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Distinguished Lecturer Series Archive

Since 1988, CICS has had the privilege of hosting influential computer science researchers and faculty from around the world. These lectures are designed to spark thought-provoking conversations and broaden educational opportunities for our students and the wider community. Explore our rich history of innovation and knowledge-sharing, and gain insights from some of the brightest minds in the field of computer science. 

Lecture recordings are linked where available. 

2023

Answering Why Questions about Narrative Text
Raymond J. Mooney
University of Texas at Austin
September 9, 2023

We Used Reinforcement Learning, but Did It Work?
Susan Murphy
Harvard University
October 25, 2023

Dendrocentric Learning for Synthetic Intelligence
Kwabena Boahen
Stanford University 
November 1, 2023

2022

Usability, Transparency, and Trust for Data-Intensive Computations
Juliana Freire
NYU Tandon School of Engineering, Director of the VIDA Center
October 12, 2022

Algorithm Analysis Beyond the Worst-Case
Anupam Gupta 
Carnegie Mellon University
November 9, 2022

Software Archipelagos Considered Harmful
Nenad Medvidovic 
University of Southern California
Event postponed due to unforeseen circumstances

2020

Visualization for Data Empowerment
Sheelagh Carpendale 
Simon Fraser University
January 23, 2020

Making Materials that are Computational
Gregory Abowd 
Georgia Institute of Technology
January 27, 2020

Consistency in a Cloudy World
Neeraj Suri 
Lancaster University
February 3, 2020

Three Modern Roles for Logic in AI
Dr. Adnan Darwiche 
University of California, Los Angeles
October 28, 2020  

Data for Good: Ensuring the Responsible Use of Data to Benefit Society
Jeanette Wing 
Columbia University
November 4, 2020

2019

Modern Automotive Vulnerabilities: Problems, Causes and Outcomes
Stefan Savage 
University California, San Diego
September 18, 2019

Designing Socially Interactive Robots for Healthcare
Ayanna Howard 
Georgia Tech
October 7, 2019

2018

The Automated-Reasoning Revolution: From Theory to Practice and Back
Moshe Y. Vardi 
Rice University
April 5, 2018 

Computer Science in 6/10ths of a Second
Lance Fortnow 
Georgia Tech
October 30, 2018

The Body You Know
Guang-Zhong Yang 
Imperial College London
November 29, 2018

2017

Who Will Control Speech Online?
Nick Feamster 
Princeton University
October 18, 2017

Network Coding - A Personal Account of Combining Theory and Practice
Muriel Medard 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
November 8, 2017

Local Computation Algorithms
Ronitt Rubinfeld 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
November 16, 2017

2016

Progress in Error-Correction: New Codes for Old Noise Models
Venkatesan Guruswami 
Carnegie Mellon University
October 17, 2016

Toward Robots that Understand People and Their Environment
Dieter Fox 
University of Washington
October 26, 2016

Randomness
Avi Wigderson 
Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University
November 4, 2016

Towards a Theory of Software Design
Daniel Jackson 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
November 10, 2016

Codes for Data Storage
Robert Calderbank 
Duke University
November 16, 2016

2015-2016

Communication Amid Uncertainty
Madhu Sudan 
Harvard University
October 7, 2015

A Big World of Tiny Motions
William Freeman 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
October 21, 2015 

Can Physics Help Us Analyze Social Networks
Cristopher Moore 
Santa Fe Institute
November 4, 2015

Side Channels in Multi-Tenant Environments
Michael Reiter 
University of North Carolina
December 2, 2015

2014-2015

Temporal-difference Learning and the Coming of Artificial Intelligence
Professor Richard Sutton 
University of Alberta
October 8, 2014

Age of Networks
Dr. Jennifer Chayes 
Microsoft Research New England
October 22, 2014

Storytelling Tools
Professor Maneesh Agrawala
University of California Berkeley
November 5, 2014

Automated Support for Reproducing and Debugging Field Failures
Professor Alessandro "Alex" Orso 
Georgia Institute of Technology
January 28, 2015

2013-2014

On the Naturalness of Software
Professor Premkumar Devanbu
University of California Davis
September 18, 2013

Data Provenance and Query Provisioning
Professor Val Tannen 
University of Pennsylvania)
October 10, 2013

Mining Clinical Data to Build Predictive Models
Professor Peter Szolovits 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
November 25, 2013

2012-2013

Experiments in Social Computation
Professor Michael Kearns 
University of Pennsylvania
October 3, 2012

Algorithms, Graph Theory, and the Solution of Lapiacian Linear Equations
Professor Daniel Spielman 
Yale University
October 24, 2012

Commitments and Responsibilities in Multiagent Systems
Professor Edmund Durfee 
University of Michigan
November 14, 2012

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