Boston Computation Club
55 episodes - English - Latest episode: 5 days ago -The Boston Computation Club is a small seminar group focused on mathematical computer science, and computational mathematics. Its name is plagiarized from the London Computation Club. Boston Computation Club meetings occur roughly every other week, on weekends, around 5pm EDT (modulo speaker availability). The usual format is a 20m presentation followed by 40m of discussion. Some, but not all, meetings are posted on YouTube and in podcast form.
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Episodes
04/20/24: Chess-GPT's Internal World Model with Adam Karvonen
April 20, 2024 22:20 - 58 minutes - 53.2 MBAdam Karvonen was my coworker at Galois and is a bright guy doing really interesting stuff in the ML interpretability space. Today he joined us to present his work on Chess-GPT, you guessed it, a GPT model that can play chess. The punchline isn't so much how good the model is as it is how the model "thinks" -- Adam provides compelling evidence that the model internally reasons about an actual board state, and learns to make legal moves. The discussion on this one was great and we really app...
04/12/24: DY Fuzzing: Formal Dolev-Yao Models Meet Cryptographic Protocol Fuzz Testing with Max Ammann
April 12, 2024 20:30 - 59 minutes - 53.8 MBMax Ammann is a cybersecurity researcher at Trail of Bits, where he's recently been working on extending his Master's thesis work on fuzzing cryptographic protocols into an industrial-grade fuzzing tool. That work resulted in an S&P publication which is what he joined us to present today. This was a really good talk but also a great discussion, in large part because of the highly engaged audience (with representation from Galois, TwoSix, and academia!).
04/23/24: Pegasus Panel
March 26, 2024 23:59 - 2 hours - 114 MBFor this event, Holmes Wilson of Fight for the Future moderated a panel retrospective on the Pegasus malware. Our panelists were: - Jonathan Rugman: Foreign Affairs Correspondent at Channel 4 News, BAFTA Award-winning journalist, visiting lecturer at University of London, and Senior Associate Fellow at RUSI. - Raya Sharbain: education and communities coordinator at the Tor Project, and digital rights activist at the Jordan Open Source Association as well as the Digital Arabia Network. - E...
03/08/24: Bitwuzla with Mathias Preiner
March 09, 2024 03:53 - 59 minutes - 54.2 MBMathias Preiner is a Research Scientist at Stanford University in the Centaur lab. He is one of the main developers of the SMT solver Boolector (since June 2012) and Bitwuzla -- which is what he joined us to discuss today. This was a good talk, but an excellent Q&A, and we really enjoyed it. Thanks Mathias for joining us today, and to the awesome audience for showing up with such deep and technical questions!
01/13/24: How to Fund your Projects by Remembering One Number with Joe Shiraef
January 14, 2024 17:23 - 45 minutes - 41.7 MBJoe Shiraef is a professional card counter and indie game dev. Today he joined us for a very fun, free-form conversation on advantage play, indie game development, avoid arrest, and pursuing your passions. https://www.inktalestudios.com/
12/15/23: Q&A on Puzzles, with Roger Barkan in conversation with Jacob Denbeaux
December 15, 2023 23:42 - 1 hour - 59.8 MBToday puzzle-maker Roger Barkan joined us to talk about the creation and solution of cave puzzles, a category of puzzle for which he's quite famous as a puzzle author. Jacob lead the conversation, using an interactive puzzle that he implemented with the help of ChatGPT (:0), and it was a ton of fun. We're super grateful to Roger for joining us today and we look forward to doing a follow-up event sometime in the future! Jacob's interactive: https://bstn.cc/artifacts/jacobDenbeaux/cave.html ...
11/19/23: Semi Open-Source Robotics with Jan Hennecke
November 20, 2023 06:15 - 1 hour - 58.6 MBJan Hennecke is an engineer and roboticist in Boston, MA. Jan has been a buddy of mine for ages, ever since we met at the Bernardo Faria Jiu Jitsu Academy where he told me a hilarious story about placing top-3 in his first half ironman while munching down on snickers. Today Jan joined us to talk about his work at RBTX, a marketplace and platform for low-cost automation. This was a really fun talk with a lot of audience engagement and I think many of you will find it interesting!
11/04/23: Logic in Color with Christian Williams
November 04, 2023 22:38 - 57 minutes - 52.4 MBToday Christian Williams joined us to talk about his dissertation project, Logic in Color. This is a really exciting project which he is now working on post-graduation, which aims to re-frame the way we think about logic, and logics, using a largely visual medium. The key insight is that certain mathematical observations are made completely obvious simply by adding color to the areas enclosed by arrows in monoidal string diagrams. But from this key observation comes the more foundational ...
10/21/23: How to Write a Coequation, with Todd Schmid
October 21, 2023 23:12 - 1 hour - 65.7 MBTodd Schmid an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department of St. Mary's College of California. They are generally intereted in the algebraic, coalgebraic, and logical foundations of program semantics, and recently completed a PhD as a part of the PPLV group in the Computer Science Department of University College London. Today Todd joined us to talk about coequations, a fascinating (categorical) subject relating to the how we add algebraic structure to a space, how we think about...
10/07/23: Artificial Intelligence, Openness, and "Existential" Risk: Well Informed Vibes on What is Hype and What is Real, with Avijit Ghosh, David Widder, and Fabio Tollon, moderated by Wei Sun
October 07, 2023 19:43 - 1 hour - 68.1 MBAvijit Ghosh is a Research Data Scientist at AdeptID and a Lecturer in the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University. He's a good friend of mine and was an element of my PhD cohort at Northeastern. He's also a well-respected researcher at the intersection of machine learning, ethics, and policy. You can read about some of his innovative and cross-disciplinary work, for example, in the New York Times. David Widder is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Digital Life Initiative a...
09/17/23: Open Problems in Probabilistic Programming Semantics with Eli Sennesh
September 17, 2023 23:56 - 1 hour - 58.8 MBEli Sennesh is a recent graduate of the PhD program in computer science at Northeastern, in which I (Max) and many other BCC group members are currently enrolled. Eli's research is highly interdisciplinary, taking into consideration various topics in mathematics (statistics, measure theory, probability theory, optimization), programming language theory, and neuroscience, with the unifying goal of building useful probabilistic programming languages. Today Eli joined us to discuss that researc...
09/09/23: Transferable and Fixable Proofs with Bill Dalessandro
September 09, 2023 22:23 - 1 hour - 59.6 MBBill Dalessandro is a philosopher of science and mathematics at Oxford University. Today Bill joined us to discuss proofs -- specifically, what it means for a proof to be fixable, what it means for a proof to be transferable, and the apparent tension between these notions. This work built on prior work by Northeastern's Don Fallis, who attended the talk and participated in the lively and fascinating conversation that ensued. We also discussed what it's like to work in an interactive theorem...
09/01/23: ChipSec with Nathaniel Mitchell and Dan Scott
September 01, 2023 22:06 - 43 minutes - 39.5 MBToday Nathaniel Mitchell and Dan Scott joined us from Intel to discuss the ChipSec project, an open-source platform security assessment framework, available at https://github.com/chipsec/chipsec . Specifically, ChipSec "is a framework for analyzing the security of PC platforms including hardware, system firmware (BIOS/UEFI), and platform components" -- for both Windows and Linux (although as we discuss, getting it to work on Windows requires some leg-work). This was a really interesting ta...
08/12/23: Packing Chromatic with Bernardo Anibal Subercaseaux Roa
August 13, 2023 00:59 - 1 hour - 56.7 MBBernardo Anibal Subercaseaux Roa Marijn Heule. He has a background in engineering and is passionate about mathematics and computer science. Bernardo's research attacks the following question from a variety of angles: what can and cannot be done (efficiently?) by a computer? Today, Bernardo joined us to talk about Packing Chromatic, a fascinating research area at the intersection of pure mathematics and SAT solving. Bernardo and his advisor recently solved an open problem in the space, find...
07/15/23: Symmetries, Flat Minima, and the Conserved Quantities of Gradient Flow with Bo Zhao
July 15, 2023 23:02 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBBo Zhao is a 2nd year PhD student in computer science at UCSD, advised by Rose Yu. Her research focuses on deep learning theory and optimization, with a recent emphasis on the parameter space and dynamics of learning. Today Bo joined us to talk about her recent paper, "Symmetries, Flat Minima, and the Conserved Quantities of Gradient Flow", which was joint work at ICLR with Iordan Ganev, as well as co-authors Robin Walters, Rose Yu, and Nima Dehmamy. This is a really interesting paper whic...
06/30/23: ChatGPT on your Personal Corpus in Algovera with Richard Blythman
June 30, 2023 22:17 - 56 minutes - 52.2 MBToday Richard Blythman joined us to talk about the big and exciting world of large language models. Richard has a PhD in fluid dynamics and is the CEO of Algovera, a cool company building a decentralized and personalized tech stack based on LLMs. His talk today was short and focused, explaining what in particular makes LLMs so magical. Then we had a phenomenal discussion section! We hope you enjoy it as much as we did. To learn more about Algovera, go here: algovera.ai
06/23/23: MariusGNN with Roger Waleffe
June 23, 2023 22:09 - 55 minutes - 51 MBRoger Waleffe is a PhD student in Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison working under the supervision of Prof. Theodoros (Theo) Rekatsinas (now at ETH Zurich). A few months ago one of our group members (Brennon) saw Rover's talk at EuroSys and thought it was pretty rad, so we invited Roger to give the same talk to the Club today. (You can decide, what's more prestigious, EuroSys or 6 random dudes from Boston?). Roger graciously agreed and gave a superb talk on MariusGNN, hi...
06/16/23: Infinite Games -- Strategies, Logic, Theory, and Computation, with Joel David Hamkins
June 16, 2023 17:15 - 57 minutes - 53.2 MBJoel David Hamkins is a mathematician and logician at Oxford, where he studies the logic of the infinite. Today Joel joined us to talk about infinite dimensional games. As Joel explained, there are really three areas of mathematical inquiry related to games: Game Theory, as traditionally used in economics, ecology, etc.; the Theory of Games, which many CS students learn a little bit of in Complexity Theory; and the Logic of Games, which is really the camp where this talk falls. This was a t...
05/20/23: A Data-Centric Introduction to Computing, with Shriram Krishnamurthi
May 21, 2023 15:22 - 1 hour - 68.3 MBShriram Krishnamurthi is a professor of Computer Science at Brown University, where he researches (among other things) programming languages, software engineering, formal methods, HCI, security, and networking. Today Shriram joined us to discuss his joint project with Kathi Fisler, Benjamin S. Lerner, and Joe Gibbs Politz, titled "A Data-Centric Introduction to Computing". The project is a new vision of what it means to teach introductory computing with data as a first-class object, in the...
04/29/23: Q&A on the Philosophy of Games with Christopher Ba Thi Nguyen, in conversation with Wei Sun
April 29, 2023 22:45 - 56 minutes - 52.2 MBChristopher Ba Thi Nguyen is a professor of philosophy at the University of Utah, and the author of Games: Agency as Art. Today he joined us to discuss his book, which covers the philosophy of all sorts of games: rock climbing, Dark Souls, judo, poker, dungeons and dragons, etc. The event took the form of an interview hosted by Wei Sun, a longtime group member who read Thi's book in detail and really vibed with it. This was one of the most engaged and dynamic conversations we've hosted and ...
04/21/23: Quantity Calculus in Natural Language Semantics with Elizabeth Coppock
April 23, 2023 17:23 - 1 hour - 58.2 MBElizabeth Coppock is a linguistics professor at BU. He research focuses on foundational topics in truth, reference, quantification, and measurement in natural language semantics, through the lens of specific empirical puzzles. Recently, one of our group members (Cheng Zhang) expressed interest in Elizabeth's work as it might relate to his own research in programming languages, so we reached out to Elizabeth and asked if she'd be willing to present to the seminar group. (This is one of my fav...
03/17/23: The Process, Challenges, Struggles & Joys of Creating "How to Design Programs" with Matthias Felleisen
March 17, 2023 22:22 - 55 minutes - 51 MBMatthias is a world-class scientist and highly influential computer programmer, and also the author of "How to Design Programs", a Computer Science 101 book which takes a fundamentally different approach than prior works. Today Matthias joined us to share his experience writing that book (and its many iterations), as well as his broader philosophy on how to instruct the next generation of thinkers and builders (not to mention, programmers). This was a highly instructive and somewhat philosop...
03/03/23: Reversing UK Rail Tickets with eta
March 04, 2023 00:29 - 43 minutes - 39.8 MBeta is a phenomenally talented polymath, hacker, and computer programmer from the UK. Today eta joined us to discuss her very fun project reverse engineering UK rail tickets. This was a fun event with a reasonably big audience and lots of Q&A, and we really enjoyed it! It was also a good example of the best possible outcome in hacking: you break something, you tell the people who made the thing, and they give you a high-five and fix it. Thank you so much eta for speaking to us! To learn...
02/13/23: Web3 is Going Just Great with Molly White
February 13, 2023 21:03 - 1 hour - 55.8 MBMolly White is a Northeastern alum, a software engineer, and now, a web3 researcher (researching all the stuff that stinks about web3, to be clear). Today Molly joined us to talk about her ongoing project and perhaps magnum opus, Web3 is Going Just Great (web3isgoingjustgreat.com), an ongoing history of all the grifts, thefts, hacks, and crashes in Web3/the broader blockchain ecosystem. This was a fun one - perhaps even a controversial one - and we hope you enjoy it!
02/03/23: How to Give a Good Mathematical Presentation with Anthony Bonato
February 03, 2023 23:18 - 58 minutes - 53.7 MBAnthony Bonato is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Toronto Metropolitan University. Anthony's research focuses on graph theory, with applications to real-world complex networks and pursuit-evasion games on graphs such as Cops and Robbers. However, today Anthony joined us not to present some groovy new results in graph theory, but rather, to discuss how one _might_ give such a presentation, with panache! This was a super fun event with a lively and engaged discussion and we hop...
01/29/23: Implications of Model-Based Phil/Sci for ML with Mel Andrews
January 28, 2023 23:23 - 57 minutes - 53.6 MBMel Andrews is an instructor and doctoral student in the department of philosophy at the University of Cincinnati. Their work focuses on the phenomena of cognition and life, comparing and contrasting the merits and explanatory scope of conceptual and formal models of life and mind, and exploring the implications of these considerations for science at large. Today Mel joined us to talk about the philosophy of math in science and mathematical models in scientific reasoning. How do models re...
01/06/23: Q&A: AppSec from OWASP to Present with John Viega
January 06, 2023 23:17 - 58 minutes - 53.6 MBJohn Viega is the Executive Vice President of Products, Strategy, & Engineering at SilverSky, an Adjunct Professor at NYU Poly, former editor-in-chief for IEEE Security and Privacy Magazine, co-developer of GCM (a mode of operation for block ciphers such as AES), and the original author of Mailman, the GNU Mailing List Manager. He's also the founder of CrashOverride, a stealthy new security company which you should totally apply to work at! Today he joined us to do an impromptu Q&A about h...
12/03/22: Depths of Wikipedia with Annie Rauwerda
December 03, 2022 23:13 - 59 minutes - 54.2 MBAnnie Rauwerda is an internet personality and polymath with a background in neuroscience and data science. She is also the host and operator of Depths of Wikipedia, a phenomenally popular meme page, Depths of Wikipedia, which you can read about HERE on Wikipedia. Annie is also herself a frequent Wikipedia editor and author. Today she joined us to talk about how Wikipedia can be charming, funny, and informative, all at once. She showed us a variety of charming examples of Wikipedia in all...
11/19/22: Nearly Optimal Property Preserving Hashing with LakYah Tyner
November 19, 2022 23:08 - 44 minutes - 40.8 MBLakYah Tyner is a 1st year PhD student at Northeastern University co-advised by abhi Shelat and Daniel Wichs. Her research focuses on cryptography, with recent works involving Property Preserving Hashing and Threshold Signature Schemes. Put differently, she's accomplished considerably more in less than a year of graduate school than I did as a first year (we're a semester in and she has a paper in Crypto!), and today she joined the Boston Computation Club to share some of that hard-earned ...
10/14/22: Cryptography with Quantum States with William Kretschmer
October 14, 2022 22:26 - 1 hour - 55.6 MBWilliam Kretschmer is a PhD student at the University of Texas Austin, advised by Scott Aaronson. He's one of these pseudo-celebrity-grad-students with lots of cool splashy results and we're stoked that he took the time to talk to us today. The talk primarily covered the basics of quantum cryptography, much of which should be familiar to regular group members who attended our quantum cafe series with Billy, but also concluded with some groovy quantum crypto history (see: quantum cash) and ...
07/16/22: The Crypto Crash(es) with Cristiano Teixeira
July 16, 2022 22:09 - 59 minutes - 54.7 MBCristiano Teixeira is a friend of the Club, and the CEO of Lindy Labs. He has a traditional mathematics background and is one of the grown-ups in the crypto/DeFi space. Today he joined us to give an insider's perspective on the recent crypto crash(es), stable coins, ponzy schemes, DeFi, and more. This was an extremely interesting event with a great Q&A section and a big audience. We had a lot of fun and we're certain you'll enjoy it as well. Lindy Labs Video version
06/19/22: Assessing Recycling, Displacement, and Environmental Impacts using an Economics-Informed Material System Model, with John Ryter
June 19, 2022 22:06 - 51 minutes - 47.1 MBJohn Ryter is my lead partner in Cambridge MA, a gnarly climber, and also a PhD student in materials science at MIT (aka MassTech) where he studies recycling using a unique combination of economic theory and environmental modeling. John's work has entertained me during countless climbing sessions and now it can equally enthrall you, via the magic of the Internet. We were very happy to have John present to the group, particularly since the audience contained a chemist, a physicist, and a ge...
05/20/22: Hybrid Systems: Not Just For Cars Anymore! With Kimberly Ayers
May 20, 2022 22:12 - 57 minutes - 52.8 MBKimberly Ayers is an assistant professor of mathematics at Cal State San Marcos, where she studies the mathematics of hybrid systems. Kimberly is a genuine theorist (in contrast to us computer science neanderthals, haha) and this talk touched on some of the aspects of hybrid systems that make them theoretically interesting (e.g., how the topology imposed on a skew flow can apparently be quite strange). Since I've only previously seen hybrid systems work in CS, where it's always motivated ...
05/13/22: The Generalized Star Height Problem with Jean-Eric Pin
May 13, 2022 18:19 - 1 hour - 104 MBRoughly four years ago, when I took second semester Abstract Algebra at the University of Arizona, my professor (Jay Taylor) generously offered to meet with me every week outside class to discuss algebraic topics in computer science. We chose Dr. Pin's book, Varieties of Formal Languages. Due to my own mathematical immaturity we worked through the material slowly, and didn't finish the text before I graduated. Nevertheless, working through this material helped inspire me to pursue a PhD i...
05/07/22: Math Café #3: Prep for Dr. Pin's Talk with Max von Hippel
May 07, 2022 22:05 - 54 minutes - 49.6 MBPlagiarizing Wikipedia: "Jean-Éric Pin is a French mathematician and theoretical computer scientist known for his contributions to the algebraic automata theory and semigroup theory." He will also be our featured guest in a week, presenting The Generalized Star Height Problem. In advance of his talk, he requested that the audience familiarize themselves with some basic mathematical definitions, such as "monoid" and "completion of a metric space". To which end, I prepared a presentation, w...
04/15/22: When Memory Guards are Crooked and Become Speculating Snitches with Andrea Mambretti
April 15, 2022 16:44 - 55 minutes - 51.7 MBAndrea Mambretti is a system security researcher at IBM Research Europe, Zurich Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. from Northeastern University, in the SecLab under the supervision of Engin Kirda. Since 2011, he's participated in several CTF competitions (Ictf, Ructf, Defcon and others) with both the TowerOfHanoi and Shellphish teams. (Audience members will surely fall into two partitions: those who are more impressed by Andrea's PhD, and those who are more impressed by his membership in S...
03/20/22: An Open Conversation on Web3 with the SpiceDAO
March 20, 2022 22:41 - 1 hour - 57.4 MBThe SpiceDAO is a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) which recently purchased a copy of the "Dune Bible", namely, the elusive and rare storyboard script for Alejandro Jodorowsky’s DUNE film. As big Dune fans ourselves, and also as nerds interested in both the failures and opportunities of Web3, we were enormously excited to meet with a representative of SpiceDAO and discuss all things decentralized. The discussion was lively, touching on sybil attacks, democracy, in-real-world leg...
03/12/22: Live Coding: Making a Wordle Scraper and Solver with Jacob Denbeaux
March 12, 2022 23:54 - 1 hour - 59.1 MBJacob is a mathematician, computer scientist, and notably, co-organizer of the Boston Computation Club. Today he joined us to give an interactive lesson on web-scraping, with Worlde-solving as a motivating case study. This was a fun exercise and one we will almost certainly follow up on in the future. We worked through parsing the ... DOM? Is that the right word? IDK. And then entering text. And then actually utilizing the feedback offered by the game to start interactively solving th...
03/05/22: Seize the Means of Computation: the Big Tech Disassembly Manual with Cory Doctorow
March 06, 2022 15:19 - 1 hour - 69.1 MBCory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist and journalist. In my circles, he's probably best known for his work with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Boing Boing, but he's also a renowned science fiction author in his own right, an MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate, a Visiting Professor of Computer Science at Open University, a Visiting Professor of Practice at the University of North Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science, and co-founder of...
02/17/22: Quantum Computing in Plato's Cave with Daniel Burgarth
February 17, 2022 23:29 - 1 hour - 59.6 MBDaniel Burgarth is an associate professor of mathematics at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, where he studies a host of interesting things including various kinds of quantum systems. Today he joined us to discuss his 2014 Nature paper "Quantum Computing in Plato's Cave", which studied the complexity of quantum computers through a mathematically and philosophically structured lens. This talk was a lot of fun, and the math was refreshingly easy to follow, despite the difficult topi...
02/06/22: Trojan Source Attacks with Nicholas Boucher
February 07, 2022 03:46 - 1 hour - 60 MBNicholas Boucher is a PhD student in computer science studying under Professor Ross Anderson at the Cambridge Computer Laboratory. He is also one of the authors of Trojan Source Attacks, a paper (and CVE, and vulnerability class) which highlighted supply-chain vulnerabilities in open-source software (among other things) due to code that is different than it looks. This is one of the most creative hacks we saw in 2021 and we were thrilled to have Nicholas tell us about it. The presentation...
01/08/22: Covert C2 Channels with Kai Bernardini
January 09, 2022 00:45 - 1 hour - 75.3 MBKai Bernardini is a professional hacker/security researcher, a mathematician, and and a lecturer in computer science at Boston University. He's also better than me at lead belay (no short-roping from Kai!). Today Kai joined us to discuss covert command and control (C2) channels. Sure, your communication might be indistinguishable from random noise. But is it indistinguishable from r/dankmemes? If not, prepare to get caught by the local sysadmin. Kai on Github Kai on Twitter This tal...
12/04/21: Feynman Integrals for a Mathematical Audience with Matthew von Hippel
December 04, 2021 19:20 - 58 minutes - 54.5 MBMatt von Hippel is (a) my cousin and (b) a professor at the Niels Bohr International Academy in Copenhagen, Denmark, where he researches scattering amplitudes in gauge and gravity theories. Matt received his PhD in 2014 from SUNY Stony Brook, and from 2014 to 2017 he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Perimeter Institute. Today Matt joined us to discuss Feynman integrals. Apparently "Feynman integral" means different things to different people; the kind discussed here are those associated w...
12/03/21: Aesthetic and Organic Complexity with Tyler Hobbs & Bill Cresco, moderated by Anya & Joe
December 04, 2021 04:39 - 1 hour - 69.2 MBTyler Hobbs is a generative artist from Austin, Texas. Bill Cresco is a geneticist who specializes in quantitative evolutionary genomics at the University of Oregon. Today Tyler and Bill joined us for a wide-ranging discussion, seeded by the topic of "complexity". The conversation was fascilitated by our two excellent moderators, Anya and Joe. Anya studied studio art and environmental studies at Wellesley College and now works at Reed Hilderbrand, and Joe studied bioengineering at MIT an...
10/24/21: An Extensible and Modular Design and Implementation of Monte Carlo Tree Search for the JVM with Larkin Liu & Jun Tao Luo
October 24, 2021 22:47 - 1 hour - 61.3 MBLarkin Liu is an operations research (OR) & machine learning (ML) specialist, currently completing a PhD in Operations Research under the advisement of Stefan Minner at the Technical University of Munich. Today Larkin joined us to present *An Extensible and Modular Design and Implementation of Monte Carlo Tree Search for the JVM*, a recent preprint he authored with Jun Tao Luo (MS student in CS at Carnegie Mellon; also in attendance at this talk). The paper is exactly what it sounds like, ...
10/15/21: Mathematical Programming Modulo Strings with Ankit Kumar
October 15, 2021 16:08 - 45 minutes - 42.3 MBAnkit Kumar is a PhD student in the Khoury College of Computer Science at Northeastern University, advised by Pete Manolios. He is from Dhanbad, Jharkand, in India, and prior to joining Northeastern, he earned his MTech in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Kanpur and his BTech in Electrical Engineering from IIT (BHU) Varanasi. Now, Ankit's research focuses on formal methods (FM) -- particularly in ACL2Sedan -- and the use of FM to study programming languages, including writing mach...
10/09/21: Types in PL Research vs Types in Julia with Julia Belyakova
October 10, 2021 00:18 - 1 hour - 62.3 MBJulia Belyakova is a PhD student in computer science at Northeastern University, where she is currently focused on formalizing the Julia programming language. Julia's primary primary research interests are programming languages and type theory, although she also enjoys theorem proving, generic programming, functional and object-oriented programming, software engineering, programming by contracts, software testing, and as of late, human aspects of software engineering and the interaction bet...
09/12/21: More Category Theory for More Cybernetics with Matteo Capucci
September 12, 2021 22:39 - 1 hour - 70.9 MBMatteo Capucci is a PhD student at the University of Strathclyde in the MSP group, advised by Neil Ghani and Scott Cunningham. He studies Applied Category Theory (aka ACT), specifically Categorical Cybernetics and Applied Topos Theory. Today Matteo joined us to discuss the foundations of Categorical Cybernetics, in a wide-ranging conversation touching on lenses, feedback systems, dynamical systems, and more. The conversation extended these ideas to distributed systems, model checking, cyb...
08/28/21: Compilation Techniques for Reconfigurable Analog Devices with Sara Archour
August 28, 2021 22:40 - 1 hour - 57.2 MBSara Archour recently completed a PhD at MIT/CSAIL in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, and is joining Stanford University (EE) as an Associate Professor. Sara studies analog computers - how to build them; how to use them; what they're good for; how to stick them together to do interesting things; and so forth. Today, Sara joined us to discuss these things, with a smidgeon of career advice at the end :) Sara Archour's homepage can be found HERE. This presentation can also be vi...
08/28/21 - Compilation Techniques for Reconfigurable Analog Devices with Sara Archour
August 28, 2021 22:40 - 1 hour - 57.2 MBSara Archour recently completed a PhD at MIT/CSAIL in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, and is joining Stanford University (EE) as an Associate Professor. Sara studies analog computers - how to build them; how to use them; what they're good for; how to stick them together to do interesting things; and so forth. Today, Sara joined us to discuss these things, with a smidgeon of career advice at the end :) Sara Archour's homepage can be found HERE. This presentation can also be vi...