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Department Events & Announcements

Events

• Dec

  2

  CS Colloquium - Netta Gurari, Northwestern University

  Department of Computer Science

  12:30 PM

  EVENT DETAILS

  Live Stream link:
  https://northwestern.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=0f581514-7955-4570-a140-ac4b01467683

  Title:
  New Approaches for Characterizing Perception using Human-Computer Interfaces: Implications for Stroke

  Abstract
  

  Activities of daily living require not only the correct generation of movements, but also the accurate interpretation of those movements. Mundane tasks, such as cutting an apple and pulling open a drawer, can be challenging and potentially dangerous when one’s perception of their movements is compromised. Additionally, accurate perception is an indispensable part of motor learning as it facilitates the acquisition of new skills, such as when training one’s tennis game. In the USA, 6.6 million adults, or 2-3% of the population, report living with a physical disability due to stroke. While the main focus of research on stroke and physical disability has been on changes occurring in the generation of movements, very little attention has been given to how these generated movements are perceived. Research that has been conducted suggests that 5.6 million individuals who survive a stroke are facing difficulty accurately perceiving their actions due to the damage at their brain. Given that we rely on the perception at our limbs to learn and become adept in controlling our movements, value exists in understanding the processes contributing to intact and inaccurate perception. Furthermore, by understanding the reason that inaccurate perception occurs, we can develop science-based interventions that lead to improved sensorimotor outcomes in millions of stroke survivors.

  In this seminar, I will discuss our interdisciplinary approach for improving the understanding of how humans perceive their actions. I will review the novel assessment protocols that my lab created based on human-computer interfaces of our own design. For one approach, we use an instrumented device and automated audiovisual feedback to guide participants in activating numerous joints within a single arm. This approach has opened up innovative ways to address questions that have never before been studied. For example, we can determine the impact of activation of one joint on perception at a second joint, which is relevant to understanding how humans perceive during multi-joint tasks. Furthermore, we can understand the role of non-volitional actions, which arise from a change in brain circuitry, on perception in individuals post stroke. This is important for considering how to accurately assess and treat perceptual deficits in the stroke population. I will share our discoveries indicating when individuals post stroke may inaccurately perceive their actions. Additionally, I will provide an overview of our latest work in which we are using human-computer interfaces to create a rehabilitation intervention. Moreover, I will present our current efforts in employing machine-learning methods to address how signals arising from the brain may create the percept. The clinical relevance of this work includes underscoring the importance of accurate perception, developing appropriate perceptual assessment methods, and providing a rehabilitation treatment.

  Biography
  Dr. Netta Gurari is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences at Northwestern University. Additionally, Dr. Gurari holds a courtesy appointment with the Department of Mechanical Engineering and is a faculty affiliate of the Master of Science in Robotics Program at Northwestern University. She directs the Robotics and Sensorimotor Control Lab, which is comprised of a multi-disciplinary research team that is investigating how humans perceive somatosensory signals of their upper limbs. This research is executed through behavioral studies and is achieved by integrating tools and knowledge from areas including robotics, cognitive neuroscience, electrophysiology, neuroimaging, and physical therapy. Dr. Gurari received her B.S.E. from the University of Pennsylvania and M.S.E. and Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, all in Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Gurari is the recipient of numerous grants, including most recently an NIH K25 Career Development Award.

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  TIME Wednesday, December 2, 2020 at 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM

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  CONTACT Pam Villalovoz    pmv@northwestern.edu EMAIL

  CALENDAR Department of Computer Science

• Apr

  19

  CS Seminar: Hardware-Aware Efficient Primitives for Machine Learning (Dan Fu)

  Department of Computer Science (CS)

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

  EVENT DETAILS

  

  Friday / CS Seminar
  April 19th / 12:00 PM
  In Person / Mudd 3514

  Speaker
  Dan Fu, Stanford University

  Talk Title
  Hardware-Aware Efficient Primitives for Machine Learning

  Abstract
  Efficiency is increasingly tied to quality to machine learning, with more efficient training algorithms leading to more powerful models. However, today's most popular machine learning models are built on asymptotically inefficient primitives. For example, attention in Transformers scales quadratically in the input size, while MLPs scale quadratically in model dimension. In this talk, I discuss my work on improving the efficiency of the core primitives in machine learning, with an emphasis on hardware-aware algorithms and long-context applications. First, I focus on replacing attention with gated state space models (SSMs) and convolutions, which scale sub-quadratically in context length. I describe the H3 (Hungry Hungry Hippos) architecture, a gated SSM architecture that matches Transformers in quality up to 3B parameters and achieves 2.4x faster inference. Second, I focus on developing hardware-aware algorithms for SSMs and convolutions. I describe FlashFFTConv, a fast algorithm for computing SSMs and convolutions on GPU by optimizing the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). FlashFFTConv yields up to 7x speedup and 5x memory savings, even over vendor solutions from Nvidia. Third, I will briefly touch on how these same techniques can also be used to develop sub-quadratic scaling in the model dimension. I will describe Monarch Mixer, which uses a generalization of the FFT to achieve sub-quadratic scaling in both sequence length and model dimension. Throughout the talk, I will give examples of how these ideas are beginning to take hold, with gated SSMs and their variants now leading to state-of-the-art performance in long-context language models, embedding models, and DNA foundation models.

  Biography
  Dan Fu is a PhD student in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University, where he is co-advised by Christopher Ré and Kayvon Fatahalian. His research interests are at the intersection of systems and machine learning. Recently, he has focused on developing algorithms and architectures to make machine learning more efficient, especially for enabling longer-context applications. His research has appeared as oral and spotlight presentations at NeurIPS, ICML, and ICLR, and he has received the best student paper runner up at UAI. Dan has also been supported by an NDSEG fellowship.

  Research Area/Interests
  machine learning, systems

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  TIME Friday, April 19, 2024 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

  24

  CS Seminar: AI Powered Movement Analysis, Big Rehabilitation Data and a Path to Precision Rehabilitation (R. James Cotton)

  Department of Computer Science (CS)

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

  EVENT DETAILS

  

  Wednesday / CS Seminar
  April 24th / 12:00 PM
  In Person / Mudd 3514

  Speaker
  R. James Cotton, Northwestern University & Shirley Ryan AbilityLab

  Talk Title
  AI Powered Movement Analysis, Big Rehabilitation Data and a Path to Precision Rehabilitation

  Abstract
  This talk will discuss multiple methodological lines of work making movement and gait analysis more clinically accessible and biomechanically grounded. This includes reconstruction from synchronized multiview videos, smartphone videos, and wearable sensors. We will also discuss how implicit functions provide a powerful representation to map from time to joint angles, and GPU accelerated methods that enable end-to-end biomechanical fits from these different modalities. It will discuss some of the opportunities that large movement data enables, including the use of self-supervised learning to discover gait representations that can function as both diagnostic and response biomarkers. Finally, we will outline a vision for a Causal Framework for Precision Rehabilitation that can model this data to link from impairment to function and identify the optimal dynamic treatment policies to improve rehabilitation outcomes.

  Biography
  I am an electrical engineer, neuroscientist, and physiatrist working as a physician-scientist at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab and Assistant Professor in the Northwestern University Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. I completed my residency in PM&R at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (formers Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago) where I remained as faculty. Prior to that I obtained a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Rice University followed by an MD and PhD in systems neuroscience from Baylor College of Medicine. My lab works at the intersection of artificial intelligence, wearable sensors, computer vision, causal and biomechanical modeling, and novel technologies to more precisely monitor and improve rehabilitation outcomes.

  Research Area/Interests
  AI, computer vision, gait analysis, wearable sensors, rehabilitation

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  TIME Wednesday, April 24, 2024 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

  25

  TGI Bagel Thursday

  Department of Computer Science (CS)

  9:00 AM 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library)

  EVENT DETAILS

  Spring is finally here. Enjoy the good vibes to come with some free bagels and coffee courtesy the Computer Science Department. Mix and mingle with fellow CS students and faculty every last Thursday of the month.

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  TIME Thursday, April 25, 2024 at 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM

  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: Kaize Ding

  Department of Computer Science (CS)

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

  EVENT DETAILS

  TBA

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  TIME Monday, April 29, 2024 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

  1

  CS Seminar: Tong Zhang

  Department of Computer Science (CS)

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

  EVENT DETAILS

  TBA

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  TIME Wednesday, May 1, 2024 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

  3

  CS Seminar: Shafi Goldwasser

  Department of Computer Science (CS)

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

  EVENT DETAILS

  TBA

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  TIME Friday, May 3, 2024 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

  8

  Extending Care: A Conversation about Conservation and Futurity

  Block Museum of Art

  6:00 PM Block Museum of Art, Mary and Leigh

  EVENT DETAILSmore info

  The Center for Scientific Studies in the Arts is a collaboration between the Art Institute of Chicago and materials science-related departments at Northwestern University to pursue objects-based and objects-inspired scientific research. Materials research benefits ongoing work in conservation, archaeology, art history, and curatorial scholarship.

  Learn how the Center uses materials research to care for art objects in sustainable, innovative ways with Maria Kokkori, Northwestern Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Senior Scientist in the Center for Scientific Studies in the Arts. She will be in conversation with Corey Byrnes, Northwestern Associate Professor of Chinese Culture and co-founder/co-director of the Environmental Humanities Workshop in Kaplan Humanities Center.

  This event is presented by the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science in conjunction with exhibition Actions for the Earth: Art, Care & Ecology.

  Register Now

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  TIME Wednesday, May 8, 2024 at 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM

  LOCATION Block Museum of Art, Mary and Leigh    map it

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  CONTACT Block Museum of Art    block-museum@northwestern.edu EMAIL

  CALENDAR Block Museum of Art

• May

  30

  TGI Bagel Thursday

  Department of Computer Science (CS)

  9:00 AM 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library)

  EVENT DETAILS

  TBA

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  TIME Thursday, May 30, 2024 at 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM

  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

  30

  End of Year Awards

  Department of Computer Science (CS)

  3:00 PM TBA, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library)

  EVENT DETAILS

  TBA

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  TIME Thursday, May 30, 2024 at 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM

  LOCATION TBA, 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)

• Jun

  10

  Northwestern Engineering PhD Hooding and Master's Degree Recognition Ceremony

  McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

  9:00 AM Welsh-Ryan Arena

  EVENT DETAILSmore info

  McCormick School of Engineering PhD Hooding and Master’s Degree Recognition Ceremony

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  TIME Monday, June 10, 2024 at 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM

  LOCATION Welsh-Ryan Arena   

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  CONTACT Amy Pokrass    amy.pokrass@northwestern.edu EMAIL

  CALENDAR McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

• Jun

  10

  Northwestern Engineering Undergraduate Convocation

  McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

  2:00 PM Welsh-Ryan Arena

  EVENT DETAILSmore info

  McCormick School of Engineering Undergraduate Convocation

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  TIME Monday, June 10, 2024 at 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM

  LOCATION Welsh-Ryan Arena   

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  CONTACT Amy Pokrass    amy.pokrass@northwestern.edu EMAIL

  CALENDAR McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science