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2018-10-24 17:15:00
2018-10-24 18:15:00
America/New_York
Hot Topics in Computing - Challenges and Opportunities for Self-Driving Cars
We will describe some of the challenges and opportunities in autonomyresearch today, with a focus on trends and lessons in self-drivingcar research. We will discuss some of the major challenges and research opportunities in self-driving, including building and maintaininghigh-resolution maps, interacting with humans both inside and outsideof vehicles, dealing with adverse weather, and achieving sufficientlyhigh detection with low probabilities of false alarms in challengingsettings. We will discuss the promise of Deep Learning and theopportunities of developing Parallel Autonomy systems, in which highlyautomated algorithms operates in parallel with human operators, withthe aim of achieving the best of both human and autonomous control.John J. Leonard is Samuel C. Collins Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering in the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering. He is also a member of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). His research addresses the problems of navigation and mapping for autonomous mobile robots. He holds the degrees of B.S.E.E. in Electrical Engineering and Science from the University of Pennsylvania (1987) and D.Phil. in Engineering Science from the University of Oxford (1994). He is an IEEE Fellow (2014). Professor Leonard is currently on sabbatical leave from MIT serving as Vice President for Autonomous Driving Research at Toyota Research Institute, where he is performing research to improve vehicle safety using autonomous driving technologies.
32-G449/Patil Conference Room
October 24
April 24
CyberWork and the American Dream
Elizabeth Cobbs and Jim Shelley
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2019-04-24 16:30:00
2019-04-24 18:00:00
America/New_York
CyberWork and the American Dream
In "CyberWork and the American Dream", a new 56-minute documentary, a look at the past gives hope for the future: Throughout history, new technology has always caused problems in labor markets, and humanity always finds innovative ways to persevere. Join Elizabeth Cobb, writer, and Jim Shelley, director of the documentary for a screening and discussion on A.I. and the future of work moderated by Daniela Rus.Light refreshments will be served by 4:15pm, and the program starts at 4:30.
32-G449
October 02
Saving Spaceship Earth
Dava Newman
AeroAstro / MIT
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2019-10-02 16:30:00
2019-10-02 17:30:00
America/New_York
Saving Spaceship Earth
Light refreshments will be served at 4:00pm, talk begins at 4:30pm.Abstract:From solar electric propulsion to cutting edge life support systems, advanced space suit design, to the first crops grown in space, the journey to Mars is already unfolding in tangible ways today for tomorrow. However, Mars is not ‘Plan B’. Spaceship Earth, our pale blue dot, is the most magnificent planet to inhabit. Professor Dava Newman, former Deputy Administrator of NASA, MIT Apollo Professor of Astronautics at MIT, and an expert in space technology and policy, offers an orbital view of planet Earth’s interconnected systems through supercomputer data visualizations and stories to demonstrate risks, actions and solutions.Biography: Dr. Dava Newman is the Apollo Program Professor of Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Aeronautics and Astronautics and a Harvard–MIT Health, Sciences, and Technology faculty member. She is a MacVicar Faculty Fellow for excellence and outstanding contributions to undergraduate education. She is the MIT Director of the MIT Portugal Program (MPP2030). Her research expertise is in multidisciplinary aerospace biomedical engineering investigating human performance across the spectrum of gravity. She is a leader in advanced space suit design, dynamics and control of astronaut motion, leadership development, innovation and space policy. Newman was the principal investigator on 4 spaceflight missions. The Space Shuttle Dynamic Load Sensors (DLS) experiment measured astronaut-induced disturbances of the microgravity environment on mission STS-62. An advanced system, the Enhanced Dynamic Load Sensors experiment, flew on board the Russian Mir Space Station from 1996–1998. Dr. Newman was a Co-Investigator on the Mental Workload and Performance Experiment (MWPE) that flew to space on STS-42 to measure astronaut mental workload and fine motor control in microgravity. She also developed the MICR0-G space flight experiment to provide a novel smart sensor suite and study human adaptation in extreme environments. She is the MIT PI on the Gravity Loading Countermeasure Suit, or Skinsuit, onboard the International Space Station as an ESA technology demonstration 2015-2017. Best known for her second skin BioSuit™ planetary EVA system, her advanced spacesuits inventions are now being applied to “soft suits/exoskeletons” to study and enhance locomotion on Earth. Recently, she co-founded EarthDNA with partner Guillermo Trotti to accelerate solutions for spaceship Earth’s Ocean, Land and Air subsystems by curating near-space satellite data to make the world work for 100% of humanity. Newman is the author of Interactive Aerospace Engineering and Design, and has published more than 250 papers in journals and refereed conferences, and holds numerous compression technology patents. She has supervised 90 graduate student theses and supervised and mentored over 200 undergraduate researchers.She served as NASA Deputy Administrator from 2015–2017, and along with the NASA Administrator was responsible for articulating the agency's vision, providing leadership and policy direction, and representing NASA to the White House, Congress, international space agencies, and industry. Dr. Newman was the first female engineer and scientist to serve in this role and was awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. She championed the human journey to Mars, technology and innovation, and education. Recent honors include: Lowell Thomas Award, Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, AIAA Fellow, AIAA Jeffries Aerospace Medicine and Life Sciences Research Award, and Women in Aerospace Leadership Award.
Patil Seminar Room 32-G449
February 06
Private Event
HotTopics: Quantum Computational Supremacy and Its Applications
Prof. Scott Aaronson
The University of Texas at Austin
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2020-02-06 16:00:00
2020-02-06 17:00:00
America/New_York
HotTopics: Quantum Computational Supremacy and Its Applications
Abstract:This fall, a team at Google announced the first-ever demonstration of "quantum computational supremacy"---that is, a clear quantum speedup over a classical computer for some task---using a 53-qubit programmable superconducting chip called Sycamore. In addition to the engineering accomplishment, Google's experiment built on a decade of research in quantum complexity theory, some of which we did at MIT with students including Alex Arkhipov and Lijie Chen. This talk will discuss questions like: what exactly was the contrived problem that Google solved? How does one verify the outputs using a classical computer? And how confident are we that the problem is classically hard---especially in light of subsequent counterclaims by IBM? I'll end with a proposed application for Google's experiment---namely, the generation of certified random bits, for use (for example) in proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies---that I've been developing and that Google is now working to demonstrate.Bio: Scott Aaronson is David J. Bruton Centennial Professor of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his bachelor's from Cornell University and his PhD from UC Berkeley. Before coming to UT Austin, he spent nine years as a professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. Aaronson's research in theoretical computer science has focused mainly on the capabilities and limits of quantum computers. His first book, Quantum Computing Since Democritus, was published in 2013 by Cambridge University Press. He received the National Science Foundation’s Alan T. Waterman Award, the United States PECASE Award, the Vannevar Bush Fellowship, the Tomassoni-Chisesi Prize in Physics, and MIT's Junior Bose Award for Excellence in Teaching.Light refreshments will be served at 3:45pm
Patil/Kiva Seminar room
March 04
Cancelled
Hot Topics: deep fakes
This event has been cancelled
March 11
Cancelled
Hot Topics-Ron Rivest: Election Integrity
This event has been cancelled
March 20
Private Event
Coronaviruses and COVID-19: The basic biology behind the epidemic
Michael Z. Lin
Stanford University
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2020-03-20 14:00:00
2020-03-20 15:00:00
America/New_York
Coronaviruses and COVID-19: The basic biology behind the epidemic
Virtual talk via Zoom: https://mit.zoom.us/j/443735780 One tap mobile +16465588656,,443735780# US (New York)+16699006833,,443735780# US (San Jose)Dial US : +1 646 558 8656 or +1 669 900 6833Meeting ID: 443 735 780International Numbers: https://mit.zoom.us/u/aiS2rJKBOabstract: Dr. Lin will describe the basic biology of coronaviruses and the disease COVID-19, projections for the current epidemic, and review medications currently in clinical trials.bio: Michael Lin is Associate Professor of Neurobiology, Bioengineering, and Chemical and Systems Biology at Stanford University. The Lin lab applies biochemical and engineering principles to the development of protein-based tools for investigating biology in living animals. Topics of investigation include fluorescent protein-based voltage indicators, synthetic light-controllable proteins, bioluminescent reporters, and applications to studying animal models of disease.Michael Lin received an A.B. summa cum laude in Biochemistry from Harvard in 1994, a PhD in Biological and Biomedical Sciences from Harvard Medical School in 2002, and a MD degree from UCLA in 2004. Dr. Lin then received postdoctoral training with Chemistry Nobel Laureate Roger Y. Tsien at UCSD. Dr. Lin was appointed Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Bioengineering at Stanford in 2009, and Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Bioengineering in 2015. At Stanford, Dr. Lin leads a research group developing protein-based tools for imaging and controlling biological processes. Among these are methods adapting antiviral drugs and viral proteases to control protein stability and contruct synthetic signaling circuits. Dr. Lin is a recipient of a Burroughs Wellcome Career Award for Medical Scientists, a Rita Allen Scholar Award, a Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Award, the NIH Pioneer Award, and the World Molecular Imaging Society Roger Y. Tsien Award.
March 24
Private Event
An Invitation to Computational Epidemiology
Ankur Moitra and Elchanan Mossel
CSAIL MIT
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2020-03-24 14:00:00
2020-03-24 15:00:00
America/New_York
An Invitation to Computational Epidemiology
Join Zoom: https://mit.zoom.us/j/475800555One tap mobile +16465588656,,475800555# US (New York)Meeting ID: 475 800 555Abstract:Many researchers, us included, have been interested in the mathematical, statistical and computational problems in epidemiology. However with the outbreak of COVID-19, these problems have taken on a completely different level of urgency. In this talk we will introduce some of the basic problems in computational epidemiology, and will open up the discussion to ways that computational thinking can contribute.Bios:Ankur Moitra is an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics at MIT and a member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL). Prior to that, he was an NSF CI Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, and also a senior postdoc in the computer science department at Princeton University. He completed his PhD and MS at MIT in 2011 and 2009 respectively, where he was advised by Tom Leighton and was supported by a Fannie and John Hertz Foundation Fellowship. He received a George M. Sprowls Award (best thesis) and a William A. Martin Award (best thesis) for his doctoral and master's dissertations. He has worked in numerous areas of algorithms, including approximation algorithms, metric embeddings, combinatorics and smoothed analysis, but lately has been working at the intersection of algorithms and machine learning.Elchanan Mossel works in probability, combinatorics and inference. His interests include combinatorial statistics, discrete Fourier analysis, randomized algorithms, computational complexity, Markov random fields, social choice, game theory, evolution and the mathematical foundations of deep learning. His research in discrete function inequalities, isoperimetry and hypercontractiviting led to the proof that Majority is Stablest and confirmed that optimality of the Goemans-Williamson MAX-CUT algorithm under the unique games conjecture from computational complexity. His research has resolved open problems in computational biology, machine learning, social choice theory and economics. Elchanan Mossel received the B.Sc. from The Open University in Israel in 1992. He received both the M.Sc. (1997) and Ph.D. (2000) degrees in mathematics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the Microsoft Research Theory Group and a Miller Fellow at U.C. Berkeley. He joined the U.C. Berkeley faculty in 2003 where he was a professor of statistics and computer science. Prof Mossel is on the senior faculty of the Mathematics Department, with a jointly core faculty appointment at the Statistics and Data Science Center of MIT’s Institute for Data, Systems and Society (IDSS).
March 26
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2020-03-26 14:00:00
2020-03-26 15:00:00
America/New_York
Pandemic Updates and Recommended Actions
Join Zoom Meeting: https://mit.zoom.us/j/326183751One tap mobile:+16465588656,,326183751# US (New York)+16699006833,,326183751# US (San Jose)Meeting ID: 326 183 751US : +1 646 558 8656 or +1 669 900 6833Abstract: NECSI relative to COVID-19: https://necsi.edu/corona-virus-pandemichttps://www.endcoronavirus.orgBio:Prof. Yaneer Bar-Yam received his SB and PhD in physics from MIT in 1978 and 1984 respectively. Since the late 1980s he has contributed to founding the field of complex systems science, introducing fundamental mathematical rigor, real world application, and educational programs for new concepts and insights of this field. In developing new mathematical methods and in their application he has published on a wide range of scientific and real world problems ranging from cell biology to the global financial crisis.He has advised the Chairman’s Action Group at the Pentagon about global social unrest and the crises in Egypt and Syria, the National Security Council and the National Counter Terrorism Council on global strategy, the Chief of Naval Operations Strategic Studies Group about military force transformation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about delivery of prevention services and control of hospital infections, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Congressman Barney Frank about market regulation and the financial crisis, and other government organizations, NGOs, and corporations on using principles and insights from complex systems science.His development of multiscale representations as a generalization of renormalization group addressed the limitations of calculus and statistics in the study of nonlinear and network system dependencies in collective behaviors. His recent work quantitatively analyzes the origins and impacts of market crashes, social unrest, ethnic violence, military conflict and pandemics, the structure and dynamics of social networks, as well as the bases of creativity, panic, evolution and altruism. He is the author of over 200 research papers in professional journals, including Science, Nature, PNAS, American Naturalist, and Physical Review Letters, has 3 patents, and has given 175 invited presentations. His work on the causes of the global food crisis was cited among the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2011 by Wired magazine.He is the author of two books: a textbook Dynamics of Complex Systems, and Making Things Work, which applies complex systems science to solving problems in healthcare, education, systems engineering, international development, and ethnic conflict. He has taught the concepts and methods of complex systems science to over 2,000 graduate students, professionals and executives. He has been a Visiting Scholar at Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. He is currently Research Scientist at the MIT Media Laboratory.He chaired the International Conference on Complex Systems (ICCS) and is the managing editor of a Springer book series on complexity. His work has been described in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, Die Zeit, Le Monde, Time, The Atlantic Monthly, Scientific American, Wired, Fast Company, Forbes, Slate, Mother Jones, and Vice, among others. He has appeared on ABC News, Canada’s CTV, RT, BBC Radio, NPR Radio, and other national media outlets. His scientific visualizations received recognition as “best of” from Wired in 2011 and 2013, and from Motherboard in 2013.
March 31
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2020-03-31 14:00:00
2020-03-31 15:00:00
America/New_York
Effectiveness of social distancing strategies
Join Zoom Meeting https://mit.zoom.us/j/795615592One tap mobile +16465588656,,795615592# US (New York)+16699006833,,795615592# US (San Jose)Meeting ID: 795 615 592US : +1 646 558 8656 or +1 669 900 6833International Numbers: https://mit.zoom.us/u/aiS2rJKBOAbstract: The current situation of emergency is global. As of March 22nd 2020, there are more than 23 countries with more than 1.000 infected cases by COVID-19, in the exponential growth phase of the disease. Furthermore, there are different mitigation and suppression strategies in place worldwide, but many of them are based on enforcing, to a more or less extent, the so-called social distancing. The impact and outcomes of the adopted measures are yet to be contrasted and quantified. Therefore, realistic modeling approaches could provide important clues about what to expect and what could be the best course of actions. Such modeling efforts could potentially save thousands, if not millions of lives. Our report contains preliminary results that aim at answering the following questions in relation to the spread and control of the COVID-19 pandemic:- What is the expected impact of current social distancing strategies?- How long should such measures need to be in place?- How many people will be infected and at which social level?- How do R(t) and the epidemic dynamic change based on the adopted strategies?- What is the probability of having a second outbreak, i.e., a reemergence?- If there is a reemergence, how much time do we have to get ready?- What is the best strategy to minimize the current epidemic and get ready for a second wave?Key findings:-School closures do not have a major impact on controlling the epidemic, despite closing them, infections keep occurring within the households and the community layers.-Passive social distance strategies are not enough to contain the epidemic, indicating that active strategies need to be established. For instance, large scale testing, remote symptoms monitoring, isolation and contact tracing.-School closures and self-distancing at 90% of adoption is a feasible strategy for minimizing the effects of the epidemic, but only if they are applied for a long period of time.-A full confinement is not feasible and will not solve the problem, without active measures in place after the confinement, since there would be a new outbreak.-If high resolution mobility data is available, our data-driven approach with real world data can be easily replicated for new cities or countries to measure the impact of social distance strategies and the epidemic.Bios: Esteban Moro is a researcher, data scientist and professor at MIT IDSS (visiting) and Universidad Carlos III (UC3M) in Spain (tenured). He was previously researcher at University of Oxford. He is affiliate faculty at Joint Institute UC3M-Santander on Big Data at UC3M and the Joint Institute of Mathematical Sciences (Spain). He has published extensively throughout his career (more than 80 articles) and have led many projects funded by government agencies and/or private companies.Esteban's work lies in the intersection of big data and computational social science, with special attention to human dynamics, collective intelligence, social networks and urban mobility in problems like viral marketing, natural disaster management, or economical segregation in cities. Apart from his academic career he has worked closely with companies like Twitter, Telefónica or BBVA in the use of massive datasets to understand problems like how humans communicate, how to political opinion spreads in social networks or building alternative wellbeing indexes. He has received numerous awards for his research, including the “Shared University Award” from IBM in 2007 for his research in modeling viral marketing in social networks and the “Excellence in Research” Awards in 2013 and 2015 from UC3M.Esteban's work appeared in major journals including PNAS or Science Advances and is regularly covered by media outlets The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, El País (Spain).Professor Alex 'Sandy' Pentland directs MIT Connection Science, an MIT-wide initiative housed within IDSS, helped create and direct the MIT Media Lab, and has an h-index of 137. He is on the Board of the UN Foundations' Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, co-led the World Economic Forum discussion in Davos that led to the EU privacy regulation GDPR, and was central in forging the transparency and accountability mechanisms in the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. His recent books are Trusted Data (MIT Press), Social Physics (Penguin), and Honest Signals (MIT Press).
April 07
Private Event
Telehealth and Coronavirus: impact on each other and opportunity to surmount Machiavellian forces
Amar Gupta
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2020-04-07 14:00:00
2020-04-07 15:00:00
America/New_York
Telehealth and Coronavirus: impact on each other and opportunity to surmount Machiavellian forces
Join Zoom Meeting:
https://mit.zoom.us/j/277582146
One tap mobile:
+16465588656,,277582146# (New York) or
+16699006833,,277582146# (San Jose)
Abstract:Healthcare is increasingly adopting a three pronged approach that involves: (i) personnel in proximity to the patient; (ii) domain experts who may be located in another city, state, or country; and (iii) computer-based analytics and other IT-based processes. Prudent application of such approaches can offer better quality of healthcare, faster access to proper attention and advice, and lower costs too. In the context of the evolving telehealth ecosystem, the discussion will include coverage of the aspects of knowledge acquisition, knowledge discovery, knowledge management, and knowledge dissemination, with greater focus on interoperability and its critical role in the use of telehealth in pandemic and other situations. In the US, 911 led to a major reform of the banking industry and the immediate adoption of automated processes for reading and processing of bank checks. Can coronavirus lead to a similar change in the healthcare industry and catalyze the widespread adoption of telehealth practices? What is the role of computer science departments and other departments at universities and what are the critical success factors to attain a better world? Examples of successful and unsuccessful strategies from US (Massachusetts, New York, Arizona, and California) and foreign countries will be used.Bio:Dr. Amar Gupta has spent most of his career fostering innovative technologies and processes, and then helping with their deployment on a global basis. He worked earlier at MIT as Principal Research Scientist and Senior Research Scientist. Then he moved from Boston to serve as Endowed and Tenured Professor at two universities. At the first university, he held several concurrent appointments including Professor of Computer Science, Professor of Public Health, and Professor of Law. At the second one, he served concurrently as Dean of Computer Science and Information Systems. In 2015, he rejoined MIT initially as Visiting Professor. Dr. Gupta was a founding Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Internet Technology and an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics. He has published over 70 papers with the largest subset in CS journals. Dr. Gupta has served as Advisor to World Health Organization and other leading international and national organizations, as well as major corporations. At MIT, he developed and taught the course Telehealth and Telemedicine for Global Health; it was co-listed as 6.884 in Spring of 2018 and its details are available at the MIT Stellar site. More details about Dr. Gupta and his activities are available at: news.mit.edu/2018/removing-health-care-barriers-and-boundaries-amar-gupta-telemedicine-0522
April 14
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2020-04-14 14:00:00
2020-04-14 15:00:00
America/New_York
Using Computing to Address the Social Impacts of COVID19
Join Zoom Meeting: https://mit.zoom.us/j/627564542One tap mobile:+16465588656,,627564542# US (New York)+16699006833,,627564542# US (San Jose)Meeting ID: 627 564 542US : +1 646 558 8656 or +1 669 900 6833International Numbers: https://mit.zoom.us/u/abFplvAXhzAbstract:It is clear that social distancing is critical to blunt the impact of the COVID19 pandemic but we also know that the sooner we can return to safely congregating the better. The choice between saving lives and saving livelihoods is false. Using modern computing methods, it is possible to develop both pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical strategies to suppress the virus, to protect frontline workers in hospitals and in grocery stores; to find smarter ways to allocate and distribute supplies, equipment and other critical resources. This talk is a call to innovators to put as much data and computing power on these challenges as we can, now. I’ll discuss opportunities for addressing the societal challenges wrought by COVID-19, and possibilities for joining ongoing collaborations of researchers across MIT.Bio:Julie Shah is an Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT and director of the Interactive Robotics Group in CSAIL. She currently serves as an associate dean of social and ethical responsibilities of computing in the Schwarzman College of Computing. Her work aims to imagine the future of work by designing collaborative robot teammates that enhance human capability. She is expanding the use of human cognitive models for artificial intelligence and has translated her work to manufacturing assembly lines, healthcare applications, transportation and defense. Before joining the faculty, she worked at Boeing Research and Technology on robotics applications for aerospace manufacturing. Prof. Shah has been recognized by the National Science Foundation with a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award and by MIT Technology Review on its 35 Innovators Under 35 list. Her work on industrial human-robot collaboration was also in Technology Review’s 2013 list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies. She has received international recognition in the form of best paper awards and nominations from the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, the International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling, and the International Symposium on Robotics. She earned degrees in aeronautics and astronautics and in autonomous systems from MIT.
May 05
Private Event
Targeted Risk Analytics to Fight the COVID-19 Outbreak
Retsef Levi
MIT Sloan School of Management
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2020-05-05 14:00:00
2020-05-05 15:00:00
America/New_York
Targeted Risk Analytics to Fight the COVID-19 Outbreak
Join Zoom Meeting : https://mit.zoom.us/j/99983207590 One tap mobile:+16465588656,,99983207590# US (New York)+16699006833,,99983207590# US (San Jose)Meeting ID: 999 8320 7590US : +1 646 558 8656 or +1 669 900 6833Abstract: In this talk we will describe several important risk-analytics challenges that are critical to be able to effectively fight the COVID-19 virus without complete shut-down of the economy. The talk is partially based on work done by a large team of MIT faculty and students during the last several months.Bio:Retsef Levi is the J. Spencer Standish (1945) Professor of Operations Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is a member of the Operations Management Group at MIT Sloan and affiliated with the MIT Operations Research Center. Levi also serves as the Faculty Co-Director of the MIT Leaders for Global Operations (LGO). Levi teaches regularly courses on operations management, analytics, risk management, system thinking and healthcare to students from various degree and non-degree programs including MBA, Executive MBA, PhD, Master and Undergraduate students as well as Executive Education programs. His Healthcare Lab course attracts students from across the MIT campus and engages major industry partners and leaders. Levi has graduated 10 PhD students, 34 Master students and 6 postdoctoral fellows. He was also awarded several prestigious teaching awards.Before coming to MIT, he spent a year in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center as the holder of the Goldstine Postdoctoral Fellowship. He received a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Tel-Aviv University (Israel) in 2001, and a PhD in Operations Research from Cornell University in 2005. Levi spent almost 12 years in the Israeli Defense Forces as an officer in the Intelligence Wing and was designated as an Extra Merit Officer. After leaving the Military, Levi joined an emerging new Israeli hi-tech company as a Business Development Consultant. Levi's current research is focused on the design of analytical data-driven decision support models and tools addressing complex business and system design decisions under uncertainty in areas such as health and healthcare management, supply chain, procurement and inventory management, revenue management, pricing optimization and logistics. He is interested in the theory underlying these models and algorithms, as well as their computational and organizational applicability in practical settings. Levi has been leading several industry-based collaborative research efforts with some of the major academic hospitals in the Boston area, such as Mass General Hospital (MGH), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), Children’s Hospital, and across the U.S. (e.g., Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, NYC Presbyterian Hospital System and the American Association of Medical Colleges). Levi was the PI on an MIT contract with the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) to develop systematic risk management approach to address risk related to economically motivated adulterations of food manufactured in global supply chains. With a multi-million award from the Walmart Foundation, Levi currently leads a multi-year U.S.-China collaborative effort to develop new predictive risk analytics tools and testing technologies and platforms to address core food safety challenges in China. Levi has also been involved in developing operational risk and process safety management methodologies for various organizations in the healthcare, pharmaceutical and oil industries. Levi received the NSF Faculty Early Career Development award, the 2008 INFORMS Optimization Prize for Young Researchers, the 2013 Daniel H. Wagner Prize and the 2016 Harold W. Kuhn Award.
May 14
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2020-05-14 12:30:00
2020-05-14 13:30:00
America/New_York
A Conversation with Microsoft President Brad Smith
Registration required: https://mit.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_AY8FDgMKTsi4kLhkSE6aJwMicrosoft President Brad Smith believes that when technology changes the world, the company that created it bears a responsibility to help address the world they played a part in creating. Tech companies and governments must work together to address the challenges and adapt to the changes technology has unleashed. This includes addressing a wide range of challenges from digital security to efforts to address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.As part of the next Hot Topics in Computing, Dan Huttenlocher, dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, will welcome Brad Smith for a [virtual] conversation with Daniela Rus, deputy dean of research for the Schwarzman College of Computing and director of CSAIL, to address some of the greatest issues faced by industry and society today. Bio:Brad Smith is the president of Microsoft, where he leads a team of more than 1,400 business, legal and corporate affairs professionals in 56 countries. He serves as the company’s chief legal officer and leads work on a wide range of issues involving the intersection between technology and society, including cybersecurity, privacy, ethics and artificial intelligence, human rights, immigration, philanthropy and environmental sustainability. Described by the New York Times as “a de facto ambassador for the technology industry at large,” Smith has testified numerous times before the U.S. Congress and other governments on key policy issues.
May 19
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2020-05-19 15:00:00
2020-05-19 16:00:00
America/New_York
Panel discussion of contact tracing activities at MIT
Topic: Hot Topics in Computing: panel discussion on contact tracing activities at MITPanelists include: Ramesh Raskar; Ron Rivest; Julie Shah; Daniel Weitzner; moderated by Daniela RusTime: May 19, 2020 03:00 PM Eastern TimeJoin Zoom Meeting: https://mit.zoom.us/j/96637601635One tap mobile:+16465588656,,96637601635# US (New York)+16699006833,,96637601635# US (San Jose)Meeting ID: 966 3760 1635US : +1 646 558 8656 or +1 669 900 6833links to panelist bios:Ramesh Raskar: https://www.media.mit.edu/people/raskar/overview/Ron Rivest: http://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/Julie Shah: https://www.csail.mit.edu/person/julie-shahDaniel Weitzner: https://internetpolicy.mit.edu/daniel-weitzner/
virtual via Zoom
June 09
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2020-06-09 14:00:00
2020-06-09 15:00:00
America/New_York
A Multi-Risk SIR Model with Optimally Targeted Lockdown
Zoom accessible to MIT community members with Touchstone authentication: https://mit.zoom.us/j/97293316637Abstract:We develop a multi-risk SIR model (MR-SIR) where infection, hospitalization and fatality rates vary between groups—in particular between the “young”, “the middle aged” and the “old”. Our MR-SIR model enables a tractable quantitative analysis of optimal policy similar to those already developed in the context of the homogeneous agent SIR models. For baseline parameter values for the COVID-19 pandemic applied to the US, we find that optimal policies differentially targeting risk/age groups significantly outperform optimal uniform policies and most of the gains can be realized by having stricter lockdown policies on the oldest group. Intuitively, a strict and long lockdown for the most vulnerable group both reduces infections and enables less strict lockdowns for the lower-risk groups. We also study the impacts of social distancing, the matching technology, the expected arrival time of a vaccine, and testing with or without tracing on optimal policies. Overall, targeted policies that are combined with measures that reduce interactions between groups and increase testing and isolation of the infected can minimize both economic losses and deaths in our model.Bio:Daron Acemoglu an Institute Professor at MIT and an elected fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, the Turkish Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Econometric Society, the European Economic Association, and the Society of Labor Economists.He is the author of five books, including Why Nations Fail: Power, Prosperity, and Poverty and The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty (both with James A. Robinson). His academic work covers a wide range of areas, including political economy, economic development, economic growth, inequality, labor economics and economics of networks.Daron Acemoglu has received the inaugural T. W. Shultz Prize from the University of Chicago in 2004, and the inaugural Sherwin Rosen Award for outstanding contribution to labor economics in 2004, Distinguished Science Award from the Turkish Sciences Association in 2006, the John von Neumann Award, Rajk College, Budapest in 2007, the Carnegie Fellowship in 2017, the Jean-Jacques Laffont Prize in 2018, and the Global Economy Prize in 2019. He was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal in 2005, the Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in 2012, and the 2016 BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award. He holds Honorary Doctorates from the University of Utrecht, the Bosporus University, University of Athens, Bilkent University, the University of Bath, the Ecole Normale Superieure, Saclay Paris, and the London Business School.
September 23
Private Event
Harnessing Synthetic Biology and Deep Learning to Fight Pathogens
Prof. James Collins
MIT
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2020-09-23 14:00:00
2020-09-23 15:00:00
America/New_York
Harnessing Synthetic Biology and Deep Learning to Fight Pathogens
*This event is open to MIT members with Touchstone authentication.* Abstract:Synthetic biology is bringing together engineers, physicists and biologists to model, design and construct biological circuits out of proteins, genes and other bits of DNA, and to use these circuits to rewire and reprogram organisms. These re-engineered organisms are going to change our lives in the coming years, leading to cheaper drugs, rapid diagnostic tests, and synthetic probiotics to treat infections and a range of complex diseases. In this talk, we highlight recent efforts to harness synthetic gene networks, programmable cells and deep learning to create diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines for fighting pathogens, including SARS-CoV-2.Bio:Jim Collins is the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering & Science and Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT, as well as a Member of the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences & Technology Faculty. He is also a Core Founding Faculty member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, and an Institute Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He is one of the founders of the field of synthetic biology, and his research group is currently focused on using synthetic biology to create next-generation diagnostics and therapeutics. Professor Collins' patented technologies have been licensed by over 25 biotech, pharma and medical devices companies, and he has helped to launch a number of companies, including Synlogic and Sherlock Biosciences. He has received numerous awards and honors, including a Rhodes Scholarship and a MacArthur "Genius" Award, and he is an elected member of all three national academies - the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Medicine.Join Zoom Meeting: https://mit.zoom.us/j/96971590729One tap mobile:+16465588656,,96971590729# US (New York)+16699006833,,96971590729# US (San Jose)Meeting ID: 969 7159 0729US : +1 646 558 8656 or +1 669 900 6833International Numbers: https://mit.zoom.us/u/abtMLD5Md0
October 08
Private Event
Computer vision: who is harmed and who benefits?
Timnit Gebru
Google, Ethical Artificial Intelligence
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2020-10-08 16:00:00
2020-10-08 17:00:00
America/New_York
Computer vision: who is harmed and who benefits?
Abstract: Computer vision has ceased to be a purely academic endeavor. From law enforcement, to border control, to employment, healthcare diagnostics, and assigning trust scores, computer vision systems are being rapidly integrated into all aspects of society. In research, there are works that purport to determine a person’s sexuality from their social network profile images, others that claim to classify “violent individuals” from drone footage. These works were published in high impact journals, and some were presented at workshops in top tier computer vision conferences such as CVPR.A critical public discourse surrounding the use of computer-vision based technologies has also been mounting. For example, the use of facial recognition technologies by policing agencies has been heavily critiqued and, in response, companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, and IBM have pulled or paused their facial recognition software services. Gender Shades showed that commercial gender classification systems have high disparities in error rates by skin-type and gender, and other works discuss the harms caused by the mere existence of automatic gender recognition systems. Recent papers have also exposed shockingly racist and sexist labels in popular computer vision datasets--resulting in the removal of some. In this talk, I will highlight some of these issues and proposed solutions to mitigate bias, as well as how some of the proposed fixes could exacerbate the problem rather than mitigate it. Bio: Timnit Gebru is a senior research scientist at Google co-leading the Ethical Artificial Intelligence research team. Her work focuses on mitigating the potential negative impacts of machine learning based systems. Timnit is also the co-founder of Black in AI, a non profit supporting Black researchers and practitioners in artificial intelligence. Prior to this, she did a postdoc at Microsoft Research, New York City in the FATE (Fairness Transparency Accountability and Ethics in AI) group, where she studied algorithmic bias and the ethical implications underlying any data mining project. She received her Ph.D. from the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, studying computer vision under Fei-Fei Li. Prior to joining Fei-Fei's lab, she worked at Apple designing circuits and signal processing algorithms for various Apple products including the first iPad.Join Zoom Meeting: https://mit.zoom.us/j/96717285498?pwd=M1VpNXc3L0I5RjZXQ0xYMlF0Y0dvUT09Password: 420235One tap mobile+16465588656,,96717285498# US (New York)+16699006833,,96717285498# US (San Jose)Meeting ID: 967 1728 5498US : +1 646 558 8656 or +1 669 900 6833
October 20
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2020-10-20 15:00:00
2020-10-20 16:00:00
America/New_York
Healthy Elections
**this event is open to MIT community members with Touchstone authentication**Join Zoom Meeting: https://mit.zoom.us/j/93809827807One tap mobile+16465588656,,93809827807# US (New York)+16699006833,,93809827807# US (San Jose)Meeting ID: 938 0982 7807US : +1 646 558 8656 or +1 669 900 6833International Numbers: https://mit.zoom.us/u/abtKx9vje4
Will the 2020 Election Be Safe and Secure?
Prof. Charles Stewart
MIT
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2020-10-20 15:00:00
2020-10-20 16:00:00
America/New_York
Will the 2020 Election Be Safe and Secure?
Abstract: The 2020 presidential election is being conducted under the most trying conditions in perhaps the nation’s history. The course of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to insert uncertainty into all aspects of the election. The expansion of voting by mail represents an unprecedented acceleration of institutional change in election infrastructure. Political wrangling over mail balloting and charges of fraud threaten to undermine confidence in the electoral system and hinder a response that would optimize a response to the pandemic that would both respect election security and public health. Finally, concerns about cybersecurity that arose in the 2016 election continue, only less visibly. This talk will outline the national response to voting in the pandemic, review the degree to which progress has been made in ensuring that voting will proceed securely, safely, and with equal access, and explore vulnerabilities that remain.Bio: Charles Stewart III is the Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received his PhD in political science from Stanford in 1985, whereupon he joined the MIT faculty as an assistant professor. His research and teaching have centered on American politics. His many books and other academic publications have touched on legislative politics, electoral politics and reform, and American political history. Professor Stewart is currently the co-director of the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project, the director of the MIT Election Data and Science Lab, and co-director of the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project. He has held many administrative and faculty leadership positions at MIT, including past service as Head of the Department of Political Science and Associate Dean of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.**this event is open to MIT community members with Touchstone authentication**Join Zoom Meeting: https://mit.zoom.us/j/93809827807One tap mobile+16465588656,,93809827807# US (New York)+16699006833,,93809827807# US (San Jose)Meeting ID: 938 0982 7807US : +1 646 558 8656 or +1 669 900 6833International Numbers: https://mit.zoom.us/u/abtKx9vje4