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Events

  • Jan
    27

    CS Seminar: Pareto-efficient AI systems: Expanding the quality and efficiency frontier of AI (Simran Arora)

    Department of Computer Science (CS)

    12:00 PM 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library)

    EVENT DETAILS

    Monday / CS Seminar
    January 27th / 12:00 PM
    Hybrid / Mudd 3514

    Speaker
    Simran Arora

    Talk Title
    Pareto-efficient AI systems: Expanding the quality and efficiency frontier of AI

    Abstract
    Foundation models are helping us build useful systems in hours that five years ago would have taken months. This exciting progress stems from a specific AI recipe: training massive models on massive amounts of data center compute. However, with the growing demand for AI, how can we maximize the capabilities we can achieve under any compute constraint? There are three key challenges: understanding (1) how our workload constraints (e.g., throughput, latency, privacy) impact the AI algorithms we should use, (2) how hardware constraints shapes AI and vice-versa, and (3) the fundamental scaling laws that govern how efficiently different algorithms learn useful capabilities. In this talk, I’ll discuss how I’ve addressed these challenges in my research. I’ll focus on my work to expand the Pareto-frontier between language model quality and throughput, where we’ve developed new methods to empirically and theoretically explain the fundamental tradeoffs between model quality and throughput in language modeling, built a new programming library called ThunderKittens to make it easier to develop fast hardware programs for new AI algorithms, and released the state-of-the-art 8B-405B parameter efficient language models on an academic budget.

    Biography
    Simran Arora is a PhD student at Stanford University advised by Chris Ré. Her research blends machine learning and systems towards expanding the Pareto frontier between AI quality and efficiency. Her machine learning research has appeared as Oral and Spotlight presentations at NeurIPS, ICML, and ICLR, including an Outstanding Paper award at NeurIPS and Best Paper award at ICML ES-FoMo. Her systems work has appeared at VLDB, SIGMOD, CIDR, and CHI, and her systems artifacts are widely used in open-source and industry. In 2023, Simran created and taught the CS229s Systems for Machine Learning course at Stanford. She has also been supported by a SGF Sequoia Fellowship.

    Research/Interest Areas
    AI systems
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    Zoom: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/93050389763?pwd=UboG2YuYX0EFD1lQvfcwbFwVvFfoBs.1
    Panopto: https://northwestern.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=143083c6-992d-4c4f-8824-b26d015bb736
    DEI Minute: Inclusion tinyurl.com/cspac-dei-minute

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    TIME Monday, January 27, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

    LOCATION 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library)    map it

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    CONTACT Wynante R Charles    wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)

  • Aug
    20

    Alumni Education Webinar: McCormick School of Engineering's Strategic Vision

    McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

    12:00 PM

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Wednesday, August 20, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

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    CONTACT Andi Joppie    andi.joppie@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

  • Sep
    8

    Welcome & Breakfast for New McCormick PhD Students

    McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

    9:00 AM LR2 & Tech East Plaza, Technological Institute

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Monday, September 8, 2025 at 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM

    LOCATION LR2 & Tech East Plaza, Technological Institute    map it

    ADD TO CALENDAR

    CONTACT Andi Joppie    andi.joppie@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

  • Sep
    12

    New Undergraduate Fall 2025 Registration

    University Academic Calendar

    All Day

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Friday, September 12, 2025

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    CONTACT Office of the Registrar    nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR University Academic Calendar

  • Sep
    15

    Welcome & Luncheon for New Full-time Graduate Students

    McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

    11:00 AM Ryan Auditorium & Tech East Plaza, Technological Institute

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Monday, September 15, 2025 at 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM

    LOCATION Ryan Auditorium & Tech East Plaza, Technological Institute    map it

    ADD TO CALENDAR

    CONTACT Andi Joppie    andi.joppie@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

  • Sep
    16

    Fall Classes Begin. Change of Registration (Drop/Add) Late registration for returning students begins

    University Academic Calendar

    All Day

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Tuesday, September 16, 2025

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    CONTACT Office of the Registrar    nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR University Academic Calendar

  • Sep
    25

    Bagel Thursday

    Department of Computer Science (CS)

    9:00 AM

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Thursday, September 25, 2025 at 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM

    ADD TO CALENDAR

    CONTACT Wynante R Charles    wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)