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Events

  • Mar
    11

    CS Seminar: Auto-Formalization for Trustworthy Planning (Li "Harry" Zhang)

    Department of Computer Science (CS)

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

    EVENT DETAILS

    Wednesday / CS Seminar
    March 11 / 12:00 PM
    Hybrid / Mudd 3514

    Speaker
    Li "Harry" Zhang, Drexel University

    Talk Title
    Auto-Formalization for Trustworthy Planning

    Abstract
    Despite the rapid advancement of AI, most systems in high-stakes applications remain primarily limited to rule-based interactions and cannot reliably plan or execute complex user tasks. Despite recent efforts in using large language models (LLMs) to plan as agents, their hallucinations and lack of verifiability undermine executability and trust, preventing real-world deployment. This proposal advances an alternative paradigm: LLM-as-formalizer. Instead of relying on LLMs to generate plans directly, we use them as a code generator to translate a user’s environment and goal into formal languages (such as PDDL) that can be deterministically solved by off-the-shelf solvers. This neurosymbolic approach combines the flexibility of LLMs with the reliability of symbolic systems, offering a pathway toward trustworthy, generalizable planning. In this talk, I will discuss a few advances in 2025 including a comprehensive evaluation of LLM's auto-formalization ability under a unified methodological framework, and also ongoing work on iterative and multi-agent planning in partially observable environments.

    Biography
    Li "Harry" Zhang is an assistant professor at Drexel University, focusing on Natural Language Processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence (AI). He obtained his PhD degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 2024, advised by Prof. Chris Callison-Burch and chaired by Prof. Dan Roth. He was a year-long intern in 2023 at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence. He obtained his Bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan in 2018, mentored by Prof. Rada Mihalcea and Prof. Dragomir Radev. His research agenda use large language models (LLMs) as auto-formalizers for trustworthy problem-solving, accepted to the AAAI 2026 New Faculty Highlights program. He has published more than 30 peer-reviewed papers in NLP and AI conferences, such as ACL, EMNLP, and NAACL, that have been cited more than 3,000 times. He also consistently serves as Area Chair, Session Chair, and reviewer in those venues. Outside academia, he is a sponsored musician, producer, and content creator having over 60,000 subscribers across streaming platforms.

    Research Interests: NLP, planning, reasoniong, code generation

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    TIME Wednesday, March 11, 2026 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)

  • Mar
    2

    CS Seminar: Data-Driven Neural Mesh Editing – without 3D Data (Rana Hanocka)

    Department of Computer Science (CS)

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

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Monday, March 2, 2026 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)

  • Mar
    5

    CS Student Seminar: Nathaniel Hejduk

    Department of Computer Science (CS)

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

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Thursday, March 5, 2026 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)

  • Mar
    12

    CS Student Seminar: David Krasowska

    Department of Computer Science (CS)

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

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Thursday, March 12, 2026 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

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

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    CONTACT CSPAC    cspac@u.northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)

  • Apr
    6

    CS Joint Seminar: From Data to Design: Rethinking Engineering Design With Next-Gen AI (Faez Ahmed)

    Department of Computer Science (CS)

    3:00 PM ITW 1350, Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Monday, April 6, 2026 at 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM

    LOCATION ITW 1350, Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center    map it

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

    CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)

  • Apr
    13

    CS Seminar: Arindam Banerjee

    Department of Computer Science (CS)

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

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Monday, April 13, 2026 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)

  • Apr
    22

    CS Seminar: Lev Reyzin

    Department of Computer Science (CS)

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

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Wednesday, April 22, 2026 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)

  • Apr
    27

    CS Seminar: Tushar Chandra

    Department of Computer Science (CS)

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

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Monday, April 27, 2026 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)

  • Apr
    29

    CS Seminar: Bill Fefferman

    Department of Computer Science (CS)

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

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Wednesday, April 29, 2026 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)

  • May
    4

    CS Seminar: Moon Duchin

    Department of Computer Science (CS)

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

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Monday, May 4, 2026 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)