News & EventsDepartment Events & Announcements
Events
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Jan30
EVENT DETAILS
TBA
TIME Thursday, January 30, 2025 at 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM
LOCATION 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library) map it
CONTACT Wynante R Charles wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)
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Jan31
EVENT DETAILS
Friday / CS Seminar
January 31st / 12:00 PM
Hybrid / Mudd 3514Speaker
Daniel Halpern, Harvard UniversityTalk Title
Why AI Needs Social ChoiceAbstract
In many modern AI paradigms, we encounter tasks reminiscent of social choice theory: collecting preferences from individuals and aggregating them into a single joint outcome. However, these tasks differ from traditional frameworks in two key ways: the space of possible outcomes is so enormous that we can only hope to collect sparse inputs from each participant, and the outcomes themselves are often highly complex. This talk explores these challenges through two case studies: Polis, a platform for democratic deliberation (https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.15608), and Reinforcement Learning From Human Feedback (RLHF), a method for fine-tuning LLMs to align with societal preferences (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.14758). In both cases, the focus is on evaluating existing methods through an axiomatic lens and designing new methods with provable guarantees.Biography
Daniel Halpern is a final-year PhD student at Harvard University advised by Ariel Procaccia. He is supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and a Siebel Scholarship. His research broadly sits at the intersection of algorithms, economics, and artificial intelligence. Specifically, he considers novel settings where groups of people need to make collective decisions, such as summarizing population views on large-scale opinion aggregation websites, using participant data to fine-tune large language models, and selecting panel members for citizens’ assemblies. In each, he develops practical and provably fair solutions to aggregate individual preferences.---
Zoom: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/96824870974?pwd=QfxpsRpfWcDlx4TXPswbAd8X4Dqhyb.1
Panopto: https://northwestern.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=2159520b-1d46-4ece-ba17-b268017475c6
Community Connections Topic: Being comfortable with being uncomfortableTIME Friday, January 31, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
LOCATION 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library) map it
CONTACT Wynante R Charles wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)
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Feb5
EVENT DETAILS
Wednesday / CS Seminar
February 5th / 12:00 PM
Hybrid / Mudd 3514Speaker
Akari Asai, University of WashingtonTalk Title
Beyond Scaling: Frontiers of Retrieval-Augmented Language ModelsAbstract
Large Language Models (LMs) have demonstrated remarkable capabilities by scaling up training data and model sizes. However, they continue to face critical challenges, including hallucinations and outdated knowledge, which particularly limit their reliability in expert domains such as scientific research and software development. In this talk, I will urge the necessity of moving beyond the traditional scaling of monolithic LMs and advocate for Augmented LMs—a new AI paradigm that designs, trains, and deploys LMs alongside complementary modules to address these limitations. Focusing on my research on Retrieval-Augmented LMs, one of the most impactful and widely adopted forms of Augmented LMs today, I will begin by presenting our systematic analyses of current LM shortcomings and demonstrate how Retrieval-Augmented LMs offer a more effective and efficient path forward. I will then discuss my work to establish new foundations for further reliability and efficiency by designing and training new LMs and retrieval systems to dynamically adapt to diverse inputs. Finally, I will demonstrate the real-world impact of such Retrieval-Augmented LMs through OpenScholar, our fully open Retrieval-Augmented LM designed to assist scientists in synthesizing scientific literature, now used by more than 25,000 researchers and practitioners worldwide. I will conclude by outlining my vision for the future of Augmented LMs, emphasizing advancements in their abilities to handle heterogeneous and diverse modalities, more efficient and effective integration with diverse components, and advancing evaluations with interdisciplinary collaboration.Biography
Akari Asai is a Ph.D. candidate in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington. Her research addresses the limitations of large language models (LMs) by developing advanced systems, such as Retrieval-Augmented LMs, and applying them to real-world challenges, including scientific research and underrepresented languages. Her contributions have received widespread recognition, including multiple paper awards at top NLP and ML conferences, the EECS Rising Stars 2022, and MIT Technology Review's Innovators Under 35 Japan. She has also been honored with the IBM Global Fellowship and several industry grants. Akari actively engages with the research community as a co-organizer of a tutorial and workshops, including the first tutorial on Retrieval-Augmented LMs at ACL 2023, as well as NAACL 2022 Workshop on Multilingual Information Access and NAACL 2025 Workshop on Knowledge-Augmented NLP.Research/Interest Areas
Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, Large Language Models
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Zoom: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/92736097526?pwd=TEoEMxEcDOanxEAoaNdB4ZIxXGsgwV.1
Panopto: https://northwestern.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=7a06abb9-4dd5-402e-a033-b274015b1e07
Community Connections Topic: Lab countercultureTIME Wednesday, February 5, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
LOCATION 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library) map it
CONTACT Wynante R Charles wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)
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Feb6
EVENT DETAILS
Thursday / CS/ME Seminar
February 6th / 3:00 PM
Hybrid / Ford ITWSpeaker
Amira Abdel-Rahman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)Talk Title
Inverse Design of Material-Robot SystemsAbstract
"In human history, no innovation has progressed as rapidly as digital technologies. Yet, it wasn't until the 2000s that we began to feel this impact on the physical world. With the rise of the Internet of Things, our built environment is becoming smarter, more dynamic, and more complex. Each year, the line between physical and digital blurs further. However, examining the history of computer-aided design (CAD), engineering (CAE), and manufacturing (CAM) tools reveals few radical advancements since the invention of "Sketchpad" in 1963—the first interactive CAD system. We urgently need these radical advances to faithfully model and respond to our complex environment, and to enable us to imagine and design a new world where the physical and digital are indistinguishable.
To achieve that, we need novel physical and digital tools that can handle complexity and grow reliability. Just as digitizing analog signals revolutionized and scaled communication and computing, applying discretization and error correction principles to the physical world unlocks the ability of the precise placement of functional materials with embedded electrical and mechanical properties. These “Digital Material” structures introduce digital programmability to the physical realm, mirroring the transformative impact seen in digital technologies.
In my talk, I will introduce fully declarative and inverse workflows to design and build scalable Digital Material systems. Using these workflows the user can model and design systems that span scales (micro, meso, macro) and disciplines (electrical, mechanical, aerospace, architectural engineering) without being an expert in all — or any — of these fields.
Using principles of discretization, distributed computing, hierarchy, and error correction; the introduced workflows use domain knowledge as priors and universal design representations across all stages—simulation, optimization, fabrication, and control. These tools have been used to design a plethora of static and dynamic structures, ranging from bridges and shelters to aerospace structures, robots, and electronics."Biography
Amira Abdel-Rahman is a PhD student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Center for Bits and Atoms, where she develops inverse design workflows, empowered by physics-informed AI, to advance the design and fabrication of large-scale material-robot systems. She earned her Master in Design Studies (MDes) in Technology from Harvard Graduate School of Design and her Bachelor’s degree from the American University in Cairo. Her professional experiences include NVIDIA as part of the Simulation Technology Team, and Autodesk as part of the Generative Design Group, where she contributed to cutting-edge research at the intersection of computational design, AI, and simulation technologies.---
Zoom: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/99856023678?pwd=IWSX91NYBlQ6VEwRtnVMr5FlDY5nxl.1
Panopto: https://northwestern.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=bd8a3dec-e2d0-4ae8-b5c4-b27401679ad9TIME Thursday, February 6, 2025 at 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
LOCATION ITW, Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center map it
CONTACT Wynante R Charles wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)
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Feb10
EVENT DETAILS
Monday / CS Seminar
February 10th / 12:00 PM
Hybrid / Mudd 3514Speaker
Sidhanth MohantyTalk Title
A quest for an algorithmic theory for high-dimensional statistical inferenceAbstract
"When does a statistical inference problem admit an efficient algorithm?
There is an emergent body of research that studies this question by trying to understand the power and limitations of various algorithmic paradigms in solving statistical inference problems; for example, convex programming, Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms, and message passing algorithms to name a few.Of these, MCMC algorithms are easy to adapt to new inference problems and have shown strong performance in practice, which makes them promising as a universal algorithm for inference. However, provable guarantees for MCMC have been scarce, lacking even for simple stylized models of inference.
In this talk, I will survey some recent strides that I have made with my collaborators on achieving provable guarantees for MCMC in inference, and some new tools we introduced for analyzing the behavior of slow-mixing Markov chains."
Biography
"Sidhanth is broadly interested in theoretical computer science and probability theory, and his primary interests are on the algorithms and complexity of statistical inference, and spectral graph theory.
Sidhanth is currently a postdoctoral researcher at MIT, hosted by Sam Hopkins. Previously, he received his PhD in Computer Science at UC Berkeley in 2023 where he was advised by Prasad Raghavendra."
Research/Interest Areas
Theoretical computer science, algorithmic statistics, analysis of Markov chains, spectral graph theory, semidefinite programming, random matrix theory
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Zoom: TBA
Panopto: TBA
Community Connections Topic: Equitable AssessmentsTIME Monday, February 10, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
LOCATION 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library) map it
CONTACT Wynante R Charles wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)
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Feb12
EVENT DETAILS
Wednesday / CS Seminar
February 12th / 12:00 PM
Hybrid / Mudd 3514Speaker
Wenting ZhaoTalk Title
Reasoning in the WildAbstract
In this talk, I will discuss how to build natural language processing (NLP) systems that solve real-world problems requiring complex reasoning. I will address three key challenges. First, because real-world reasoning tasks often differ from the data used in pretraining, I will introduce WildChat, a dataset of reasoning questions collected from users, and demonstrate how training on it enhances language models’ reasoning abilities. Second, because supervision is often limited in practice, I will describe my approach to enabling models to perform multi-hop reasoning without direct supervision. Finally, since many real-world applications demand reasoning beyond natural language, I will introduce a language agent capable of acting on external feedback. I will conclude by outlining a vision for training the next generation of AI reasoning models.Biography
Wenting Zhao is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at Cornell University, advised by Claire Cardie and Sasha Rush. Her research focuses on the intersection of natural language processing and reasoning, where she develops techniques to effectively reason over real-world scenarios. Her work has been featured in The Washington Post and TechCrunch. She has co-organized several tutorials and workshops, including the VerifAI: AI Verification in the Wild workshop at ICLR 2025 and the Complex Reasoning in Natural Language tutorial at ACL 2023. In 2024, she was recognized as a rising star in Generative AI and was named Intern of the Year at the Allen Institute for AI in 2023.Research/Interest Areas
natural language processing, AI, reasoning
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Zoom: TBA
Panopto: TBA
Community Connections Topic:TIME Wednesday, February 12, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
LOCATION 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library) map it
CONTACT Wynante R Charles wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)
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Feb14
EVENT DETAILS
Monday / CS Seminar
January 13th / 12:00 PM
Hybrid / Mudd 3514Speaker
TBATalk Title
TBAAbstract
TBABiography
TBAResearch/Interest Areas
TBA
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Zoom: TBA
Panopto: TBA
DEI Minute: tinyurl.com/cspac-dei-minuteTIME Friday, February 14, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
LOCATION 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library) map it
CONTACT Wynante R Charles wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)
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Feb17
EVENT DETAILS
Monday / CS Seminar
January 13th / 12:00 PM
Hybrid / Mudd 3514Speaker
TBATalk Title
TBAAbstract
TBABiography
TBAResearch/Interest Areas
TBA
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Zoom: TBA
Panopto: TBA
DEI Minute: tinyurl.com/cspac-dei-minuteTIME Monday, February 17, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
LOCATION 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library) map it
CONTACT Wynante R Charles wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)
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Feb19
EVENT DETAILS
Monday / CS Seminar
January 13th / 12:00 PM
Hybrid / Mudd 3514Speaker
TBATalk Title
TBAAbstract
TBABiography
TBAResearch/Interest Areas
TBA
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Zoom: TBA
Panopto: TBA
DEI Minute: tinyurl.com/cspac-dei-minuteTIME Wednesday, February 19, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
LOCATION 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library) map it
CONTACT Wynante R Charles wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)
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Feb21
EVENT DETAILS
Monday / CS Seminar
January 13th / 12:00 PM
Hybrid / Mudd 3514Speaker
TBATalk Title
TBAAbstract
TBABiography
TBAResearch/Interest Areas
TBA
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Zoom: TBA
Panopto: TBA
DEI Minute: tinyurl.com/cspac-dei-minuteTIME Friday, February 21, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
LOCATION 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library) map it
CONTACT Wynante R Charles wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)
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Feb24
EVENT DETAILS
Monday / CS Seminar
January 13th / 12:00 PM
Hybrid / Mudd 3514Speaker
TBATalk Title
TBAAbstract
TBABiography
TBAResearch/Interest Areas
TBA
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Zoom: TBA
Panopto: TBA
DEI Minute: tinyurl.com/cspac-dei-minuteTIME Monday, February 24, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
LOCATION 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library) map it
CONTACT Wynante R Charles wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)
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Feb26
EVENT DETAILS
Monday / CS Seminar
January 13th / 12:00 PM
Hybrid / Mudd 3514Speaker
TBATalk Title
TBAAbstract
TBABiography
TBAResearch/Interest Areas
TBA
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Zoom: TBA
Panopto: TBA
DEI Minute: tinyurl.com/cspac-dei-minuteTIME Wednesday, February 26, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
LOCATION 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library) map it
CONTACT Wynante R Charles wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)
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Feb28
EVENT DETAILS
Monday / CS Seminar
January 13th / 12:00 PM
Hybrid / Mudd 3514Speaker
TBATalk Title
TBAAbstract
TBABiography
TBAResearch/Interest Areas
TBA
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Zoom: TBA
Panopto: TBA
DEI Minute: tinyurl.com/cspac-dei-minuteTIME Friday, February 28, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
LOCATION 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library) map it
CONTACT Wynante R Charles wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)
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Mar3
EVENT DETAILS
Monday / CS Seminar
January 13th / 12:00 PM
Hybrid / Mudd 3514Speaker
TBATalk Title
TBAAbstract
TBABiography
TBAResearch/Interest Areas
TBA
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Zoom: TBA
Panopto: TBA
DEI Minute: tinyurl.com/cspac-dei-minuteTIME Monday, March 3, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
LOCATION 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library) map it
CONTACT Wynante R Charles wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)
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Mar5
EVENT DETAILS
Monday / CS Seminar
January 13th / 12:00 PM
Hybrid / Mudd 3514Speaker
TBATalk Title
TBAAbstract
TBABiography
TBAResearch/Interest Areas
TBA
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Zoom: TBA
Panopto: TBA
DEI Minute: tinyurl.com/cspac-dei-minuteTIME Wednesday, March 5, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
LOCATION 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library) map it
CONTACT Wynante R Charles wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)
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Mar7
EVENT DETAILS
Monday / CS Seminar
January 13th / 12:00 PM
Hybrid / Mudd 3514Speaker
TBATalk Title
TBAAbstract
TBABiography
TBAResearch/Interest Areas
TBA
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Zoom: TBA
Panopto: TBA
DEI Minute: tinyurl.com/cspac-dei-minuteTIME Friday, March 7, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
LOCATION 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library) map it
CONTACT Wynante R Charles wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)
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Mar10
EVENT DETAILS
Monday / CS Seminar
January 13th / 12:00 PM
Hybrid / Mudd 3514Speaker
TBATalk Title
TBAAbstract
TBABiography
TBAResearch/Interest Areas
TBA
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Zoom: TBA
Panopto: TBA
DEI Minute: tinyurl.com/cspac-dei-minuteTIME Monday, March 10, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
LOCATION 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library) map it
CONTACT Wynante R Charles wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)
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Mar12
EVENT DETAILS
Monday / CS Seminar
January 13th / 12:00 PM
Hybrid / Mudd 3514Speaker
TBATalk Title
TBAAbstract
TBABiography
TBAResearch/Interest Areas
TBA
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Zoom: TBA
Panopto: TBA
DEI Minute: tinyurl.com/cspac-dei-minuteTIME Wednesday, March 12, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
LOCATION 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library) map it
CONTACT Wynante R Charles wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)
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Mar14
EVENT DETAILS
Monday / CS Seminar
January 13th / 12:00 PM
Hybrid / Mudd 3514Speaker
TBATalk Title
TBAAbstract
TBABiography
TBAResearch/Interest Areas
TBA
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Zoom: TBA
Panopto: TBA
DEI Minute: tinyurl.com/cspac-dei-minuteTIME Friday, March 14, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
LOCATION 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library) map it
CONTACT Wynante R Charles wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)
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Mar17
EVENT DETAILS
Winter exams begin
TIME Monday, March 17, 2025
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
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Mar22
EVENT DETAILS
Spring Break Begins
TIME Saturday, March 22, 2025
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar