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SUMMARY:CSE Colloquium - Improving Efficiency and Reliability of Foundation Models in Clinical AI
DESCRIPTION:Presenter: Vasiliki “Vicky” Bikia\, PhD\, Stanford Department of Biomedical Data Science and Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI) \nAbstract: \nDeploying foundation models in health requires both computational efficiency and reliable generation. In this talk\, I present two studies that address these dimensions separately but with a shared goal of real-world clinical deployment. The first study focuses on reduced-resolution distillation for multimodal clinical data\, particularly medical imaging. As model and input sizes increase\, inference cost and memory constraints become major barriers to deployment. We investigate how high-capacity teacher models can transfer structured knowledge to compact student models trained on downsampled images\, using embedding-space supervision to preserve clinically meaningful representations while reducing computational footprint. The second study examines the reliability of AI-generated clinical text. Foundation models are increasingly used to produce discharge summaries and patient-facing explanations\, yet fluency does not guarantee safety. We develop a structured evaluation framework grounded in clinical error taxonomies and clinician-calibrated metrics to quantify hallucinations\, omissions\, and semantic misalignment. Together\, these studies emphasize that scalable clinical AI requires not only smaller and faster models\, but also rigorous evaluation of generative reliability before deployment. \nBio: \nVasiliki Bikia is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Stanford University\, affiliated with the Department of Biomedical Data Science and the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI). She received an Advanced Diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki\, and a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). Her research focuses on medical foundation models\, structured representations of health data\, and the evaluation of generative systems in clinical settings. Previously\, she was a Machine Learning Scientist at the Mussallem Center for Biodesign at Stanford University\, where she developed software pipelines to improve data accessibility and interoperability in digital health applications. Vasiliki was selected as an MIT Rising Star in EECS (2025) and as an Emerson Consequential Scholar (2025)\, and is actively engaged with the Silicon Valley entrepreneurial ecosystem through collaborations at the intersection of research\, industry\, and healthcare. She is an organizing member of the Conference on Health\, Inference\, and Learning (CHIL) and serves as Unconference Chair for the 2025 and 2026 editions\, where she leads the design and execution of the entrepreneurship-focused track bridging academic research and real-world deployment. Her work has appeared in venues including IEEE journals\, npj Digital Medicine\, Nature Communications\, and leading AI conferences\, and she has contributed to multiple funded research proposals and clinical studies at the intersection of AI\, medicine\, and translational impact. \nHosted by: Professor Nikos Tziavelis \nLocation: Engineering 2\, E2-180 (*Refreshments such as coffee\, tea\, fresh fruit\, and pastries will be provided) \nZoom: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/93445911992?pwd=YkJ2TQtF79h0PcNXbEcpZLbpK0coiY.1&jst=3
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/cse-colloquium-improving-efficiency-and-reliability-of-foundation-models-in-clinical-ai/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Lectures & Presentations,Seminars
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260302T104000
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SUMMARY:ECE 290 Seminar: Precision Nuclear Medicine: Engineering Solutions from Acquisition to Analysis
DESCRIPTION:Presenter: Spencer L. Bowen\, Assistant Professor in the Departments of Radiology and Biomedical Engineering\, UT Southwestern Medical Center \nDescription: The Bowen Lab focuses on the development of tools for positron emission tomography (PET) and hybrid systems (e.g. PET/CT)\, to advance precision imaging for the care and study of oncology\, neurology\, and cardiology patients. Quantitative metrics from PET are integral to both patient workup and clinical research. However\, current approaches to enable quantitative imaging have substantial performance limitations that can compromise study conclusions\, fail to generalize across exams and scanners\, expose patients to additional ionizing radiation\, or necessitate invasive procedures. To address these key barriers\, Dr. Bowen and his team investigate advanced acquisition techniques\, image reconstruction algorithms\, and post-processing methods. Their studies span from digital simulations to human subjects research. This lecture will cover recent developments by the Bowen Lab\, including 1) advanced PET data correction methods for low-dose and standalone exams\, 2) non-invasive fully quantitative imaging\, and 3) leveraging topical sensors to detect faulty radiotracer injections. \nBio: Spencer L. Bowen\, Ph.D.\, is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Radiology and Biomedical Engineering at UT Southwestern Medical Center. He earned his doctorate in biomedical engineering from University of California\, Davis\, where he developed hardware and algorithmic solutions to enable quantification with a breast PET/CT scanner. Dr. Bowen then worked as a research fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital on precision PET imaging methods for combined PET/MR. Prior to joining the UT Southwestern faculty in 2020\, he served as a research assistant professor at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech-Carilion. Dr. Bowen’s research program is funded by both industry and the NIH. His work has been featured on the cover of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine and detailed by the press. \nHosted by: Professor Soumya Bose\, ECE Department \nZoom Link: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/97975378707?pwd=ljcgaCfhMmhZ88Vt5dqQUBVQRjehOx.1
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/ece-290-seminar-precision-nuclear-medicine-engineering-solutions-from-acquisition-to-analysis/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Lectures & Presentations,Seminars
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260225T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260225T190000
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SUMMARY:Exploring Research Pathways at Baskin Engineering
DESCRIPTION:Curious how being part of a research lab can supercharge your experience as a Baskin Engineer?   \nJoin us for this informative event to learn about opportunities to solve open-ended problems\, build deeper technical skills\, and learn how to think like an engineer. \nWe’ll kick things off with a quick overview of the kinds of research opportunities available to undergrads and how to get started\, then you’ll hear directly from students who’ve worked in research labs as undergraduates. They’ll share what they actually did day-to-day\, the skills they built (technical and professional)\, and how research shaped their confidence\, career goals\, and next steps. We’ll then have pizza and networking to end the evening. \nWhether you’re aiming for industry\, graduate school\, or just want hands-on experience that goes beyond coursework\, this panel will help you understand how undergraduate research can set you apart—academically\, professionally\, and personally! \n\nRegister via Handshake. \nYOU BELONG HERE\nPrograms and services are open to all\, consistent with state and federal law\, as well as the University of California’s nondiscrimination policies. Every initiative—whether a student service\, faculty program\, or community event—is designed to be accessible\, inclusive\, and respectful of all identities. To learn more\, please visit UC Nondiscrimination Statement or Nondiscrimination Policy for UC Publications.
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/exploring-research-pathways-at-baskin-engineering/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Seminars
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260225T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260225T121500
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CREATED:20260224T172405Z
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SUMMARY:CSE Colloquium: Agile and evolvable software construction in the era of rapidly evolving hardware accelerator designs
DESCRIPTION:Presenter\n\nCharith Mendis\, Siebel School of Computing and Data Science\, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign\n\nAbstract\n\nModern AI workloads have become exceedingly abundant and important in the current computing landscape. As a result\, there have been numerous software and hardware innovations aimed at accelerating these workloads. However\, we observe a subtle disconnect between the software and hardware communities. Most software innovations target well-established hardware platforms such as CPUs (e.g.\, x86\, ARM) and GPUs (e.g.\, NVidia GPUs)\, while hardware innovations produce plenty of other tensor accelerator designs (e.g.\, Gemmini\, Feather\, Trainium) each year.\n\nWe asked the question\, why aren’t the software community using these accelerators or even evaluating on them? The simple yet undeniable reason is the lack of standardized software tooling compared to CPUs and GPUs. For an architecture to be used\, properly designed compiler backends\, correctness\, and performance testing tools should be abundant (e.g.\, CUDA ecosystem).\n\nIn this talk\, I will describe how we bridge this gap by automatically generating the necessary software tools for a large class of accelerators through the Accelerator Compiler Toolkit (ACT) ecosystem. Central to ACT is an ISA definition language\, TAIDL\, that for the first time standardizes the hardware-software interfaces for a large class of accelerators. Departing from the traditional approach of manually constructing test oracles\, performance models\, or retargetable compiler backends\, we instead introduce agile and evolvable methodologies to automatically generate such necessary tooling using both formal methods and machine learning techniques for any TAIDL-defined accelerator interface. I will show how such automation enables rapid software prototyping\, making rapidly evolving accelerator designs usable by the software community.\n\nBio\n\nCharith Mendis is an Assistant Professor in the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His broad research interests are at the intersection of compilers\, programming languages\, and machine learning. He received his Ph.D. and Master’s from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his B.Sc. from the University of Moratuwa. He is the recipient of the DARPA Young Faculty Award\, the NSF CAREER Award\, the Google ML and Systems Junior Faculty Award\, the Outstanding Advisor award at UIUC\, the William A. Martin Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award at MIT\, and the University Gold Medal for his B.Sc. He has won numerous paper awards\, including a Distinguished Paper Award at POPL\, a Best Student Paper Award at the IEEE BigData conference\, an honorable mention for the Best Artifact Award at SIGMOD\, a Best Paper Award at ML for Systems workshop at ISCA\, and an IEEE Top Picks Honorable Mention.\n\nHosted by: Professor Nikos Tziavelis\n\nLocation: Engineering 2\, E2-180 (Refreshments such as fruit\, pastries\, tea\, and coffee will be available for guests.)\n\nZoom: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/93445911992?pwd=YkJ2TQtF79h0PcNXbEcpZLbpK0coiY.1&jst=3 
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/cse-colloquium-agile-and-evolvable-software-construction-in-the-era-of-rapidly-evolving-hardware-accelerator-designs/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Lectures & Presentations
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260224T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260224T181500
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20260130T054112Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260209T231917Z
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SUMMARY:AI and Security 101
DESCRIPTION:Join us for an informative conversation with Neta Haiby\, Head of Product | AI Security at Microsoft! \nArtificial Intelligence is transforming both cyber defense and cyber offense. It creates unique risks in how we build\, deploy\, and operate AI apps and Agents. This session examines how AI can be attacked or misused – through techniques such as jailbreaks\, intent breaking\, and supply-chain compromise and discusses practical defense strategies\, including guardrails\, access controls\, monitoring\, and evaluation. \nDesigned for students interested in cybersecurity and AI\, this session emphasizes a practical understanding of AI security. \nAttendees will also receive resources to help them further explore and get started in the field! \nDon’t miss this highly informative event! \nYOU BELONG HERE\nPrograms and services are open to all\, consistent with state and federal law\, as well as the University of California’s nondiscrimination policies. Every initiative—whether a student service\, faculty program\, or community event—is designed to be accessible\, inclusive\, and respectful of all identities. To learn more\, please visit UC Nondiscrimination Statement or Nondiscrimination Policy for UC Publications.
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/ai-and-security-101/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Undergraduate,Workshop
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260223T104000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260223T114500
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20260219T235259Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260219T235259Z
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SUMMARY:ECE 290 Seminar: High-Frequency Circuits for Next-Generation Communication: From Beyond-5G mm-Wave MIMO to Co-Packaged Optics
DESCRIPTION:Presenter: Susnata Mondal\, Research Scientist\, Intel \nDescription: \nRapid growth in wireless connectivity\, cloud computing\, and AI infrastructure is driving an urgent need for communication systems that can deliver higher data rates with improved energy efficiency. Meeting these demands requires advances in high-frequency circuit design across both wireless and wireline domains\, spanning millimeter-wave radios to optical interconnects. \nThis seminar will present recent developments in two complementary directions. The first focuses on millimeter-wave MIMO systems for beyond-5G communication. Conventional phased arrays are typically limited to single-stream beamforming\, while fully digital solutions\, although flexible\, incur significant power and area overhead. Emerging hybrid architectures enable multi-stream\, multi-band operation with improved spectral efficiency by combining RF and baseband beamforming\, supporting carrier aggregation\, adaptive spatial processing\, and full-duplex operation. Prototype systems have demonstrated scalable multi-antenna transceivers operating across 28/37 GHz bands\, integrating RF front-ends\, beamforming networks\, and system-level signal processing. \nThe second direction addresses high-performance computing interconnects\, where electrical links increasingly struggle with loss and energy efficiency at high data rates. Co-packaged optics offers a promising alternative by placing optical engines in close proximity to compute and switch chips\, improving link efficiency. The seminar will discuss circuit and system innovations enabling scalable optical I/O\, including equalization\, clocking\, and high-linearity design techniques for high-speed optical links\, along with recent prototype demonstrations achieving high data rates with low energy per bit. \nBio: Susnata Mondal received the B.Tech. and M.Tech. degrees in E&ECE from IIT Kharagpur in 2015 and the Ph.D. degree in ECE from Carnegie Mellon University\, Pittsburgh\, in 2020. Since then\, he has been a Research Scientist at Intel\, Hillsboro\, working on co-packaged optics and high-speed I/O. He has authored several lead-author papers in ISSCC and JSSC and holds 18 U.S. patents. He is a Technical Program Committee member of RFIC and an Associate Editor for TCAS-I\, TCAS-II\, and SSCL. His honors include the SSCS Predoctoral Achievement Award\, the Best Ph.D. Thesis Award from CMU ECE\, and selection as an SSCS Rising Star. \nHosted by: Professor Soumya Bose\, ECE Department \nZoom: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/97975378707?pwd=ljcgaCfhMmhZ88Vt5dqQUBVQRjehOx.1
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/ece-290-seminar-high-frequency-circuits-for-next-generation-communication-from-beyond-5g-mm-wave-mimo-to-co-packaged-optics/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Lectures & Presentations,Seminars
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260220T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260220T160000
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20260210T193542Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260210T193542Z
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SUMMARY:Fredrickson\, K. (CSE) - Practical Anonymity with Formal Resistance to Traffic Analysis
DESCRIPTION:Anonymous communication systems hide who is talking to whom\, not just what is said. However\, existing systems are either vulnerable to traffic analysis attacks–attacks where adversaries observe and correlate the network traffic of users–or are forced to rely on unrealistic and unenforceable assumptions about how users behave. Worse\, existing theory lacks tools to rigorously model traffic analysis attacks\, much less inform whether if a system is secure against traffic analysis or how to design systems that are. \nWe make several contributions toward our goal of practical anonymity systems that resist traffic analysis. First\, we develop the first formal framework for describing the security of systems against traffic analysis attacks\, allowing us to quantitatively describe and compare the security of all existing works. Second\, leveraging this framework\, we develop a security definition that distinguishes between systems that are and are not susceptible to traffic analysis. We call this property input/output independence. We use this definition to prove that the dominant model of systems–synchronous systems–cannot practically provide input/output independence. We then design a new asynchronous anonymity functionality\, deferred retrieval\, that achieves input/output independence with far more flexible user assumptions and up to 3400 times less traffic overhead for the same latency compared to prior methods. Finally\, we design and implement Sparta\, a family of high-throughput\, scalable instantiations of deferred retrieval using trusted execution environments and oblivious algorithms\, yielding the first practical anonymity systems that are formally resistant to long-term traffic analysis. \nEvent Host: Kyle Fredrickson\, Ph.D. Candidate\, Computer Science and Engineering \nAdvisor: Darrell Long \nZoom – https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/98133127429?pwd=QNICsMrQa6bQUKNPo40PthZyQEQCFl.1 \nPasscode – 242206
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/fredrickson-k-cse-practical-anonymity-with-formal-resistance-to-traffic-analysis/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Ph.D. Presentations
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260218T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260218T121500
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20260210T212856Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260210T212955Z
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SUMMARY:CSE Colloquium - Query Optimization: How to design a Meta-Algorithm that designs Algorithms?
DESCRIPTION:Presenter: Mahmoud Abo Khamis\, RelationalAI \nAbstract: \nDatabase systems have evolved from simple bookkeeping tools to comprehensive data analytics platforms capable of learning from the data and making business decisions. As a result\, database queries expanded in their expressive power and applications to include tensor computations\, constraint satisfaction problems\, graph analytics\, scientific computing\, SAT solving\, among others. This puts a lot of pressure on modern query optimizers to rise up to the occasion and produce efficient query plans for a wide variety of very complex queries that describe problems in different domains. The ultimate goal of query optimization is for the query optimizer to become a “meta-algorithm” where you can feed in any problem definition and get back an efficient algorithm for this particular problem. \nIn this talk\, we describe two related frameworks for query optimization that aim to take us one step in the direction of the above goal. The first framework is based on information theory. It uses information theory to get provably accurate cost estimates for query plans and to find the best query plan. Among other applications\, this framework currently achieves the best known complexity for graph pattern matching problems\, thus subsuming and generalizing known results in this area\, where\, for decades\, algorithms used to be designed by hand for specific graph patterns. The second framework is based on algebra. It uses algebraic abstractions to unify and generalize algorithms across different domains\, in the same way template programming allows for reusing code across different applications. \nBio: \nMahmoud Abo Khamis is a Senior Computer Scientist at RelationalAI\, where he has worked since 2017. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 2016. Prior to joining RelationalAI\, he was a Senior Database Engineer at Infor from 2015 to 2017. His research interests include database systems and theory\, in-database machine learning\, query optimization and evaluation\, information theory\, and beyond worst-case analysis. His work has been recognized with two Test-of-Time Awards at ACM PODS 2025 and 2026\, three Best Paper Awards at ACM SIGMOD 2025 and ACM PODS 2022 and 2016\, three ACM SIGMOD Research Highlight Awards\, and the 2016 Best CSE Dissertation Award from SUNY Buffalo. His work has also received multiple invitations to the Journal of the ACM\, ACM STOC\, and ACM TODS. He is on the Editorial Board of ACM TODS\, and serves on the program committees of ACM PODS\, ICDT\, and ICALP among others. \nHosted by: Professor Nikos Tziavelis \nLocation: Engineering 2\, Room E2-180 (*Refreshments such as coffee\, tea\, pastries\, and fresh fruit will be provided in-person.) \nZoom: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/93445911992?pwd=YkJ2TQtF79h0PcNXbEcpZLbpK0coiY.1&jst=3
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/cse-colloquium-query-optimization-how-to-design-a-meta-algorithm-that-designs-algorithms/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Lectures & Presentations
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260212T163000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260212T173000
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20260203T172912Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260203T173017Z
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SUMMARY:Sambamurthy\, A. (AM) - Lazy Diffusion: Resolving Spectral Collapse in Generative Models for Turbulence
DESCRIPTION:Diffusion-based generative models offer a principled framework for probabilistic forecasting\, but we show they suffer from a fundamental spectral collapse when applied to turbulent flows. A Fourier-space analysis of the forward SDE reveals that the mode-wise signal-to-noise ratio decays monotonically in wavenumber for power-law spectra\, rendering high-wavenumber content indistinguishable from noise. We reinterpret the noise schedule as a spectral regularizer and introduce power-law schedules that preserve fine-scale structure deeper into diffusion time. We further propose Lazy Diffusion\, a one-step distillation method that leverages the learned score geometry to bypass long reverse trajectories and prevent high-wavenumber degradation. Applied to high-Reynolds-number 2D Kolmogorov turbulence and ocean reanalysis data\, these methods resolve spectral collapse and enable stable long-horizon autoregressive emulation. \nEvent Host: Anish Sambamurthy\, Ph.D. Student\, Applied Mathematics  \nAdvisor: Ashesh Chattopadhyay \nZoom- https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/5144530307?pwd=TllaWnNDc01tcVNpa1NNeVVIMnp5QT09 \nPasscode- 55555
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/sambamurthy-a-am-lazy-diffusion-resolving-spectral-collapse-in-generative-models-for-turbulence/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Ph.D. Presentations
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260211T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260211T121500
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20260105T205936Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260105T205936Z
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SUMMARY:CSE Colloquium: Incentivized Alignment for Strategic Agents (Human and Otherwise)
DESCRIPTION:Presenter: Grant Schoenebeck\, University of Michigan \nAbstract: Advances in machine learning enable new forms of human-AI collaboration\, but collaborative settings typically involve agents with divergent objectives and private information. This will become increasingly critical in the emerging world of agentic AI\, where ML-powered agents act on behalf of individuals or institutions with conflicting goals. I use the term incentivized alignment to describe the approach of combining both machine learning and incentive design to achieve alignment of system outcomes despite misaligned agents. This talk presents two case studies of incentivized alignment showing how machine learning can make mechanism design scalable and practical\, and how mechanism design can make machine learning strategically robust. First\, I examine the use of LLMs as judges for rating subjective responses. While LLMs perform well on existing datasets\, they are highly susceptible to manipulation. I propose adapting peer-prediction mechanisms to create strategically-robust scoring mechanisms that incentivize honest reporting. Beyond ensuring high-quality inputs to AI systems\, these mechanisms can potentially eliminate reward hacking in ML training pipelines. Second\, I consider collective decision-making where agents hold different objectives and private information. The goal is to design mechanisms that incentivize strategic agents to select outcomes that would be optimal under full information sharing\, according to certain criteria. Both case studies demonstrate solutions for incentivized alignment in multi-agent systems employing the combination of incentive design and machine learning\, a theme likely to be central to the future of collaborative AI. \nBio: Grant Schoenebeck is an associate professor at the University of Michigan in the School of Information. His work has recently focused on developing and analyzing systems for eliciting and aggregating information from a diverse group of agents with varying information\, interests\, and abilities by combining ideas from machine learning and economics (e.g. game theory\, mechanism design\, and information design). More generally\, his recent work has been about incentives and (machine) learning in a variety of contexts. His research is supported by multiple NSF grants including a CAREER award and spans publications in top venues including NeurIPS\, ICLR\, EC\, WINE\, the Web Conference\, STOC\, and FOCS. His former PhD students and postdocs now hold tenure-track positions at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign\, Peking University\, George Mason University\, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He recently served as Program Committee Co-chair for WINE\, Theory Track Co-chair for EC\, and Economics and Computation Track co-chair at the Web Conference. Grant received his PhD at UC Berkeley\, studied theology at Oxford University\, and received his BA in mathematics and computer science from Harvard. \nHosted by: Professor Nikos Tziavelis \nLocation: Engineering 2\, Room E2-180 \n*Light refreshments such as coffee\, pastries\, and fruit will be available. \nZoom: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/93445911992?pwd=YkJ2TQtF79h0PcNXbEcpZLbpK0coiY.1&jst=3
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/cse-colloquium-incentivized-alignment-for-strategic-agents-human-and-otherwise/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Lectures & Presentations
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260209T123000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260209T133000
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20260126T235923Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260204T204343Z
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SUMMARY:CM Seminar - “The ‘Social’ Side of Social Virtual Reality”
DESCRIPTION:Presented by: Bree McEwan \nDescription: One of the potential use cases of virtual reality is to create spaces where humans can interact with each other or virtual agents across distances. However\, despite many of the technological challenges of social VR being solved\, social VR does not see poised for widespread adoption. Multi-user social VR needs to be perceived not just as a technology to be solved but an emerging communication channel. Social science approaches\, particularly from communication scholars\, are needed to truly understand the way that humans engage with VR and each other in these new environments. McEwan’s talk will outline a program of research using qualitative and quantitative approaches to understand communication processes\, effects\, and user perceptions of VR design to deepen our understanding of how people engage with environments and each other in social VR. \nBio: Bree McEwan is a Professor in the Institute of Communication\, Culture\, Information and Technology\, an associate director of the Data Sciences Institute\, and a faculty affiliate of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society at the University of Toronto. She is a co- organizer and founder of the Questioning Reality conference\, a social VR research incubator. McEwan authored Navigating New Media Networks and co-authored Interpersonal Encounters. She directs the McEwan Mediated Communication Lab which researches the intersection of technology and social interaction. McEwan has published on relational maintenance on social network sites\, perceived social affordances of communication channels\, linguistic patterns in online communities\, and the diffusion of information through social media. In addition\, McEwan has metascience interests focused on transparency and replication in the social sciences. Current studies of the McMC Lab focus on affordances of social virtual environments\, cognition and heuristics related to learning in VR spaces\, and nonverbal communication patterns of avatars and agents. \nHosted by: Professor Katherine Isbister \nWhen: Monday\, February 9\, 2026 from 12:30PM to 1:30PM \nLocation:  \nIN-PERSON @ UCSC Main Campus\, E2-280. \nViewing room @ SVC 3212.   \nLUNCH WILL BE PROVIDED AT BOTH LOCATIONS! Faculty and students are highly encouraged to attend. \nZoom info: \nhttps://ucsc.zoom.us/j/91469785121?pwd=F0jplMgh4eTjy6qNZI0lEhlljs0XhG.1 \nMeeting ID: 914 6978 5121\nPasscode: 183098
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/cm-seminar-the-social-side-of-social-virtual-reality/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Seminars
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260209T104000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260209T234500
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20260202T233432Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260202T233432Z
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SUMMARY:ECE Seminar: Integrated Micro- and Nanosystems for Biosensing\, Neural Therapy\, and Nanotoxicity
DESCRIPTION:Presenter: Dr. Ke Du\, Associate Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering\, University of California\, Riverside \nDescription: Miniaturized micro- and nanofluidic systems\, integrated with biochemistry\, microscopy\, nanomaterials\, and computer vision algorithms\, provide powerful platforms for diverse biomedical applications\, including molecular diagnostics\, biophysics\, and optogenetics. In this presentation\, we introduce a pneumatically controlled nano-sieve device with nanolithography-defined microstructures designed to enhance target capture efficiency in bodily fluids. This system incorporates sheath flow configurations\, surface-enhanced Raman probes\, and CRISPR reactions for the sensitive and multiplexed detection of drug-resistant bacteria in nanoconfined environments. We also highlight our recent advancements in implantable devices for adeno-associated virus (AAV) delivery and the treatment of neurological disorders in mouse models. These devices\, fabricated via high-resolution 3D printing\, utilize total internal reflection at the liquid–air–microstructure interface to efficiently stimulate neurons. Finally\, we integrate experimental approaches with molecular dynamics simulations to study the interactions between arbitrary nanoparticles and living cells—advancing our understanding of nanotoxicity and guiding the design of next-generation drug delivery systems. \nBio: Dr. Ke Du is an Associate Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at the University of California\, Riverside. He established his independent research lab in 2018 following postdoctoral training with Richard Mathies at the University of California\, Berkeley\, and Holger Schmidt at the University of California\, Santa Cruz. His research team focuses on molecular diagnostics for infectious diseases such as sepsis\, in vivo bioimaging\, and nanotoxicology. Dr. Du has received numerous honors\, including the EIPBN Inaugural Early Career Award (2024) and the NIH Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (2021). He was recognized as an Emerging Investigator by Lab on a Chip (2024) and Nanoscale (2025)\, and named a Global Rising Star in Sensing by ACS Sensors. His research is supported by federal agencies and industry partners\, including NIH NIGMS\, NIH NIAID\, NSF CBET\, NSF CMMI\, USDA\, DOE\, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund\, Mammoth Biosciences\, and Biological Mimetics. Beyond his research activities\, Dr. Du serves as an Early Career Editorial Advisory Board member for Biomicrofluidics (AIP Publishing) and Sensors and Actuators Reports (Elsevier). \nHosted by: Professor Soumya Bose\, ECE Department \nZoom Link: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/97975378707?pwd=ljcgaCfhMmhZ88Vt5dqQUBVQRjehOx.1
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/ece-seminar-integrated-micro-and-nanosystems-for-biosensing-neural-therapy-and-nanotoxicity/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Lectures & Presentations,Seminars
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260206T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260206T120000
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20260127T193801Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260127T193801Z
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SUMMARY:Johnstone\, J. (AM) - The Effects of Asymmetry on Overshooting and Magnetic Pumping from Compressible Convection Zones
DESCRIPTION:We present a comprehensive numerical investigation examining how vertical asymmetry in compressible convection affects overshooting and the transport of large-scale magnetic fields from convective to stably stratified regions. Using three-dimensional direct numerical simulations\, we systematically vary the superadiabaticity and stratification of a convective layer to control the vertical asymmetry of the flow and analyze its influence on overshooting depth and magnetic pumping efficiency. We extend previous work by Tobias et al. (2001) and draw guidance from the asymmetry regimes identified by John & Schumacher (2023)\, investigating whether similar asymmetric convecting regimes emerge in our overshooting model that incorporates a stably stratified region below. We find that vertical asymmetry increases significantly with stratification at a moderate\, fixed Rayleigh number\, while superadiabaticity contributes primarily through enhanced downflow velocities\, with both combined leading to increasing overshooting depths reaching approximately 0.46 − 0.7 pressure scale heights. Magnetic pumping efficiency initially increases with stratification but unexpectedly decreases at higher stratification\, despite increasing overshooting depths. We find that this behavior arises from the increasing thermal and magnetic diffusivities that result from increasing stratification at fixed Ra. When instead either holding these diffusivities constant or increasing Ra sufficiently\, we find that then both overshooting and magnetic pumping depths both decrease with increasing stratification. This behavior is explained by a change of dynamical state from one of laminar downflows to one of turbulent downflowing plumes leading to a high degree of turbulent mixing and entrainment. We thus find two distinct regimes that might be described as a microscopically diffusive regime and a turbulently diffusive one. These results suggest that\, in the highly turbulent regime expected in the Sun\, magnetic pumping efficiency may decrease with increasing stratification due to enhanced turbulent entrainment\, with important implications for solar dynamo theory and the transport of large-scale magnetic fields in the solar interior. \n  \nEvent Host: Jason Johnstone\, Ph.D. Student\, Applied Mathematics \nAdvisor: Nic Brummell \nZoom- https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/5428987373?pwd=JSmNz3ZZby5ZnVBYbSoakjjQb2qQj6.1&omn=98571815542 \nPasscode- 778899
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/johnstone-j-am-the-effects-of-asymmetry-on-overshooting-and-magnetic-pumping-from-compressible-convection-zones/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Ph.D. Presentations
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260202T104000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260202T114500
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20260126T213156Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260126T213348Z
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SUMMARY:ECE Seminar: Advanced Packaging as the Engine of the AI Systems Era
DESCRIPTION:Presenter: Tolga Acikalin\, System and Package Architect\, Lumilens \nDescription: The rapid rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning—most notably recent breakthroughs in large language models—is reshaping the trajectory of the semiconductor industry and ushering in a new era of system innovation. As performance scaling at the device level slows\, heterogeneous integration (HI) has emerged as a foundational technology to sustain advances in computing and communication. By integrating separately manufactured components with diverse functions into a single system\, HI enables new levels of functionality\, performance\, and efficiency that are no longer achievable through traditional scaling alone. \nRealizing the full potential of heterogeneous systems demands a shift toward holistic system-level co-design\, with advanced packaging assuming a central and strategic role. This talk will briefly review the evolution of packaging technologies and then focus on advanced packaging architectures that enable heterogeneous integration.Topics will include advances in 2D and 3D interconnect technologies\, the introduction of novel packaging materials such as glass substrates\, and the growing role of photonic links\, including co-packaged optics enabled by silicon photonics. The talk will conclude with a discussion of power delivery and thermal management as system-level challenges and opportunities that will shape the next generation of high-performance\, energy-efficient systems. \nBio: Tolga Acikalin received his Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Middle East Technical University in Ankara\, Turkey\, and his Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees from Purdue University in West Lafayette\, Indiana. \nHe joined Intel in 2007 as a Research and Development Engineer\, working on assembly and test pathfinding projects within the Technology and Manufacturing Group in Chandler\, Arizona. From 2013 to 2025\, he was a Principal Engineer at Intel Labs in Santa Clara\, California\, where he led and influenced innovative strategies for heterogeneous system integration\, spanning package- to wafer-scale solutions\, with a strong emphasis on next-generation interconnect technologies. Tolga is currently a System and Package Architect at Lumilens\, where he focuses on next-generation photonic interconnect solutions\, ranging from near-packaged optics to co-packaged optics. \nHis technical interests include co-packaged optics and silicon photonics\, optical and sub-THz to THz RF high-speed interconnects and the associated advanced package architectures\, novel advanced packaging solutions such as glass substrates\, and optical computing. Tolga has authored or co-authored more than 15 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications in leading APS\, ASME\, and IEEE venues\, including best paper awards at IEEE RFIC and JSCC. He holds nine issued patents and more than 27 additional patent filings. \nHosted by: Professor Soumya Bose\, ECE Department \nZoom Link: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/97975378707?pwd=ljcgaCfhMmhZ88Vt5dqQUBVQRjehOx.1
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/ece-seminar-advanced-packaging-as-the-engine-of-the-ai-systems-era/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Lectures & Presentations,Seminars
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260128T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260128T121500
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20260120T191337Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260120T191337Z
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SUMMARY:CSE Colloquium - Towards Relational Foundation Models: Zero-Shot Forecasting over Relational Databases
DESCRIPTION:Presenter: Charilaos I. Kanatsoulis\, Stanford University \nAbstract: Foundation models have transformed unstructured domains such as language and vision\, yet relational datasets\, where most enterprise knowledge lives\, still rely on brittle\, task-specific ML pipelines. I will begin by introducing Relational Deep Learning (RDL)\, a general framework for learning directly from heterogeneous multi-table data\, capturing structure across entities\, attributes\, and relationships without handcrafted schemas or features. \nBuilding on this paradigm\, I will present the Relational Transformer (RT)\, a schema-invariant model pretrained across diverse relational databases that performs structural learning with in-context information and transfers zero-shot to new databases and predictive tasks. By modeling both inter- and intra-table dependencies and reframing prediction as pattern recognition inside a unified latent relational space\, RT represents a concrete step toward relational foundation models that can be prompted\, reused\, and generalized for new problems. \nBio: Charilaos I. Kanatsoulis is a Research Scientist in the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University. He previously was a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania and received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Minnesota\, Twin Cities. His research lies at the intersection of machine learning and signal processing\, with a focus on Transformer and foundation model design for structured data\, graph representation learning\, tensor analysis\, and explainable AI. His work has been recognized with the Best Paper Award at the KDD Temporal Graph Learning Workshop (2025) and the Best Student Paper Award at IEEE CAMSAP (2023). He co-instructs CS246 and CS224W at Stanford and previously taught ESE 5140 at Penn. He has organized several community events\, including the Graph Signal Processing short course at IEEE ICASSP 2023\, the Stanford Graph Learning Workshop (2024–2025)\, the Relational Deep Learning tutorial at ACM KDD 2025\, and the New Perspectives in Advancing Graph Machine Learning Workshop at NeurIPS 2025. \nHosted by: Professor Nikos Tziavelis \nLocation: Engineering 2\, Room E2-180 (Refreshments such as coffee\, pastries\, and fruit will be provided.) \nZoom: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/93445911992?pwd=YkJ2TQtF79h0PcNXbEcpZLbpK0coiY.1&jst=3
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/cse-colloquium-towards-relational-foundation-models-zero-shot-forecasting-over-relational-databases/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Lectures & Presentations,Seminars
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260126T123000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260126T133000
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20260113T202943Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260113T202943Z
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SUMMARY:CM Seminar - "Revealing Hidden Stories: Co-Designing the Thámien Ohlone Augmented Reality Tour"
DESCRIPTION:Presented by: Kai Lukoff \nDescription: \nThe Santa Clara University campus is adorned with symbols and monuments\, including a Spanish Mission Church\, that highlight its Catholic heritage. However\, the presence and history of the Ohlone Native Americans\, who have inhabited this land for thousands of years and continue to live in the region\, receive little to no recognition. How can we utilize augmented reality (AR) to share these hidden stories? \nIn collaboration with the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe\, our interdisciplinary team developed the Thámien Ohlone AR tour. This tour reveals hidden stories\, encourages visitors to engage in critical reflection\, and inspires visions of a more just future and received the Best Movie Award at CHI 2024\, the leading conference in the field of human-computer interaction. This talk will share insights on co-designing location-based AR experiences for social impact and explore the potential of AR in preserving cultural heritage. \nBio: Kai Lukoff is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at Santa Clara University. He leads the Human-Computer Interaction Lab\, focusing on technologies with social impact. His recent work focuses on co-design methods for location-based augmented reality. His research has been featured in prominent conferences such as CHI\, CSCW\, IMWUT\, and DIS\, and he was honored with the 2023 Outstanding Dissertation Award from ACM SIGCHI. \n  \nHosted by: Professor Sri Kurniawan \nWhen: Monday\, January 26\, 2026 from 12:30PM to 1:30PM \nLocation:  \nIN-PERSON @ UCSC Main Campus\, E2-280. \nViewing room @ SVC 3212. \nLUNCH WILL BE PROVIDED AT BOTH LOCATIONS! Faculty and students are highly encouraged to attend. \nZoom info: \nhttps://ucsc.zoom.us/j/95105219890?pwd=PXG6uexrh6P0Ry06aRkxfdTsLhaNhK.1\nMeeting ID: 951 0521 9890\nPasscode: 160917
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/cm-seminar-revealing-hidden-stories-co-designing-the-thamien-ohlone-augmented-reality-tour/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Lectures & Presentations,Seminars
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260126T104000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260126T114500
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20260112T223834Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260112T223834Z
UID:10008350-1769424000-1769427900@events.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:ECE Seminar: Tactile sensing: At the boundary between mechanical and computational intelligence in robotic grippers
DESCRIPTION:Presenter: Dr. Hannah Stuart\, Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering\, University of California at Berkeley \nDescription: Robot grippers typically include mechanical intelligence (e.g.\, underactuation\, compliance) or computational intelligence (e.g.\, fully actuated with a wide array of sensors). Next generation grippers and hands will require both intelligences to work in concert across applications with resilience and dexterity. This talk will introduce the concept of mechanical and computational intelligence co-design through example case studies that focus on the particular importance of embodied sensitivity as a feature of the co-design process. For example\, the most recent work on the Smart Suction Cup\, conducted largely by Dr. Jungpyo Lee\, demonstrates how design decisions like the number of sensitive chambers influences the resultant robot arm controller as well as physical compliance and manufacturing feasibility and cost. \nBio: Dr. Hannah Stuart is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley. She received her BS in Mechanical Engineering at the George Washington University in 2011\, and her MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University in 2013 and 2018\, respectively. Her research focuses on understanding the mechanics of physical interaction in order to better design systems for dexterous manipulation. Applications range from remote robotics to assistive orthotics. Recent awards include the NSF CAREER grant\, NASA Early Career Faculty grant\, Hellman Fellows Fund grant\, and Johnson & Johnson Women in STEM2D grant. She is a Senior Member of IEEE. \nHosted by: Professor Soumya Bose\, ECE Department \nZoom Link: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/97975378707?pwd=ljcgaCfhMmhZ88Vt5dqQUBVQRjehOx.1
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/ece-seminar-tactile-sensing-at-the-boundary-between-mechanical-and-computational-intelligence-in-robotic-grippers/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Lectures & Presentations,Seminars
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260123T093000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260123T110000
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20260120T223725Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260120T223725Z
UID:10008684-1769160600-1769166000@events.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Sharma\, R. (CSE) - Automatically Evolving GPU Libraries for Performance Portable AI Kernels
DESCRIPTION:GPUs are the workhorses of modern AI\, widely deployed and developed by many vendors including Apple\, Qualcomm\, Intel\, AMD\, and NVIDIA. While these GPUs all offer high compute potential\, programming them effectively is difficult because they differ in performance-critical features like SIMT width\, cache capacity\, and memory bandwidth\, demanding different optimization strategies. Tunable kernels address this by exposing parameters such as tiling dimensions and workgroup sizes\, enabling per-device specialization. Yet this produces static libraries: tuned once\, then frozen\, degrading as new hardware emerges. We propose automatically evolving libraries that expand their tuning knowledge as new hardware emerges\, with minimal impact on user experience. \nTo build such libraries\, we first need to understand the tuning landscape. We address this through GPU Goldmines\, a WebGPU-based framework for exhaustively collecting tuning data across diverse devices. Our tuned matrix multiplication kernels outperform an optimized baseline by 8.4x on average\, while matrix-vector kernels achieve 93% of platform bandwidth. We find that hyper-tuning for a single GPU causes 50% performance degradation on other devices\, whereas data-driven portability methods recover 88% of peak performance. These kernels are fundamental to the prefill and decode phases of LLM inference. We integrate them into llama.cpp as our evaluation platform\, where they outperform CPU and Vulkan backends. \nBuilding on this data\, we are developing Living Libraries to improve performance continuously without disrupting users. This means choosing good parameters upfront\, learning from real-world execution\, and knowing when to keep searching versus when to stop\, though hand-designed parameter spaces remain inherently bounded. To move beyond this\, we extend toward LLM-based kernel evolution\, where language models propose entirely new kernel variants\, opening a less structured but higher potential search space. \nEvent Host: Rithik Sharma\, Ph.D. Student\, Computer Science and Engineering \nAdvisor: Tyler Sorensen & Yuanchao Xu   \n  \nZoom: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/92739836317?pwd=0ydDzimUFIoaLDUKst96dk27th4lvW.1 \nPasscode: 089560
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/sharma-r-cse-automatically-evolving-gpu-libraries-for-performance-portable-ai-kernels/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Ph.D. Presentations
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GEO:37.0009723;-122.0632371
X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Engineering 2 Engineering 2 1156 High Street Santa Cruz CA 95064;X-APPLE-RADIUS=500;X-TITLE=Engineering 2 1156 High Street:geo:-122.0632371,37.0009723
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260122T014000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260122T014000
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20251211T230012Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260108T184752Z
UID:10005828-1769046000-1769046000@events.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Applied Microeconomics and Trade Seminar Series Presents: Guo Xu
DESCRIPTION:Applied Microeconomics and Trade Seminar\nDate: Thursday\, January 22\, 2026\nTime: 1:40 – 3:00 p.m.\nLocation: E2-499\n\n \n\nSpeaker: Guo Xu\nTitle: Associate Professor of Economics \nAffiliation: University of California\, Berkeley  \nHost: Ajay Shenoy \n  \nSeminar title: Personnel is Policy: Delegation and Political Misalignment in the Rulemaking Process\n\nABSTRACT: We combine comprehensive data on the U.S. federal rulemaking process with individuallevel personnel and voter registration records to study the consequences of partisan misalignment between regulators and the president. We present three main results. First\, even important pieces of new regulation are frequently delegated to bureaucrats who are politically misaligned. Second\, rules that are overseen by misaligned regulators take systematically longer to complete\, are more verbose\, generate more negative feedback from the public\, and are more likely to be challenged in court. Third\, in assigning regulators to rules\, agency leaders often face a sharp tradeoff between political alignment and expertise. Agency frictions notwithstanding\, they tend to resolve this tradeoff in favor of expertise.
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/applied-microeconomics-and-trade-seminar-series-presents-guo-xu/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Seminars
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260121T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260121T123000
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20260105T203936Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260105T205329Z
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SUMMARY:CSE Colloquium - Constraining Chaos: Toward Faithful and Semantic Decoding in Language Models
DESCRIPTION:Presenter: Loris D’Antoni\, UC San Diego \nAbstract:\nLanguage models excel at producing fluent text\, but in domains like code and math\, fluency isn’t enough — outputs must obey strict syntactic and semantic rules. A new wave of research is rethinking decoding itself: not as a process of sampling words\, but as a negotiation between probability\, structure\, and meaning. In this talk\, I’ll explore how grammar and semantics can be embedded into the decoding loop\, how we can sample from the true model conditional distribution under constraints\, and how programmable abstractions make it possible to enforce properties like type safety or program invariants. The result is a vision of decoding that is faithful to the model yet governed by rules\, pointing toward a future where LLMs generate not just plausible text\, but reliably correct output. \nBio:\nLoris D’Antoni is a Jacobs Faculty Scholar and Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California San Diego. His research helps people build trustworthy software. His work has introduced new frameworks for verifying and synthesizing programs—ranging from resilient network configurations to robust decision-making systems—and\, more recently\, methods for aligning language models with user intent. \nHe is the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award and a Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship\, and was selected as a Vilas Associate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has also received Google\, Amazon\, and Meta Faculty Awards\, and the Morris and Dorothy Rubinoff Dissertation Award. His papers have earned several best paper awards and nominations\, including at TACAS\, ESOP\, ICDCN\, and SBES. \nLoris received his B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Torino\, and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania. Before joining UC San Diego\, he was a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. \nHosted by: Professor Nikos Tziavelis \nLocation: Engineering 2\, Room E2-180 \n*Light refreshments such as coffee\, pastries\, and fruit will be available. \nZoom: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/93445911992?pwd=YkJ2TQtF79h0PcNXbEcpZLbpK0coiY.1&jst=3
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/cse-colloquium-constraining-chaos-toward-faithful-and-semantic-decoding-in-language-models/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Lectures & Presentations,Seminars
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260120T134000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260120T150000
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20251211T224823Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260108T184635Z
UID:10005827-1768916400-1768921200@events.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Behavioral\, Econometrics and Theory Seminar Series Presents: Roberto Corrao
DESCRIPTION:Economics Behavioral\, Econometrics\, & Theory Seminar\nDate: Tuesday\, January 20\, 2026\nTime: 1:40-3:00 p.m.\nLocation: E2-499\n\n \n\nSpeaker: Roberto Corrao\nTitle:  Assistant Professor of Economics \nAffiliation:  Stanford University\nHost: Gerelt Tserenjigmid\n \nSeminar title: Contractibility Design\n \nABSTRACT: \nWe introduce a model of incentive contracting in which the principal\, in addition to\nwriting contracts\, must engage in contractibility design: creating an evidence structure\nthat allows them to prove when the agent has breached the contract. Designing an\nevidence structure entails both (i) front-end costs borne ex ante\, such as those of\ndrafting contracts\, and (ii) back-end costs borne ex post\, such as those of generating\nevidence. We find that\, under even small front-end costs\, optimal contracts are coarse\,\nspecifying finitely many contingencies out of a continuum of possibilities. In contrast\,\nunder even large back-end costs\, optimal contracts are complete. Applied to the design\nof procurement contracts\, our results rationalize: (i) the discreteness of contracts\, (ii)\nthe presence of similarly vague contracts in low-stakes and high-stakes settings\, and\n(iii) the discontinuous adjustment of contracts to changes in the economic environment.
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/behavioral-econometrics-and-theory-seminar-series-presents-roberto-corrao/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Seminars
GEO:37.0009723;-122.0632371
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260115T014000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260115T014000
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20251211T212236Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251219T220029Z
UID:10005825-1768441200-1768441200@events.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Applied Microeconomics and Trade Seminar Series Presents: Olivia Bordeu
DESCRIPTION:Applied Microeconomics and Trade Seminar\nDate: Thursday\, January 15\, 2026\nTime: 1:40 – 3:00 p.m.\nLocation: E2-499\n\n \n\nSpeaker: Olivia Bordeu \nTitle: Assistant Professor of Economics \nAffiliation: University of California\, Berkeley  \nHost: Jeremy West \nSeminar title: Bank Branches and the Allocation of Capital across Cities\n\nABSTRACT: We study how banking market structure and branch networks shape the spatial mobility of capital. Using administrative loan-level data from Chile\, we show that bank-level deposit shocks lead receiving banks to increase lending and lower interest rates relative to other banks. Interest rate reductions are concentrated in cities where the bank has a small market share\, consistent with local market power. We develop and estimate a quantitative spatial model with multi-city banks\, oligopolistic local credit markets\, and frictions in interbank lending. These channels lead to spatial dispersion in interest rates and the marginal productivity of physical capital\, reducing GDP. Interbank frictions reduce steady-state GDP by 0.04%\, while spatial variation in loan markups reduces GDP by 0.5%. Bank mergers improve financial integration between cities but reduce competition\, generating heterogeneous welfare effects that depend on the merging banks’ geographic overlap.
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/applied-microeconomics-and-trade-seminar-series-presents-olivia-bordeu/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Seminars
GEO:37.0009723;-122.0632371
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260113T134000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260113T150000
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20251211T224403Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251219T220255Z
UID:10005826-1768311600-1768316400@events.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Macroeconomics & International Finance Seminar Series Presents: Dean Corbae
DESCRIPTION:Macroeconomics and International Finance Seminar\nDate: Tuesday\, January 13\, 2026\nTime: 1:40-3:00 p.m.\nLocation: E2-499\n\n \n\nSpeaker: Dean Corbae\nTitle: William Sellery Trukenbrod Chair in Finance\nAffiliation: University of Wisconsin – Madison\nHost: Grace Gu Steadmon\n \nSeminar title:  A Quantitative Model of Bank Merger Dynamics\n \n\nABSTRACT: \nWe develop a simple model of the bank merger process to study the rise in bank concentration following the deregulation of bank branching in the Riegle-Neal Act of 1994. Motivated by the data where currently 10 (dominant) banks have over 55 percent of the U.S. deposit market share while the remaining over 4000 (fringe) banks cover the rest\, we apply a dominant-fringe framework with a merger stage to model the rise in concentration following the change in regulation making interstate branching possible. First\, we study the effect of the merger wave on competition\, efficiency\, and stability of the banking industry. Then we use our model to understand the interaction between regulatory and monetary policy. Specifically\, how has the bank lending channel of monetary policy been affected by rising concentration; has it amplified or dampened the effectiveness of monetary policy? How might monetary policy itself contribute to mergers and rising concentration?
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/macroeconomics-international-finance-seminar-series-presents-dean-corbae/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Seminars
GEO:37.0009723;-122.0632371
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251209T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251209T170000
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20251202T204536Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251209T182652Z
UID:10005719-1765296000-1765299600@events.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Zhu\, R. (ECE) -  From Neuromorphic Principles to Efficient Neural Language Architectures
DESCRIPTION:While Large Language Models exhibit remarkable capabilities\, their reliance on the standard Transformer architecture imposes prohibitive computational costs and quadratic memory complexity. To bridge the gap between biological efficiency and high-performance AI\, we have established foundational work in linearizing attention and maximizing hardware utilization through architectures such as RWKV and MatMul-Free networks. Addressing the remaining bottlenecks in long-term memory consolidation and optimization stability\, we propose a research roadmap focused on “In-Place Test-Time Training” (TTT) to enable compositional memory via dynamic weight updates\, and the Muon optimizer to stabilize deep reasoning through orthogonal gradient updates. Ultimately\, this work aims to unify neuromorphic principles with scalable deep learning to enable robust performance in resource-efficient environments. \nEvent Host: Ridger Zhu\, Ph.D. Student\, Electrical and Computer Engineering  \nAdvisor: Jason Eshraghian \nZoom- https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/95241268060?pwd=WDMgDWhhSyXNh8NZpBDvgpbcMVbvUz.1 \nPasscode- 256794
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/ridger-z-ece-from-neuromorphic-principles-to-efficient-neural-language-architectures/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Ph.D. Presentations
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251208T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251208T140000
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20251203T220535Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251203T220535Z
UID:10005728-1765198800-1765202400@events.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Ferdous\, N. (CSE) - SPECSIM : A Simulation Infrastructure Mitigating Transient Timing Attacks
DESCRIPTION:   Transient execution attacks are serious security threats in modern-day processors. Out-of-order execution compels the processor to access data that should not be otherwise perceived. Leakage of that secret information creates a covert channel for the attacker for various types of transient and speculative attacks. Transient based execution attacks emanate when the secret information is leaked by the execution of transient instructions which are executed by the processor but never got committed from the processor pipeline. However\, on the microarchitectural level\, the effect of these transient instructions is noticeable. Generally\, microarchitectural state is the state that a processor maintains to improve performance which is transparent to software. The secret data retained in the microarchitectural state are susceptible to create a covert channel and thereby are at higher risk to be observed by the attacker for transient attacks.\nThis research work presents a robust and secure simulation infrastructure that implements multiple strategies to mitigate transient attacks in the timing domain. This work proposes various strategies e.g.\, Reorder Buffer Transient Flushing Technique in Randomized Transient Pipeline\, SpecSCB for making the speculative instructions invisible to the architectural state\, for the mitigation of the timing attack. In this work\, transient instructions are added in the proposed Randomized Transient Pipeline and are flushed effectively\, using Transient Flushing Techniques\, squashing all the transient instruction residues that could remain in the Randomized Transient Pipeline. This flushing strategy also ensures no difference in the execution time of the base simulation and the proposed Randomized Transient Simulation\, leaving no leakage for transient based timing attacks. In addition to the simulation platform\, a novel Transient Verification Framework is also proposed which consists of Global Time Signature Verification Model and Retirement Time Signature Verification Model. The transient verification framework identifies if there is any anomaly in the timing domain\, related to all existing instructions\, which could leave space for covert channel for timing attacks. Overall\, this work has provided an extensive and robust simulation platform infrastructure for the researchers to explore various types of attacks with their respective mitigating solutions. \nHost: Nilufar Ferdous\, Ph.D. Student\, Computer Science and Engineering  \nAdvisor: Jose Renau  \nZoom- https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84111701472?pwd=l3s5sQszKt35paVOWNxxLaE8jphG80.1 \nPasscode- Qi1pAk
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/ferdous-n-cse-specsim-a-simulation-infrastructure-mitigating-transient-timing-attacks/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Ph.D. Presentations
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251208T093000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251208T104500
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20251117T202808Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251119T192125Z
UID:10005162-1765186200-1765190700@events.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:CSE Colloquium: Making Systems Secure with Information Flow
DESCRIPTION:Presenter: Andrew Myers\, Cornell University\n\nAbstract:\nModern civilization depends on complex\, interconnected software systems that must safeguard trustworthy or private data. We have ever-growing mountains of code yet lack principled ways to build large systems that are secure. What is missing is a way to securely build these systems compositionally: module by module and layer by layer. Information flow control\, enforced throughout software and hardware\, offers a plausible way to achieve compositional security\, and is increasingly being used by industry. I describe how my research group has incorporated information-flow security into various languages and systems: hardware architectures resilient to timing and speculation attacks\, smart contracts\, and automatically synthesized cryptographic and distributed protocols. Information flow is inherently compositional and makes possible strong\, provable security guarantees that can be connected to cryptographic security definitions. Importantly\, it also guides developers during the design process\, exposing security-critical decisions up front. \nBio:\nAndrew Myers is the Class of 1912 Professor of Engineering in the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT\, advised by Barbara Liskov. His research interests include programming languages\, computer security\, and distributed and persistent programming systems. His work on computer security has focused on practical\, sound\, expressive languages and systems for enforcing information security. Myers is an ACM Fellow and has authored several award-winning papers. He currently serves as the chair of the ACM SIGPLAN Executive Committee. \nHosted By: Professor Mohsen Lesani \nLocation: Engineering 2\, E2-180 \nZoom: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/97682837116?pwd=WZBzhJY4p7rTZshqglmOs6xBtBasbE.1&jst=3
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/cse-colloquium-making-systems-secure-with-information-flow/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Lectures & Presentations,Seminars
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251208T091500
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251208T103000
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20251205T173457Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251205T174005Z
UID:10005749-1765185300-1765189800@events.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Jamilan\, S. (CSE) -  Profile-guided Compiler Optimizations for Data Center Workloads
DESCRIPTION:Modern applications\, such as data center workloads\, have become increasingly complex. These applications primarily operate on massive datasets\, which involve large memory footprints\, irregular access patterns\, and complex control and data flows. The processor-memory speed gap\, combined with these complexities\, can lead to unexpected performance inefficiencies in these applications\, preventing them from achieving optimal performance. Considering the complexity and size of data center applications\, manually identifying and resolving performance issues is often impractical or impossible. Instead\, developing new compiler optimization techniques can be a more effective and scalable solution to boost both performance and energy efficiency. In this thesis\, we focus on identifying the root causes that limit the performance of data center workloads. We analyze the limitations of current profile-guided compiler optimization techniques for addressing these performance gaps. Finally\, we propose two profile-guided optimization techniques\, APT-GET and RIFS\, which can be integrated into the LLVM optimization pipeline to deliver further improvements. To hide the long latency of memory accesses\, we introduce APT-GET\, a profile-guided technique that ensures timely prefetches by leveraging dynamic execution-time information to build a novel analytical model that finds the optimal prefetch distance and injection site based on the collected profile. We study APT-GET across 10 real-world applications and demonstrate that it achieves a speedup of up to 1.98× and an average of 1.30×. To enable runtime value-invariant function specialization to reduce redundant operations\, we introduce RIFS\, a profile-guided compiler technique that specializes functions based on runtime-invariant call-site-specific argument values. RIFS introduces a novel value-profiling LLVM pass to identify runtime invariant arguments and a subsequent LLVM transformation pass to generate specialized function variants tailored to these value profiles. To efficiently select among potentially thousands of specialization candidates\, we develop a predictive cost model that estimates each candidate’s performance benefit before code generation. RIFS achieves an average speedup of 5.3% and an instruction reduction of 2.5% over the LLVM -O3+PGO baseline across 12 real-world applications. \nHost: Saba Jamilan\, Ph.D. Candidate\, Computer Science and Engineering  \nAdvisor: Heiner Litz  \nZoom- https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/95818759324?pwd=rdaS7G1V7O6faRhNOgFyq1OR50eSLK.1 \nPasscode- 652917 \n 
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/jamilan-s-cse-profile-guided-compiler-optimizations-for-data-center-workloads/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Ph.D. Presentations
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251205T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251205T140000
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20251203T234430Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251203T234430Z
UID:10005731-1764939600-1764943200@events.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Garg\, S. (CSE) - MAPPING ANNOTATIONS FROM NETLIST TO SOURCE CODE
DESCRIPTION:Hardware design flows have become increasingly complex as modern chips integrate billions\nof transistors and rely on aggressive synthesis optimizations to meet performance\,\narea\, and power targets. While these transformations improve circuit efficiency\, they\nalso erase the correspondence between gate-level netlists and their originating HDL\nsource lines. The loss of traceability makes post-synthesis debugging\, timing backannotation\,\nand root-cause analysis extremely difficult. Existing solutions depend on\ntool-specific metadata or preserved signal names\, which are often lost after flattening\,\nretiming\, or logic restructuring.\nTo address this long-standing problem\, this thesis presents SynAlign\, a structural\nalignment framework that restores the mapping between optimized netlists and\nsource code without relying on synthesis metadata. SynAlign treats both the reference\nRTL and synthesized designs as graphs and iteratively aligns them using shared\nstructural cues—such as sequential boundaries\, fan-in/fan-out relationships\, and partial\nnaming patterns. The algorithm employs anchor-based seeding\, multi-stage neighborhood\nmatching\, and a lightweight scoring function to propagate correspondences\nefficiently across large designs.\nExtensive evaluation demonstrates that SynAlign achieves over 90% line-level\nalignment accuracy across diverse designs\, maintaining robustness even when 60% of\nsignal names are obfuscated or removed. The framework scales linearly with design size\,\ncompleting alignment on multi-million-node circuits within minutes. Controlled tests\nconfirmed structural stability under synthetic noise\, while production-level validation\non real processor and accelerator modules verified industrial applicability.\nBy recovering structural visibility lost during synthesis\, SynAlign bridges a\ncritical gap between front-end design intent and post-synthesis implementation. Its explainable\nalignment enables faster debug cycles\, more accurate timing correlation\, and\nprovides a foundation for next-generation EDA tools that integrate traceability\, optimization\ntransparency\, and source-level introspection into the hardware development\nprocess. \nHost: Sakshi Garg\, Ph.D. Candidate\, Computer Science and Engineering  \nAdvisor: Jose Renau \nZoom- https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/96207792766?pwd=bjBfusfaucoqMGZNgayum2te4tsLc5.1 \nPasscode- 669162
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/garg-s-cse-mapping-annotations-from-netlist-to-source-code/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Ph.D. Presentations
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251205T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251205T123000
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20251125T212206Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251125T212206Z
UID:10005646-1764928800-1764937800@events.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:DeGrendele\, C. (AM) - Learning-Augmented and Structure-Preserving Methods for Conservation Law Solvers
DESCRIPTION:In this work\, we develop numerical methods for conservation laws that explore statistical\, structure-preserving\, and machine-learning-based approaches\, each built on top of traditional numerical solvers. First\, we develop a general Gaussian-process-based “recipe’’ for constructing high-order linear operators such as interpolation\, reconstruction\, and derivative approximations. Building on this recipe\, we derive a kernel-agnostic convergence theory for GP-based operators that interprets them as generalized finite-difference schemes\, defines an effective order-of-accuracy proxy that captures non-ideal truncation-error structure\, and uses this metric to select stencil geometries and kernel hyperparameters analytically. We then introduce a new second-order kernel\, Discontinuous Arcsin (DAS)\, that is stationary and prevents oscillations. DAS is integrated into a shock-capturing framework called the Multidimensional Optimal Order Detection (MOOD) method and shows an increase in efficiency by admitting less first order cascades. Next\, we address the long-standing problem of spurious pressure oscillations in compressible multi-component and real-fluid simulations by introducing a fully conservative pressure-equilibrium-preserving scheme and a high-order fully conservative approximate variant that apply to arbitrary equations of state. Unlike existing approaches\, these methods avoid non-conservative updates or EOS-specific constructions\, and on smooth interface advection tests with ideal-gas\, stiffened-gas\, and van der Waals fluids they reduce spurious pressure oscillations by orders of magnitude relative to current schemes. We then propose a hybrid numerical–machine learning framework for mixed hyperbolic–parabolic systems in which only the diffusive contribution is learned while the hyperbolic fluxes are advanced with standard shock-capturing methods\, enabling timesteps at a hyperbolic CFL. Within this framework\, we compare several neural architectures and loss designs on viscous Burgers tests and on the one-dimensional Euler equations with heat conduction\, showing that U-shaped neural operators combined with multi-step and TVD-style regularization improve long-time stability and spectral behavior\, and we analyze the resulting coupled schemes via eigenvalue-based stability diagnostics. Finally\, we apply high-order\, shock-capturing finite-difference methods within NASA’s Launch Ascent and Vehicle Aerodynamics (LAVA) framework to quantify acoustic and pressure loads on the Artemis Mobile Launcher\, including multiphase simulations of water-suppression systems and comparisons to flight data that inform hardware design for future missions. Collectively\, this work offers a set of targeted advances in kernel-based numerical operators\, conservative schemes and learning-augmented solvers each aimed at improving accuracy\, stability\, or efficiency in complex multiphysics flow simulation. \nEvent Host: Chris DeGrendele\, Ph.D. Candidate\, Applied Mathematics \nAdvisor: Dongwook Lee  \nZoom- https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/96308438100?pwd=9El4idgPoaVnAd9m8M6As6uaSbcojp.1 \nPasscode-  123456
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/degrendele-c-am-learning-augmented-and-structure-preserving-methods-for-conservation-law-solvers/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Ph.D. Presentations
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251204T134000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251204T150000
DTSTAMP:20260501T120147
CREATED:20251108T001824Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251120T170815Z
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SUMMARY:Behavioral\, Econometrics and Theory Seminar Series Presents: Jacopo Magnani
DESCRIPTION:Economics Behavioral\, Econometrics\, & Theory Seminar\nDate: Thursday\, December 4\, 2025\nTime: 1:40-3:00 p.m.\nLocation: E2-499\n\n \n\nSpeaker: Jacopo Magnani \nTitle:  Associate Professor of Economics \nAffiliation: Norwegian University of Science and Technology\, visiting Caltech\nHost: Kristian Lopez Vargas\n \nSeminar title: Behavioral Limits to Complete Markets\n \nABSTRACT:  Standard economic theory predicts that individuals should prefer complete markets to incomplete markets\, as the former allow state-contingent claims for every possible outcome. Yet real-world markets remain incomplete\, and the demand-side origins of the phenomenon are poorly understood. We develop an experimental framework to examine whether investors may themselves prefer incomplete markets\, and highlight two potential mechanisms: preference instability\, which exposes agents to greater regret or temptation in complete markets\, and complexity costs\, which arise because higher dimensionality increases cognitive effort and errors. In our experiment\, participants consistently reveal a preference for in complete markets\, contradicting the rational benchmark. Comparing homegrown and induced-preference treatments\, we find no evidence that this behavior is driven by preference instability. Instead\, utility losses\, response times\, and subjective ratings indicate that complexity costs drive the preference for incompleteness. Structural estimation confirms that complete markets are several times more complex than incomplete ones\, providing a behavioral foundation for market incompleteness. 
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/behavioral-econometrics-and-theory-seminar-series-presents-jacopo-magnani/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Seminars
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