Dates:
Friday, April 2, 2021 - 4:00pm to 5:00pm
Location:
Zoom - contact events@cs.stonybrook.edu for Zoom info.
You are cordially invited to attend the biweekly Brookhaven AI Mixer (BAM). BAM includes one short talk on AI research happening at BNL, followed by an open mixer over coffee and snacks for everyone to network and discuss all things AI. The first half hour will consist of presentations that will be available via ZOOM, and the second half hour will be for in person only networking.
Join us every other Tuesday at noon in CDSD's Training Room (building 725, 2nd floor) to learn about interesting AI methods and applications, engage with potential collaborators, prepare for pending FASST funding calls, and build a community of AI for Science at BNL.
AI for Neutrino Oscillation Fits
Abstract: Neutrino oscillation experiments face the problem of performing likelihood fits in a very highdimensional space to extract the oscillation parameters from measured spectra. The current strategy for this is to fix all but a few parameters, reducing the dimensionality of the fit to a manageable number, but this risks missing correlations between the parameters, which can impact the systematics of the measurement. This is an area where artificial intelligence and machine learning could make great improvements. I will discuss the problem, explain how it is currently dealt with, and sketch one possible way of implementing AI to solve it, using a sampling method combining Smolyak's algorithm, for efficient sampling using sparse grids, with an adaptive grid refinement to increase sampling in regions that are more likely to contain the global minimum.
Speaker: Steven Linden is a physicist in the Instrumentation Department at BNL working on neutrino and dark matter experiments. He got his PhD from Yale in 2010 doing analysis on the MiniBooNE experiment and then worked on various dark matter detectors (MiniCLEAN, Pico, SENSEI) at SNOLAB in Canada for nearly ten years before moving to BNL.
Location: CDS, Bldg. 725, Training Room
Join ZoomGov Meeting: https://bnl.zoomgov.com/j/1614473319?pwd=e4QSSgFHqDzHx870ixJpwuG3yqBere.1
Meeting ID: 161 447 3319
Passcode: 733283
The AI Community will be hosting our very first Datathon💡📊
Ready to turn data into groundbreaking insights? 🧠
Compete in our Datathon, where you'll analyze real-world data 📈 and share innovate solutions in these tracks:
🏫 Student Life
🌱 Environment & Sustainability
💉 Health & Wellness
💰 Finance & Economics
Whether you're a data pro or just starting out, this is your chance to network, learn, and win exciting prizes! 🏆🎉 Bring your creativity 🧩 collaborate with fellow students 🧑🤝🧑 and gain hands-on experience showcasing your analytical skills 💻
Submissions will be judged by professors 🧑🏫 so take this chance to impress them!
There will be free food ☕ and games 🎲 to fuel your brain and imagination! Don't miss out--register now and unleash the power of data! 🔥✨
Registration Form: https://forms.gle/
Time: Friday (4/4) 10:30am - 5pm ⏰
Location: Bauman Center 📍
Abstract: Language is not just something we generate, but something humans use to interact with the world around them. Indeed, today's conversational AI agents speak fluently, but often treat language as prediction rather than interaction, producing responses that sound correct while failing to recognize when requests are ungrounded, impossible, or misunderstood. My research asks what it would take for multimodal agents to take the next step and use language effectively to take actions in grounded contexts and in this talk, I argue that many challenges in multimodal LLM design, including alignment, hallucination, and adaptation, are due to a lack of pragmatics: an understanding of the implicit context behind the implied actions of the words in the query. From visual understanding, to automatic speech recognition, to hallucination detection, I will demonstrate that incorporating pragmatic/contextual reasoning substantially improves agent behavior, and that pragmatic reasoning will drive a necessary shift in how we build multimodal conversational agents that can see, listen, act, and speak in context.
Bio: David M. Chan, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, specializing in multimodal conversational AI. His research focuses on developing scalable AI systems that move beyond language prediction toward grounded language use, integrating vision, audio, and language to enable pragmatic interaction, improve AI-human collaboration, and reduce hallucinations in generative models. Beyond academia, he has worked with leading organizations including Amazon, Google, and NASA, to build and deploy safe, efficient, and accessible machine learning systems. He is also the developer and maintainer of TSNE-CUDA, an open-source tool for high-dimensional data visualization, used by over 40,000 researchers in fields ranging from biomedical technology to industrial manufacturing. David holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Computer Science from UC Berkeley, where he was a graduate fellow with the Center for Technology, Society & Policy (CTSP), and dual B.Sc. degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Denver.
Location: NCS 120
Bio: David M. Chan, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, specializing in multimodal conversational AI. His research focuses on developing scalable AI systems that move beyond language prediction toward grounded language use, integrating vision, audio, and language to enable pragmatic interaction, improve AI-human collaboration, and reduce hallucinations in generative models. Beyond academia, he has worked with leading organizations including Amazon, Google, and NASA, to build and deploy safe, efficient, and accessible machine learning systems. He is also the developer and maintainer of TSNE-CUDA, an open-source tool for high-dimensional data visualization, used by over 40,000 researchers in fields ranging from biomedical technology to industrial manufacturing. David holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Computer Science from UC Berkeley, where he was a graduate fellow with the Center for Technology, Society & Policy (CTSP), and dual B.Sc. degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Denver.
Location: NCS 120
Abstract: As intelligent systems become more integrated into human environments, fostering trustworthy human-AI collaboration presents a pressing challenge. In this talk, I examine the interplay between an agent's performance and social dynamics in shaping trust in human-AI interactions. My approach combines testbed development, behavioral prototyping, and user study design to create controlled experimental setups that capture real-world interaction complexities, such as ambiguity, multi-agent dynamics, and conflicting goals.
I illustrate this with a recent VR study on multi-user interaction with an autonomous vehicle (AV). Moving beyond dyadic interactions, the study probes human perspectives from the roles of a pedestrian, driver, and AV passenger, all interacting with the AV simultaneously at an ambiguous all-way stop sign intersection. We compare interactions with efficient and prosocial AV behavior strategies, revealing diverging trust perceptions and preferences across user roles. These insights inform a broader research trajectory focused on balancing performance with social considerations in designing trustworthy human-AI collaborations.
Bio: JiHyun Jeong is a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University working on human-computer interaction and human-robot interaction. Her research develops prototypes and methods to explore performance and social factors that influence collaboration and trust between humans and artificial agents. She holds a Ph.D. and MPS in Information Science from Cornell University, and a BSc in Computer Science and Engineering from Korea University. She is a recipient of an honorable mention for best paper at DIS.
Zoom: https://stonybrook.zoom.
Meeting ID: 987 3823 4619
Passcode: 474618
Abstract: Anxiety disorders are characterized by persistent and excessive form of fear and worry that interferes with daily functioning, distinguishing it from the adaptive anxiety that helps individuals respond to challenges. Despite affecting millions worldwide and costing a significant public health burden, anxiety disorders still remain underdiagnosed than actual prevalence due to lack of understanding and stigmatization. Leveraging machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) approaches can help bridge this gap by enabling scalable and accessible mental health assessments, offering a data-driven understanding of anxiety from individual and societal perspectives, and shedding light on societal stigmas toward mental health conditions. At the same time, advancing ML and NLP techniques for anxiety research presents unique technical challenges, such as effectively modeling linguistic markers of anxiety and ensuring interpretability in mental health predictions.
This dissertation investigates anxiety from both individual and societal perspectives using artificial intelligence. First, we explore individual manifestations of anxiety through three methodological advancements: (1) integrating contextual and discourse-level embeddings to improve language-based anxiety prediction using Facebook posts and selfreported surveys; (2) enhancing cognitive dissonance detection in Twitter dataset with transfer learning and active learning; and (3) developing longitudinal representation learning approaches that achieve both predictive utility and interpretability of adolescent psychopathology. Finally, we extended our analysis to societal dimension of anxiety by identifying and categorizing social norms expressed in Reddit and Twitter posts and examining their associations with anxiety. By combining data-driven methods with psychological insights, this work studies anxiety from various angles - capturing both individual experiences and societal influences - offering a step toward a more comprehensive understanding of its causes and manifestations.
Speaker: Swanie Juhng
https://stonybrook.zoom.us/j/
This dissertation investigates anxiety from both individual and societal perspectives using artificial intelligence. First, we explore individual manifestations of anxiety through three methodological advancements: (1) integrating contextual and discourse-level embeddings to improve language-based anxiety prediction using Facebook posts and selfreported surveys; (2) enhancing cognitive dissonance detection in Twitter dataset with transfer learning and active learning; and (3) developing longitudinal representation learning approaches that achieve both predictive utility and interpretability of adolescent psychopathology. Finally, we extended our analysis to societal dimension of anxiety by identifying and categorizing social norms expressed in Reddit and Twitter posts and examining their associations with anxiety. By combining data-driven methods with psychological insights, this work studies anxiety from various angles - capturing both individual experiences and societal influences - offering a step toward a more comprehensive understanding of its causes and manifestations.
Speaker: Swanie Juhng
https://stonybrook.zoom.us/j/
International Love Data Week is a global event dedicated to celebrating data in all its forms. This year, Stony Brook University is excited to celebrate Love Data Week with a series of 30-minute webinars aimed to promote proficiency with data, showcase innovative data projects, and foster a community of data enthusiasts across campus. Hosted by the Division of Educational & Institutional Effectiveness and facilitated by the Office of Educational Effectiveness, we invite all SBU faculty, staff and students to join in the festivities, learn from colleagues in our campus community, and fall in love with the power of data! Learn more here. |
Join us at the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) for an engaging workshop on Generative AI. This Zoom workshop is designed for faculty and staff members seeking to enhance their teaching methods and assessment strategies, foster student engagement, and navigate the evolving landscape of AI tools. Recording and slides will be sent to you.
Register here: https://stonybrook.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0qceisrjsrE9w1QtMkvSVw4lmr4h4x_Vqu
Join virtually for a candid discussion with Joel Pendleton (Conductor Quantum) on real-world opportunities, technical constraints, and emerging risks at the intersection of quantum and AI.