Presentations this week
Monday, March 23, 2026
Seminar • Artificial Intelligence
Testing AI’s Implicit World Models
Keyon Vafa, Postdoctoral Fellow
Harvard University
10:30 a.m. • DC 1304
PhD Defence • Information Retrieval | Natural Language Processing
Benchmarks, Data, and Evaluation for Robust Retrieval and Retrieval-Augmented Generation on Heterogeneous Domains and Languages
Nandan Thakur, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
11:00 a.m. • Hybrid: DC 2310 | Online PhD defence
Supervisor: Professor Jimmy Lin
Tuesday, March 24, 2026
CrySP Speakers Series on Privacy
For All Tomorrow’s Survivors: Computer Security in Interpersonal Threat Models
Thomas Ristenpart, Professor
Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
1:30 p.m. • Hybrid: DC 1304 | Online talk
PhD Seminar • Computer Graphics
Simulating the Unseen: Practical Models for Sparse Ambient Multiphase Fluid Effects in the Visual Effects Industry
Joel Wretborn, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
6:00 p.m. • Hybrid: PHY 150 | Online PhD seminar
Supervisor: Professor Christopher Batty
Wednesday, March 25, 2026
Seminar • Data Systems
AI-Powered Data Systems for Multimodal Analytics
Yiming Lin, Postdoctoral Researcher
University of California, Berkeley
10:30 a.m. • Online seminar
Master’s Thesis Presentation • Artificial Intelligence | Machine Learning
Training and Evaluating Semantic Segmentation Models with Soft Labels
Nima Jamali, Master’s candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
11:00 a.m. • Hybrid: DC 2314 | Online master’s thesis presentation
Supervisors: Professors Olga Veksler, Yuri Boykov
Seminar • Algorithms and Complexity
New Perspectives on Trace Reconstruction
Paul Valiant, Professor
Department of Computer Science, Purdue University
12:00 p.m. • Hybrid: DC 1304 | Online PhD seminar
Thursday, March 26, 2026
PhD Seminar • Bioinformatics
Mitigating the Missing-fragmentation Problem in de novo Peptide Sequencing with a Two-stage Graph-based Deep Learning Model
Zeping Mao, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
11:00 a.m. • Online PhD seminar
Supervisor: Professor Ming Li
PhD Seminar • Software Engineering
Validating Mixed-Integer Programming Solvers
Xintong Zhou, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
1:00 p.m. • Hybrid: DC 2564 | Online PhD seminar
Supervisor: Professor Chengnian Sun
Dean’s Distinguished Women in Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Lecture Series
Fair Play: Spotting Data and Machine Learning Bias in Real-World Datasets
Marina L. Gavrilova, Professor
Research Excellence Chair
Digital Worlds Co-lead, Institute for Transdisciplinary Studies
Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary
Reception at 2:00 p.m., lecture at 2:30 p.m. • MC 5501
Friday, March 27, 2026
PhD Defence • Data Systems | Graph Data Management
Locality Optimizations and Analysis for Storage Hierarchies of Graph Databases
Zeynep Korkmaz, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
10:00 a.m. • DC 2314
Supervisors: Professors M. Tamer Özsu, Khuzaima Daudjee
Upcoming presentations
Monday, March 30, 2026
Seminar • Bioinformatics
Computational Approaches and Explainable AI Models for Decoding Proteins and Microbiome
Yuzhen Ye, Professor
Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, Indiana University Bloomington
10:30 a.m. • DC 1304
Tuesday, March 31, 2026
Guest Lecture • Systems and Networking
Scaling a Real-time Micro-kernel OS to Many Cores: Achievements and Challenges
Elad Lahav, Lead Architect, QNX
10:00 a.m. • MC 4060
PhD Defence • Human–Computer Interaction | Artificial Intelligence
Leveraging Interactive Human–AI Collaboration Methods to Enhance Key Stages of Programming Workflows
Xuye Liu, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
10:00 a.m. • Online PhD defence
Supervisor: Professor Jian Zhao
Wednesday, April 1, 2026
PhD Seminar • Bioinformatics
From Hypothesis-Driven Biology to Data-Driven AI for Biology: Rethinking How We Generate Scientific Knowledge
Zeping Mao, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
9:00 a.m. • Online PhD seminar
Supervisor: Professor Ming Li
Thursday, April 2, 2026
CS 383 / FINE 383 Computational Art Exhibition
Experience Computational Artworks that Explore New Aesthetic Experiences
5:00 to 7:00 p.m. • ECH 1237
Monday, April 6, 2026
PhD Seminar • Human–Computer Interaction
To Slide or Not to Slide: Exploring Techniques for Comparing Immersive Videos
Xizi (Lucy) Wang, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
10:00 a.m. • DC 2314
Supervisor: Professor Jian Zhao
PhD Defence • Artificial Intelligence | Machine Learning
Efficient Inference-time Control and Alignment
Ahmad Rashid, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
10:30 a.m. • Hybrid: DC 2310 | Online PhD defence
Supervisor: Professor Pascal Poupart
Tuesday, April 7, 2026
PhD Seminar • Cryptography, Security, and Privacy (CrySP)
Unintended Interactions in Machine Learning
Vasisht Duddu, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
9:00 a.m. • Online PhD seminar
Supervisor: Professor N. Asokan
PhD Seminar • Software Engineering
Evaluating the Impact of Upfront Identification of D Requirements on Computer-based System Quality and Development Time in Agile Context
Belen Bonilla, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
9:30 a.m. • DC 2564
Supervisor: Professor Daniel Berry
PhD Seminar • Human-Computer Interaction
Retargeting Scale: Quantifying the Tolerance of Visual-Proprioceptive Mismatch in Tangible World-in-Miniature
Junhyeok Kim, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
11:30 a.m. • Online PhD seminar
Supervisors: Professors Mark Hancock, Daniel Vogel
Wednesday, April 8, 2026
PhD Seminar • Bioinformatics
Refining Autoregressive Sequence Prediction with Reinforcement-Learning-Style Training: A Case Study in Open de novo Peptide Sequencing
Zeping Mao, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
9:00 a.m. • Online PhD seminar
Supervisor: Professor Ming Li
Thursday, April 9, 2026
PhD Seminar • Cryptography, Security, and Privacy (CrySP)
Towards Verifiable Properties of Machine Learning Systems
Vasisht Duddu, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
9:00 a.m. • Online PhD seminar
Supervisor: Professor N. Asokan
PhD Defence • Algorithms and Complexity
How to Color Graphs, and How Not to Chase Pointers
Parth Mittal, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
10:00 a.m. • Hybrid: DC 2314 | Online PhD defence
Supervisor: Professor Sepehr Assadi
Master’s Thesis Presentation • Human–Computer Interaction
Design Considerations for AI-Based Creativity Support Tools in Tabletop Role-Playing Games
Hanna Dodd, Master’s candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
11:00 a.m. • Hybrid: DC 2310 | Online master’s thesis presentation
Supervisors: Professors Dan Brown, Ana Crisan
Friday, April 10, 2026
PhD Defence • Systems and Networking
Efficiently Training Deep Learning Models on Elastic and Heterogeneous Cloud Resources
Runsheng (Benson) Guo, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
2:00 p.m. • Online PhD defence
Supervisor: Professor Khuzaima Daudjee
Tuesday, April 14, 2026
PhD Seminar • Cryptography, Security, and Privacy (CrySP)
Colluding Adversaries in Machine Learning Pipelines
Vasisht Duddu, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
9:00 a.m. • Online PhD seminar
Supervisor: Professor N. Asokan
PhD Defence • Systems and Networking
Mitigating Risks to Dependability from Vibe-Coding C for Embedded Systems
Murray Dunne, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
12:00 p.m. • Online PhD defence
Supervisor: Professor Sebastian Fischmeister
Wednesday, April 15, 2026
Master’s Thesis Presentation • Data Systems
SQLyzr: A Comprehensive Benchmark and Framework for Evaluating Text-to-SQL Systems
Sepideh Abedini, Master’s candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
12:00 p.m. • DC 3301 | DSG Lab
Supervisor: Professor Tamer Özsu
Wednesday, April 22, 2026
PhD Seminar • Data Systems
GPM: The Gaussian Pancake Mechanism for Planting Undetectable Backdoors in Differential Privacy
Haochen Sun, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
12:00 p.m. • DC 3301
Supervisor: Professor Xi He
Wednesday, May 6, 2026
PhD Defence • Formal Methods
Synthesizing Parameterized Protocols from Local Temporal Specifications
Ruoxi Zhang, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
9:30 a.m. • DC 2310
Supervisor: Professor Richard Trefler
Wednesday, May 13, 2026
PhD Defence • Systems and Networking
Redesigning Datacenter Systems to Leverage Hardware-Acceleration
Sreeharsha Udayashankar, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
12:00 p.m. • Hybrid: DC 3317 | Online PhD defence
Supervisor: Professor Samer Al-Kiswany