams are flagged as full.
Refreshments will be provided.
Learn more online -– visit the urls below.
The entire campus community is invited to come out and support the graduate students competing in the 2019 event. This is the third of four preliminary rounds held in October. Winners from each round will compete in the final round on Nov. 14.
For more information about 3MT, visit grad.gatech.edu/3MT.
]]>Office of Graduate Studies
]]>The entire campus community is invited to come out and support the graduate students competing in the 2019 event. This is the last of four preliminary rounds held in October. Winners from each round will compete in the final round on Nov. 14.
For more information about 3MT, visit grad.gatech.edu/3MT.
]]>Office of Graduate Studies
]]>The entire campus community is invited to come out and support the graduate students competing in the 2019 competition. This is the second of four preliminary rounds held in October. Winners from each round will compete in the final round on Nov. 14.
For more information about 3MT, visit grad.gatech.edu/3MT.
]]>Office of Graduate Studies
]]>The entire campus community is invited to come out and support the graduate students competing in the 2019 final round event.
For more information about 3MT, visit grad.gatech.edu/3MT.
Office of Graduate Studies
]]>Nigel P. Pedersen, M.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Neurology
Emory University
While human research has emphasized the large-scale network disruptions in the epilepsies and their co-morbidities, basic science has typically focused on local networks. In rodents, more general large-scale network dynamics are essentially unstudied at fast time scales and high spatial precision. I will describe our human work examining forebrain connectivity and animal studies that examine large scale network manipulations and the development of techniques to record from larger anatomically connected networks. Present animal model work focuses on manipulations of one of the most important large-scale networks - the major state control system for sleep-wake and vigilance. While these circuits have been elucidated in increasing detail over the last decade and are the major controller of brain rhythms and excitability, they are surprisingly little explored in epilepsy. I will discuss the limitations of present technologies for studying large-scale brain networks in rodents and a solution that we are developing.
]]>In Engineering & Lithography Fun - Practical Problem Solving, KemLab present several real & practical issues our customers encounter in the field of engineering & lithography.
Some examples to be covered:
Bio: Mr. Golden is the General Manager of KemLab, responsible for day to day operations, including product development, manufacturing and QC, with particular focus on collaborative initiatives for new products. He is a senior engineering and applications technologist in the field of photo sensitive chemistries used in the microelectronics industry. He has over 20 years of experience in the disciplines of manufacturing, QC and product applications development for these specialty chemicals. Mr. Golden also holds publications in customer applications of these photoresist products developed. Since starting KemLab in 2012, several products have been developed and commercialized, including photoresists for MEMS, Packaging, Lift-off, and image reversal. Mr. Golden has degrees in Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, and an MBA with concentration in entrepreneurship.
Pizza Lunch Provided with Prior Registration
Register now at
https://tinyurl.com/KemLitho
Use of company name or logo does not constitute an endorsement by the Georgia Institute of Technology.
]]>
It's an all-day event on October 31st, 2019 at The Garage in Tech Square, located on Georgia Tech's campus in the heart of Midtown Atlanta. There will be breakout sessions for topics surrounding artificial ntelligence, drones in retail, consumer analytics, supply chain innovations, retrofitting real estate for retail and more!
The day will end with a mixer and the first-ever Retail Tech Fast Pitch Competition. To apply to pitch, go to bit.ly/retailpitch2019. This is an event you don't want to miss!
]]>Tatyana Sharpee, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Biological Studies
Salk Institute
Using the sense of smell as an example, I will describe both theoretical reasons and experimental evidence that natural stimuli and human perception can be mapped onto a low dimensional curved surface. This surface turns out to have a negative curvature, corresponding to a hyperbolic metric. Although this map was derived purely from the statistics of co-occurrence between mono-molecular odorants in the natural environment it revealed topography in the organization of human perception of smell. I will conclude with arguments for why hyperbolic metric should be generally applicable elsewhere in the nervous system.
]]>Over the next few months, we will use a process called “appreciative inquiry” to craft that vision. Appreciative inquiry leverages the power of positive conversation and stories of success to build on an organization’s strengths.
During this interactive students-only session, participants will be guided through a process designed to spotlight personal points of Yellow Jacket pride and dream about the future for Georgia Tech.
Join us and lend your voice!
**FREE FOOD**
]]>
Judy Hoffman is an assistant professor in the School of Interactive Computing. She recently joined Georgia Tech from Facebook AI Research. Hoffman brings a wealth of knowledge at the intersection of computer vision and machine learning. Her research tackles real-world variation and scale while minimizing human supervision. Hoffman develops learning algorithms that facilitate the transfer of information through semi-supervised and unsupervised model generalization and adaptation. Her thesis focused on transferrable representation learning for visual recognition.
Hoffman was previously a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley after earning a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer engineering from UC Berkeley as well. She is a recipient of the NSF Graduate Fellowship and the Rosalie M. Stern Fellowship.
Dr. Rachel Cummings is an Assistant Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. Her research interests lie primarily in data privacy, with connections to machine learning, algorithmic economics, optimization, statistics, and information theory. Her work has focused on problems such as strategic aspects of data generation, incentivizing truthful reporting of data, privacy-preserving algorithm design, impacts of privacy policy, and human decision-making.
Dr. Cummings received her Ph.D. in Computing and Mathematical Sciences from the California Institute of Technology, her M.S. in Computer Science from Northwestern University, and her B.A. in Mathematics and Economics from the University of Southern California.
She is the recipient of a Google Research Fellowship, a Simons-Berkeley Research Fellowship in Data Privacy, the ACM SIGecom Doctoral Dissertation Honorable Mention, the Amori Doctoral Prize in Computing and Mathematical Sciences, a Caltech Leadership Award, a Simons Award for Graduate Students in Theoretical Computer Science, and the Best Paper Award at the 2014 International Symposium on Distributed Computing. Dr. Cummings also serves on the ACM U.S. Public Policy Council's Privacy Committee.
Dr. Swati Gupta is an Assistant Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech.
Prior to her arrival at Georgia Tech, she spent two semesters as a Fellow at the Simons Institute, UC Berkeley, participating in programs on Bridging Continuous and Discrete Optimization and Real-time Decision Making. She received her Ph.D. in operations research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Operations Research Center and a dual degree (B.Tech and M.Tech) in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.
Gupta's research interests lie primarily in combinatorial, convex, and robust optimization with applications in online learning and data-driven decision-making under partial information. Her work focuses on speeding up fundamental bottlenecks that arise in learning problems due to the combinatorial nature of the decisions, as well as drawing from machine learning to improve traditional optimization methods.
She has worked on providing optimized inventory routing decisions under uncertain demand, and pricing items optimally while incorporating effects of sales and promotions. She has collaborated with industrial research labs such as the IBM Research Lab in Zurich, Switzerland and the Oracle Retail Data Science Group. Gupta is further interested in exploring strategic behavior of customers, fairness and bias in decisions, and unintended consequences of optimization.
Gupta was the Microsoft Research Fellow at Simons Institute in Spring 2018, and she received the prestigious Simons-Berkeley Research Fellowship for the academic year 2017-18. Her collaborative work on systematically evaluating heuristics and understanding which heuristic or algorithm works best on unseen problem instances received a special recognition from the INFORMS Computing Society in their Student Paper Competition in 2016. She was also a finalist for the INFORMS Service Science Student Paper Competition for her work on promotion optimization for retail items. Gupta received the Google Women in Engineering Award in India in 2011.
Deven Desai joined the Scheller faculty in fall of 2014 in the Law and Ethics Program. Prior to joining Scheller, Professor Desai was an associate professor of law at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law. He was also the first, and to date, only Academic Research Counsel at Google, Inc., and a Visiting Fellow at Princeton University's Center for Information Technology Policy.
Professor Desai's scholarship examines how business interests, new technology, and economic theories shape privacy and intellectual property law and where those arguments explain productivity or where they fail to capture society's interest in the free flow of information and development. His work has appeared in leading law reviews and journals including the Georgetown Law Journal, Minnesota Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, Wisconsin Law Review, U.C. Davis Law Review, Florida Law Review, and Brigham Young University Law Review.
Prior to becoming a professor, Desai has been a litigator handing intellectual property and technology matters with Quinn, Emanuel, Urquhart, & Sullivan, LLP, in-house counsel for an idealab! Internet infrastructure company, and part of policy and fundraising teams on the 2002 Cory Booker for Mayor campaign.
Professor Desai has been interviewed about 3D printing, intellectual property, privacy, and technology by the New York Times and the news show, Take Part Live. He blogs about technology, intellectual property, and privacy at Concurring Opinions and Madisonian.
He is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley with highest honors and the Yale Law School, where he was co-editor-in-chief of the Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities.
]]>Program and Operations Manager
khanson@cc.gatech.edu
Allie McFadden
Communications Officer
allie.mcfadden@cc.gatech.edu
]]>Over the next few months, we will use a process called “appreciative inquiry” to craft that vision. Appreciative inquiry leverages the power of positive conversation and stories of success to build on an organization’s strengths.
During this interactive students-only session, participants will be guided through a process designed to spotlight personal points of Yellow Jacket pride and dream about the future for Georgia Tech.
Join us and lend your voice!
**FREE FOOD**
]]>Abstract: Directed assembly, crystallization and microphase separation have played a central role in thedevelopment of modern electronics and energy materials. Recent years, printed electronics based on semiconducting molecular systems have emerged as a new technology platform that promise to revolutionize the electronics, clean energy and medical industry. In contrast to traditional electronic manufacturing that requires high temperature and high vacuum, these new electronic materials can be solution printed at near ambient conditions to produce flexible, light-weight, biointegrated forms at low-cost and high-throughput. However, it remains a central challenge to control the morphology of semiconducting molecular systems across length scales. The significance of this challenge lies in the order of magnitude modulations in device performance by morphology parameters across all length scales.
This challenge arises from the fact that directed assembly approaches designed for conventional hard materials are far less effective for soft matters that exhibit high conformational complexity and weak, nonspecific intermolecular interactions. On the other hand, biological systems have evolved to assemble complex molecular structures highly efficiently. We are eager to transfer the wisdom of living systems to developing printed electronics technologies as to enable next generation electronics for clean energy and healthcare. In this talk, we present new insights and strategies we recently developed for controlling multi-scale assembly and transformation of semiconducting molecules. We learned from living systems and designed bioinspired assembly processes, allowing molecules to put themselves together cooperatively into highly ordered structures otherwise not possible with significantly improved electronic properties. We discovered molecular design rules that impart dynamic and switchable electronic properties through the mechanism of molecular cooperativity – a mechanism ubiquitous in nature. These new solid-state properties could potentially enable new sensing and actuation mechanisms not possible before. We further developed 2D and 3D printing process to realize on-the-fly morphology control down to the molecular and nanoscale.
Bio: Professor Diao is a Beckman Fellow, Dow Chemical Company Faculty Scholar and Assistant Professor at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She received her Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering from MIT in 2012. Her doctoral thesis was on understanding heterogeneous nucleation of pharmaceuticals by designingpolymeric substrates. In her subsequent postdoctoral training with Prof. Zhenan Bao at Stanford University, she pursued research in the thriving field of printed electronics. Diao group, started in January 2015 at Illinois, focuses on bioinspired assembly of organic functional materials and printing approaches that enable structural control down to the molecular and nanoscale. Her work has been frequently featured in scientific journals and news media such as the Science Magazine and Nature Materials. She is named to the MIT Technology Review’s annual list of Innovators Under 35 as a pioneer in nanotechnology and materials. She is also a recipient of NSF CAREER Award, 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award and was selected as a Sloan Research Fellow in Chemistry as one of the “very best scientific minds working today”. She serves as an editor for an ACS.
Invited by Graduates in Nanotechnology (GIN) student organization. For information on GIN contact the NNCI Director of Education and Outreach, Quinn Spadola:
quinn.spadola@ien.gatech.edu
]]>
As we embark on a new chapter of our history, President Cabrera invites you to engage in a communitywide process to define our collective aspirations for the next decade. The changing of the guard at Tech offers a unique opportunity for us to reimagine our future, craft a new vision, and develop a new strategic plan.
Over the next few months, we will use a process called “appreciative inquiry” to craft that vision. Appreciative inquiry leverages the power of positive conversation and stories of success to build on an organization’s strengths.
During this interactive session, participants will be guided through a process designed to spotlight personal points of Yellow Jacket pride and dream about the future for Georgia Tech.
Join us and lend your voice!
]]>“Neural Decoding and Control of Multiscale Brain Networks: From Motor to Mood”
In this talk, I first discuss our recent work on modeling, decoding, and controlling multisite human brain activity underlying mood states. I present a multiscale dynamical modeling framework that allows us, for the first time, to decode mood variations and identify brain sites that are most predictive of mood. I then develop a system identification approach that can predict large-scale brain network dynamics (output) in response to electrical stimulation (input) to enable closed-loop control of brain activity. Finally, I demonstrate that our modeling framework can uncover multiscale neural dynamics from hybrid spike-field activity in monkeys performing unconstrained movements and can further combine information from multiple scales of activity and model their different time-scales and statistical profiles. These models, decoders, and controllers could facilitate future closed-loop therapies for neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders and help probe neural circuits.
]]>As we embark on a new chapter of our history, President Cabrera invites you to engage in a communitywide process to define our collective aspirations for the next decade. The changing of the guard at Tech offers a unique opportunity for us to reimagine our future, craft a new vision, and develop a new strategic plan.
Over the next few months, we will use a process called “appreciative inquiry” to craft that vision. Appreciative inquiry leverages the power of positive conversation and stories of success to build on an organization’s strengths.
During this interactive session, participants will be guided through a process designed to spotlight personal points of Yellow Jacket pride and dream about the future for Georgia Tech.
Join us and lend your voice!
]]>Come Join Tap with Us - For Stress Relief!
EFT Tapping (or Emotional Freedom Techniques) is a simple and easy to learn technique that can be used for stress management. It is based on traditional Asian healing methods that are designed to calm the body’s responses to stress in the amygdala (located deep in the brain’s medial temporal lobe) and the vagus nerve, a cranial nerve that connects the brain to the rest of the body.
As we tune in to how we respond to stress while literally Tapping on specific meridian points on our own bodies, we very often gain immediate spaciousness and reduction in the stress response. Come learn the basics, experiment and experience the shift, and take home this free, easy to use and powerful stress release tool.
]]>The mission of The National GEM Consortium is to enhance the value of the nation’s human capital by increasing the participation of underrepresented groups (African Americans, American Indians, and Hispanic Americans) at the master’s and doctoral levels in engineering and science.
GEM’s fellowship programs span the entire recruitment, retention, and professional development spectrum. GEM’s principal activity is the provision of graduate fellowships at the MS and PhD levels coupled with paid summer internships . GEM also offers fellowships without paid summer internships through GEM University and Associate Fellowship programs.
Fellowships are for master's and doctoral programs in a number of engineering and science fields.
Susan Belmonte, Pre-Graduate Advsior, sbelmonte@gatech.edu
Shannon Dobranski, Prestigious Fellowships Advisor, shannon.dobranski@gatech.edu
Make an appointment through GradesFirst. www.gatech.gradesfirst.com
]]>Over the next few months, we will use a process called “appreciative inquiry” to craft that vision. Appreciative inquiry leverages the power of positive conversation and stories of success to build on an organization’s strengths.
During this interactive students-only session, participants will be guided through a process designed to spotlight personal points of Yellow Jacket pride and dream about the future for Georgia Tech.
Join us and lend your voice!
**FREE FOOD**
]]>Over the next few months, we will use a process called “appreciative inquiry” to craft that vision. Appreciative inquiry leverages the power of positive conversation and stories of success to build on an organization’s strengths.
During this interactive students-only session, participants will be guided through a process designed to spotlight personal points of Yellow Jacket pride and dream about the future for Georgia Tech.
Join us and lend your voice!
**FREE FOOD**
]]>As we embark on a new chapter of our history, President Cabrera invites you to engage in a communitywide process to define our collective aspirations for the next decade. The changing of the guard at Tech offers a unique opportunity for us to reimagine our future, craft a new vision, and develop a new strategic plan.
Over the next few months, we will use a process called “appreciative inquiry” to craft that vision. Appreciative inquiry leverages the power of positive conversation and stories of success to build on an organization’s strengths.
During this interactive session, participants will be guided through a process designed to spotlight personal points of Yellow Jacket pride and dream about the future for Georgia Tech.
Join us and lend your voice!
]]>RSVP Here
Title: The Data-Driven Analysis of Literature
Abstract: Literary novels push the limits of natural language processing. While much work in NLP has been heavily optimized toward the narrow domains of news and Wikipedia, literary novels are an entirely different animal--the long, complex sentences in novels strain the limits of syntactic parsers with super-linear computational complexity, their use of figurative language challenges representations of meaning based on neo-Davidsonian semantics, and their long length (ca. 100,000 words on average) rules out existing solutions for problems like coreference resolution that expect a small set of candidate antecedents.
At the same time, fiction drives computational research questions that are uniquely interesting to that domain. In this talk, I'll outline some of the opportunities that NLP presents for research in the quantitative analysis of culture--including measuring the disparity in attention given to characters as a function of their gender over two hundred years of literary history (Underwood et al. 2018)--and describe our progress to date on two problems essential to a more complex representation of plot: recognizing the entities in literary texts, such as the characters, locations, and spaces of interest (Bamman et al. 2019) and identifying the events that are depicted as having transpired (Sims et al. 2019). Both efforts involve the creation of a new dataset of 200,000 words evenly drawn from 100 different English-language literary texts and building computational models to automatically identify each phenomenon.
This is joint work with Matt Sims, Ted Underwood, Sabrina Lee, Jerry Park, Sejal Popat and Sheng Shen
Bio: David Bamman is an assistant professor in the School of Information at UC Berkeley, where he works on applying natural language processing and machine learning to empirical questions in the humanities and social sciences. His research often involves adding linguistic structure (e.g., syntax, semantics, coreference) to statistical models of text, and focuses on improving NLP for a variety of languages and domains (such as literary text and social media). Before Berkeley, he received his PhD in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (LTI).
khanson@cc.gatech.edu
]]>As we embark on a new chapter of our history, President Cabrera invites you to engage in a communitywide process to define our collective aspirations for the next decade. The changing of the guard at Tech offers a unique opportunity for us to reimagine our future, craft a new vision, and develop a new strategic plan.
Over the next few months, we will use a process called “appreciative inquiry” to craft that vision. Appreciative inquiry leverages the power of positive conversation and stories of success to build on an organization’s strengths.
During this interactive webinar, participants will be guided through a process designed to spotlight personal points of Yellow Jacket pride and dream about the future for Georgia Tech.
Join us and lend your voice!
]]>Michael Stryker, Ph.D.
Professor
School of Medicine
University of California, San Francisco
Michael Stryker's laboratory studies the development and plasticity of the central visual system. Most of his laboratory's effort focuses on the role of neural activity in the primary visual cortex of the mouse, where they have identified a circuit that dramatically enhances activity-dependent plasticity in adult animals. They use 2-photon microscopy and electrophysiology to study genetically identified types of neurons in alert animals.
His laboratory's major interest is the in the mechanisms responsible for the development and plasticity of precise connections within the central nervous system, and particularly in the role of neural activity in this process. Most of the work performed is on the visual cortex of the mouse. In normal development, neural connections to and within the visual cortex are refined to high precision through the action of activity-dependent mechanisms of neural plasticity in combination with specific molecular signals. In experiments, the lab induces activity-dependent plasticity experimentally through manipulations of genetics or experience or by pharmacological or neurophysiological intervention in order to discover what cellular mechanisms and what changes in cortical circuitry are responsible for rapid, long lasting changes in neuronal responses. These changes are analyzed using microelectrode recordings, novel techniques for measurement of optical and metabolic signals related to neural activity, including 2-photon microscopy and intrinsic signal imaging, and anatomical and neurochemical tracing of connections.
]]>As we embark on a new chapter of our history, President Cabrera invites you to engage in a communitywide process to define our collective aspirations for the next decade. The changing of the guard at Tech offers a unique opportunity for us to reimagine our future, craft a new vision, and develop a new strategic plan.
Over the next few months, we will use a process called “appreciative inquiry” to craft that vision. Appreciative inquiry leverages the power of positive conversation and stories of success to build on an organization’s strengths.
During this interactive webinar, participants will be guided through a process designed to spotlight personal points of Yellow Jacket pride and dream about the future for Georgia Tech.
Join us and lend your voice!
]]>As we embark on a new chapter of our history, President Cabrera invites you to engage in a communitywide process to define our collective aspirations for the next decade. The changing of the guard at Tech offers a unique opportunity for us to reimagine our future, craft a new vision, and develop a new strategic plan.
Over the next few months, we will use a process called “appreciative inquiry” to craft that vision. Appreciative inquiry leverages the power of positive conversation and stories of success to build on an organization’s strengths.
During this interactive webinar, participants will be guided through a process designed to spotlight personal points of Yellow Jacket pride and dream about the future for Georgia Tech.
Join us and lend your voice!
]]>University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Abstract:
Recent advances in network and functional genomics have enabled large-scale measurements of molecular interactions, functional behavior and consequences of genetic perturbations. Identifying connections, patterns and deeper functional annotations among such heterogeneous measurements will enhance our capability to prediction proteins' function, discover their roles in biological processes underlying diseases, and develop novel therapeutics. In this talk, I will describe machine algorithms that interrogate molecular interactions and perturbation screens to understand protein functions. First, I will introduce Mashup, a graph-based learning algorithm that integrates multiple heterogeneous networks into compact topological features for protein functional inference. I will also briefly talk about applications of Mashup to discovering new disease factors and subnetworks from genetic perturbations and variations. Finally, I will present our recent work on using deep learning for modeling protein sequence-to-function mapping from large-scale mutagenesis and its application to protein design and engineering.
Biography:
Jian Peng has been an assistant professor of computer science at UIUC since 2015. Before joining Illinois, Jian was a postdoc at CSAIL at MIT and a visiting scientist at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. He obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago in 2013. His research interests include bioinformatics, cheminformatics and machine learning. Algorithms developed by Jian and his co-workers were successful in several scientific challenges, including the Critical Assessment of Protein Structure Prediction (CASP) competitions and a few DREAM challenges on translational medicine and pharmacogenomics. Recently, Jian has received an NSF CAREER Award, a PhRMA Foundation Award, and an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship.
astroup@cc.gatech.edu
]]>
Communications Officer
allie.mcfadden@cc.gatech.edu
]]>As we embark on a new chapter of our history, President Cabrera invites you to engage in a communitywide process to define our collective aspirations for the next decade. The changing of the guard at Tech offers a unique opportunity for us to reimagine our future, craft a new vision, and develop a new strategic plan.
Over the next few months, we will use a process called “appreciative inquiry” to craft that vision. Appreciative inquiry leverages the power of positive conversation and stories of success to build on an organization’s strengths.
During this interactive session, participants will be guided through a process designed to spotlight personal points of Yellow Jacket pride and dream about the future for Georgia Tech.
Join us and lend your voice!
]]>As we embark on a new chapter of our history, President Cabrera invites you to engage in a communitywide process to define our collective aspirations for the next decade. The changing of the guard at Tech offers a unique opportunity for us to reimagine our future, craft a new vision, and develop a new strategic plan.
Over the next few months, we will use a process called “appreciative inquiry” to craft that vision. Appreciative inquiry leverages the power of positive conversation and stories of success to build on an organization’s strengths.
During this interactive webinar, participants will be guided through a process designed to spotlight personal points of Yellow Jacket pride and dream about the future for Georgia Tech.
Join us and lend your voice!
]]>Abstract: Accurate description of protein structure and function is a fundamental step towards understanding biological life and highly relevant in the development of therapeutics. Although greatly improved, experimental protein structure determination is still low-throughput and costly, especially for membrane proteins. As such, computational structure prediction is often resorted. Predicting the structure of a protein without similar experimental structures is very challenging and usually needs a large amount of computing power. This talk will present the deep learning method (i.e., deep convolutional residual neural network) we have invented for protein contact and distance prediction that won the CASP (Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction) in both 2016 and 2018 in the category of contact prediction. In this talk we show that by using this powerful deep learning technique, even with only a personal computer we can predict the structure of a protein much more accurately than ever before. In particular, we predicted correct folds for the 3 largest hard targets (~350 amino acids) in CASP13 (2018) and generated the best 3D models for two of them among all the human and server groups including DeepMind's AlphaFold. Inspired by our success in CASP12 in 2016, this deep learning technique has been adopted widely by the structure prediction community and thus, resulted in the widespread, largest progress in the history of CASP, which will also be discussed in this talk.
Bio: Dr. Jinbo Xu is a full professor at the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago, a computer science research and educational institute located at the University of Chicago. Dr. Xu’s research lies in machine learning, optimization, and computational biology. He has developed several popular bioinformatics programs such as the CASP-winning RaptorX (http://raptorx.uchicago.edu) for protein structure prediction and IsoRank/HubRank for interaction network analysis. The deep learning method initiated by him for protein contact/distance prediction has been widely adopted by the community and resulted in the largest progress in the history of protein structure prediction, due to which he was invited to give a keynote talk at the 2019 3DSIG session of ISMB, the largest bioinformatics conference in the world. Dr. Xu is an Associate Editor of the Bioinformatics journal and has received many awards, including Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, NSF CAREER award, RECOMB's test-of-time award (2019), RECOMB best paper award (2014) and PLoS Computational Biology Research Prize (2018). His work has also been reported by Science, The Economist, and other media.
]]>astroup@cc.gatech.edu
]]>Deanna Gates, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Movement Science and Biomedical Engineering
University of Michigan
ABSTRACT
With a prosthetic device, people with a lower limb amputation can remain physically active, but most do not achieve medically recommended physical activity standards and are therefore at a greater risk of obesity and cardiovascular disease. Their reduced activity may be attributed to the 10 - 30% increase in energetic cost during walking compared to able-bodied individuals. Several active ankle-foot systems have been developed to provide external power during the push-off phase of gait, potentially alleviation this high cost. This talk will focus on several of our recent and ongoing projects exploring if and how people utilize external mechanical power to influence their metabolic effort, how this is influenced by the magnitude of power delivered, the influence of the individual’s characteristics, and how we evaluate powered prosthetic technology in real-world environments. I will also highlight our recent work in controlling prostheses and providing feedback through direct connections with human nerves.
BIO
Deanna Gates, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Movement Science and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan. She earned her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Virginia (2002), M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Boston University (2004), and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin (2009). Dr. Gates worked in engineering consulting and in civilian and military clinical gait laboratories, before arriving at the University of Michigan in 2012. The goal of her research program is to improve function and quality of life in individuals with musculoskeletal impairments. Her lab focuses on understanding repetitive human movements such as walking and reaching, and how people are able to perform these movements with robotic devices. Her research explores the factors that relate to a person’s ability to successfully use devices, how to train individuals for optimal use, and the development of appropriate outcome measures to assess success of new technology. She is also an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Neural Engineering and Rehabilitation.
As we embark on a new chapter of our history, President Cabrera invites you to engage in a communitywide process to define our collective aspirations for the next decade. The changing of the guard at Tech offers a unique opportunity for us to reimagine our future, craft a new vision, and develop a new strategic plan.
Over the next few months, we will use a process called “appreciative inquiry” to craft that vision. Appreciative inquiry leverages the power of positive conversation and stories of success to build on an organization’s strengths.
During this interactive session, participants will be guided through a process designed to spotlight personal points of Yellow Jacket pride and dream about the future for Georgia Tech.
Join us and lend your voice!
]]>As we embark on a new chapter of our history, President Cabrera invites you to engage in a communitywide process to define our collective aspirations for the next decade. The changing of the guard at Tech offers a unique opportunity for us to reimagine our future, craft a new vision, and develop a new strategic plan.
Over the next few months, we will use a process called “appreciative inquiry” to craft that vision. Appreciative inquiry leverages the power of positive conversation and stories of success to build on an organization’s strengths.
During this interactive session, participants will be guided through a process designed to spotlight personal points of Yellow Jacket pride and dream about the future for Georgia Tech.
Join us and lend your voice!
]]>As we embark on a new chapter of our history, President Cabrera invites you to engage in a communitywide process to define our collective aspirations for the next decade. The changing of the guard at Tech offers a unique opportunity for us to reimagine our future, craft a new vision, and develop a new strategic plan.
Over the next few months, we will use a process called “appreciative inquiry” to craft that vision. Appreciative inquiry leverages the power of positive conversation and stories of success to build on an organization’s strengths.
During this interactive session, participants will be guided through a process designed to spotlight personal points of Yellow Jacket pride and dream about the future for Georgia Tech.
Join us and lend your voice!
]]>As we embark on a new chapter of our history, President Cabrera invites you to engage in a communitywide process to define our collective aspirations for the next decade. The changing of the guard at Tech offers a unique opportunity for us to reimagine our future, craft a new vision, and develop a new strategic plan.
Over the next few months, we will use a process called “appreciative inquiry” to craft that vision. Appreciative inquiry leverages the power of positive conversation and stories of success to build on an organization’s strengths.
During this interactive session, participants will be guided through a process designed to spotlight personal points of Yellow Jacket pride and dream about the future for Georgia Tech.
Join us and lend your voice!
]]>As we embark on a new chapter of our history, President Cabrera invites you to engage in a communitywide process to define our collective aspirations for the next decade. The changing of the guard at Tech offers a unique opportunity for us to reimagine our future, craft a new vision, and develop a new strategic plan.
Over the next few months, we will use a process called “appreciative inquiry” to craft that vision. Appreciative inquiry leverages the power of positive conversation and stories of success to build on an organization’s strengths.
During this interactive webinar, participants will be guided through a process designed to spotlight personal points of Yellow Jacket pride and dream about the future for Georgia Tech.
Join us and lend your voice!
]]>As we embark on a new chapter of our history, President Cabrera invites you to engage in a communitywide process to define our collective aspirations for the next decade. The changing of the guard at Tech offers a unique opportunity for us to reimagine our future, craft a new vision, and develop a new strategic plan.
Over the next few months, we will use a process called “appreciative inquiry” to craft that vision. Appreciative inquiry leverages the power of positive conversation and stories of success to build on an organization’s strengths.
During this interactive session, participants will be guided through a process designed to spotlight personal points of Yellow Jacket pride and dream about the future for Georgia Tech.
Join us and lend your voice!
]]>Title:
What’s so Hard About Natural Language Understanding?
Abstract:
In recent years, advances in speech recognition and machine translation (MT) have led to wide adoption, for example, by helping people issue voice commands to their phone and talk with people who do not speak the same language. These advances are possible due to the use of neural network methods on large, high-quality datasets. However, computers still struggle to understand the meaning of language. In this talk, I will present two efforts to scale up natural language understanding, drawing inspiration from recent successes in speech and MT. First, I will describe an effort to extract structured knowledge from text, without relying on human labels. Our approach combines the benefits of structured learning and neural networks, accurately predicting latent relation mentions given only indirect supervision from a knowledge base. In extensive experiments, we demonstrate that the combination of structured inference, missing data modeling, and end-to-end learned representations leads to state-of-the-art results on a minimally supervised relation extraction task. In the second part of the talk, I will discuss conversational agents that are learned from scratch in a purely data-driven way. To address the challenge of dull responses, which are common in neural dialogue, I will present several strategies that maximize the long-term success of a conversation.
Bio:
Alan Ritter is an assistant professor in Computer Science and Engineering at Ohio State University. His research interests include natural language processing, information extraction, and machine learning. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Washington and was a postdoctoral fellow in the Machine Learning Department at Carnegie Mellon. His research aims to solve challenging technical problems that can help machines learn to read vast quantities of text with minimal supervision. In a recent project, covered by WIRED, his group built a system that reads millions of tweets for mentions of new software vulnerabilities. He is the recipient of an NSF CAREER award and an Amazon Research Award.
Communications Officer II
david.mitchell@cc.gatech.edu
]]>Marketing and Event Coordinator
CREATE-X
joliva7@gatech.edu
]]>Abstract: The application of photonics for the processing of radio frequency (RF) systems offer many potential advantages, such as low signal transport loss, large operating bandwidth, and potentially low size, weight, and power (SWaP) form factors. While investments from the telecommunications industry have matured the basic building blocks in radio frequency photonics and photonic integrated circuit technology, insertion of these advances into modern radio frequency systems requires solving additional unique challenges. The Georgia Tech Research Institute’s (GTRI) photonics team is researching solutions to successfully insert RF photonics in fielded electronic systems and broaden the technology impact beyond telecommunications. This seminar will cover three objectives: 1) introduce the Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology (IEN) community to GTRI and select topics of its photonics research portfolio; 2) examine advantages and challenges of both discrete and integrated photonics from an RF electronic systems perspective; 3) survey architectures, systems, and components under collaborative development between the Georgia Tech Research Institute, Georgia Tech Electrical and Computer Engineering, and external partners. We will conclude by discussing capabilities under development that can expand IEN’s competencies and explore paths toward broader collaboration across Georgia Tech.
Bio: Dr. Benjamin B. Yang is a photonics and microelectronics engineer at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), where he has been a research faculty member since 2015. He is currently the Microelectronics Systems Branch lead and principal investigator of GTRI’s photonics internal research and development strategic initiative. Prior to GTRI, Dr. Yang was a senior member of the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories from 2011 to 2015, where he worked on microelectronics failure analysis, device packaging, and reliability of photovoltaic systems in both research and production capacities. Dr. Yang has 12+ years’ training and experience in electromagnetics and device physics, working in a broad range of disciplines that include photonics, semiconductor device failure analysis, and terahertz spectroscopy resulting in 40 peer-reviewed publications 1 patent. Dr. Yang obtained his B.S. and M.S. in electrical engineering at the University of Utah and Ph.D. in electrical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also holds a B.S. in applied math from the University of Utah and an M.B.A. with a finance concentration from the University of New Mexico. In addition to his research responsibilities, Dr. Yang is an instructor of electromagnetics and signal processing courses in ECE, and a two-time winner of the Class of 1940 Course Survey Teaching Effectiveness Award. Dr. Yang also holds leadership positions in the Atlanta section of IEEE, the Atlanta joint chapter of the IEEE Photonics Society and Electron Devices Society, and the Optical Society of America’s Advanced Photonics Congress.
]]>]]>
Calhoun is the founding director of the tri-institutional Center for Translational Research in Neuroimaging and Data Science, which is focused on improving our understanding of the human brain using advanced analytic approaches with an emphasis on translational research such as the development of predictive biomarkers for mental and neurological disorders. The use of big data approaches and neuroinformatics tools to capture, manage, analyze, and share data is also a major emphasis.
Calhoun develops techniques for making sense of brain imaging data. The use of flexible/data driven approaches is very useful for extracting potentially unpredictable patterns within these data. However, such methods can be further improved by incorporating additional prior information as constraints, in order to benefit from what we know. Because each imaging modality has limitations, the integration of these data is needed to understand the healthy and especially the disordered human brain. He has created algorithms which map dynamic networks of brain function, structure, and genomics and how these are impacted while being stimulated by various tasks or in individuals with mental illness such as schizophrenia. He has released multiple software tools as well as advanced neuroinformatics tools for data management and sharing.
Calhoun is the author of more than 650 peer-reviewed journal articles and over 750 technical reports, abstracts and conference proceedings. Much of his career has been spent on the development of data driven approaches for the analysis of brain imaging data. He has won over $100 million in NSF and NIH grants on various topics including the incorporation of prior information into independent component analysis (ICA) for functional magnetic resonance imaging, data fusion of multimodal imaging and genetics data, and the identification of biomarkers for disease.
Calhoun is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, The Association for the Advancement of Science, The American Institute of Biomedical and Medical Engineers, the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, and the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP). He is also a member and regularly attends the Organization for Human Brain Mapping, the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, the International Congress on Schizophrenia Research, and the ACNP. He is also a regular grant reviewer for NIH and NSF. He has organized workshops and special sessions at multiple conferences. He is currently chair of the IEEE Machine Learning for Signal Processing (MLSP) technical committee. He is a reviewer for many journals and is on the editorial board of the Brain Connectivity and Neuroimage journals and serves as Associate Editor for Journal of Neuroscience Methods and several other journals.
Communications Officer
allie.mcfadden@cc.gatech.edu
]]>For all questions and logistical information, consult our Commencement webpage at www.commencement.gatech.edu.
Students are required to RSVP to attend the ceremony; however, no tickets are required for this event. Students are encouraged to attend the President's Graduation Celebration prior to their commencement ceremony.
]]>For all questions and logistical information, consult our Commencement webpage at www.commencement.gatech.edu.
Students are required to RSVP to attend the ceremony. No tickets are required for guests to attend.
]]>The bachelor's cermeony is a ticketed event. Students are required to RSVP to attend the ceremony and receive guest tickets. Ticketing information and policies can be found at www.commencement.gatech.edu/tickets.
More information can be found at www.commencement.gatech.edu.
]]>General information can be found at www.commencement.gatech.edu.
]]>