CS Seminars

Abstract: In recent decades, software engineering education has faced increasing demands, requiring scalability beyond the basic "CS 1" level. We need scalable approaches to teach both intermediate and advanced software engineering topics, as well as the technical and nontechnical group skills necessary for complex software projects. Additionally, academia has shown renewed interest in mastery learning: providing students with flexible pacing and deadlines and ample practice opportunities to achieve any desired level of expertise. This talk reviews recent and ongoing work in these areas, highlighting how the same educational technology that facilitates creative pedagogy also supports mastery learning, even within the constraints of traditional higher education courses. (Thanks to ChatGPT for its help shortening this abstract.)

Biography: Armando Fox (he/él/il/lui) is a Professor of Computer Science, Faculty Advisor for Digital Learning Strategy, Campus Equity Advisor, and Computer Science Diversity Officer at UC Berkeley. With his colleague David Patterson, he co-designed and co-taught Berkeley’s first Massive Open Online Course on “Engineering Software as a Service”, offered through edX, and co-authored the award-winning accompanying textbook of the same name; this work was recognized in 2015 by the ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award. His current research in CS education focuses on creating novel technologies to help both traditional and nontraditional learners master advanced programming concepts at scale.

Abstract: The use of AI in improving medical decision making is one of the most promising avenues for impact. However, turning these ideas into commonly used tools has been significantly harder and slower than predicted. My research has focused on closing fundamental technical gaps related to the development and robust translation of AI-based medical tools from messy, multi-modal observational datasets. My industry experience has given me a first hand view into hurdles that must be tackled for scaling these solutions in the real-world. In 2022, we published 3 manuscripts, featured on the cover of Nature Medicine, that shared results from one of the largest real-world evaluations of a medical AI tool to date. These studies were also the first to show the impact of AI on saving lives. Based on these results, we achieved FDA Breakthrough status. This talk will give an overview on what it takes to go from an idea to a bedside tool. Along the way, I’ll give pointers to new technical ideas and open research problems in AI safety, human-machine teaming, and modeling multi-modal temporal data.

Biography: Suchi Saria, PhD, holds the John C. Malone endowed chair and is an associate professor of computer science, statistics, and medicine at Johns Hopkins. She is also is the Founder of Bayesian Health, a leading health AI platform company spun out of her university research. Her methods work has focused on solving challenges in ensuring safe real-world translation of AI in high-stakes applications, multi-modal time series modeling, and causal and counterfactual reasoning for time series data. Her applied research has built on these technical advances to develop novel next generation diagnostic and treatment planning tools that use AI/statistical learning methods to individualize care. Her work has been funded by leading organizations including the NSF, DARPA, FDA, NIH and CDC and featured by the Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazine, Bloomberg News, Wall Street Journal, and PBS NOVA to name a few. She has won several awards for excellence in AI and care delivery. For example, for her academic work, she’s been recognized as IEEE’s “AI’s 10 to Watch”, Sloan Fellow, MIT Tech Review’s “35 Under 35”, National Academy of Medicine’s list of “Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine”, and DARPA’s Rising Star awardee. For her work in industry bringing AI to healthcare, she’s been recognized as World Economic Forum’s 100 Brilliant Minds Under 40, Rock Health’s “Top 50 in Digital Health”, Modern Healthcare’s Top 25 Innovators, The Armstrong Award for Excellence in Quality and Safety. Her family is from Darjeeling and she loves good tea. Before things got too busy, she did triathlons, drew, and danced. Now she spends her limited free time with her family and traveling going to destinations where she can bike, taste wine, or kitesurf.

Abstract: In this talk, I will share two qualitative analyses focused on community perspectives of technological innovations designed for their safety. The first project is a photo elicitation study, in which we interviewed people about their perceptions of and attitudes toward security robots. We learned about what people expect these robots can do, how they would want them to be used, and fears about potential risks and consequences of their use. In the second project, we developed a location-based app to facilitate layperson response to opioid overdoses. In a yearlong field trial within one Philadelphia neighborhood, 112 participants signaled over 200 suspected overdoses, and administered the overdose reversal drug naloxone 74 times. Qualitative findings indicate that a lack of trust in professional response services, and experiences of marginalization, fueled participation in a community-based effort to help one another. Moreover, shared experiences of loss and trauma around the opioid crisis motivated app use that was markedly prosocial. Across both of these projects, I discuss the role of technologies in helping people feel safe in their communities, and critical ways in which community input can shape how we design and deploy them.

Biography: Gabriela Marcu is an Assistant Professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on designing and evaluating use of systems for health and wellbeing, especially among marginalized populations. She works to understand uses and impacts of technology through qualitative methods, participatory design, community-based approaches, and deployment studies. She also champions undergraduate research, and has been the recipient of undergraduate research mentoring awards from the National Center for Women and IT, and the Council on Undergraduate Research. She holds a Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University, and a B.S. in Informatics from the University of California, Irvine.

CS Department Events

CSPAC Tuesday Student Seminars

CSPAC is launching a student seminar series within the CS department. It will run on Tuesdays (12-1pm in 3514 with lunch, like the other seminars).  The first talk is this upcoming Tuesday, September 26th, featuring Maryam Hedayati!

The goal is to showcase student research in the department, and to give students an opportunity to give broad audience talks. You can find an overview of the format and goals here.

If you are a PhD student and you are interested in presenting, please reach out to (Vaidehi Srinivas, vaidehi@u.northwestern.edu) directly, and we can schedule a week that works for you.  A tentative schedule can be found here.

While the presenters will be PhD students, everyone in the CS department community (faculty, postdocs, students of all levels, etc.) are invited to attend!

What is CSPAC?

We are the CS PhD Advisory Council.  We are a PhD student-led organization, and our mandate is to interface between PhD students and faculty on academic issues.  Some examples of what we do include: identifying issues in the PhD program and providing input to faculty, and organizing events like the CS Open House and this student seminar series.  (Not to be confused with CSSI– the CS Social Initiative, another student-led organization that organizes social events for the department.)

We want to advocate for PhD students in the department, so if there is some way we can support you, please come talk to us.  We welcome PhD students to our weekly meetings on Tuesdays, 5-5:30pm, Mudd 3501 and/or zoom.  We also welcome anonymous concerns/feedback at any time via this form.  Anyone in the community can reach us at cspac@u.northwestern.edu.

TGIT Bagels

UG Research Showcase

Women’s Quantum Programming Workshop

Other Events & Opportunities

Student Seminar Series on Recent Quantum Advances

The Student Seminar Series on Recent Quantum Advances invite speakers from quantum research groups at Purdue University to explain the basic concepts and experimental platforms of their research fields, and also discuss their groups' research projects including recent progress.
Speaker: Carin Gavin

Unbound: Latinx/e Multimedia Club | MSA

This time around we are so excited to announce we'll be focusing on *Latinx photography* by looking at the virtual exhibition, "You Belong Here" curated by Pilar Tompkins Rivas.

You can view the virtual exhibition here prior to the discussion on Oct 11th.

In addition, the first ten students to both RSVP and attend the discussion will receive a gorgeous copy of Latinx Aperture 245 magazine that inspired the exhibition, which we will be also be exploring and discussing. Make sure to RSVP by Sept 29th.

The Land We Learn On: Refusing Invisibility & Erasure of Indigenous Communities Led by Aaron Golding and Jasmine Gurneau

CS News

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