{"690363":{"#nid":"690363","#data":{"type":"event","title":"MS Proposal by Camden Abrams","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAbrams, Camden W has requested to schedule their MS Thesis Proposal. This request has been approved by their faculty advisor, the AE Associate Chair for Graduate Programs, and the AE Communications Office. Please proceed to post the annoucement on the OGE website. The details are as follows:\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EStudent Name: Camden Abrams\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAdvisor: Dr. Cristina Riso\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMilestone: MS Thesis Proposal\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EDegree Program: Aerospace Engineering\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ETitle: Output-Based Limit-Cycle Oscillation Prediction in Aeroelastic Systems with Multiple Structural Nonlinearities and Noise\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EAbstract: Current trends in aircraft design are increasingly moving towards lightweight and unconventional configurations for higher energy efficiency. In these concepts, flutter is a critical design concern that must be addressed early in the development phase while accounting for disparate sources of nonlinear behavior. Traditional methods for flutter prediction are typically either based on linear assumptions or are computationally expensive and inefficient for iterative design or optimization. A recently proposed method for predicting limit cycle oscillations induced by freeplay nonlinearity offers a potential solution to this problem. The method uses output-data from free-decay time histories prior to the onset of instability to estimate recovery rates to equilibrium following perturbations, which are then used to simultaneously estimate both flutter and limit-cycle oscillation boundaries. This thesis explores three questions to advance the proposed method: How do different forms of structural nonlinearity affect the accuracy of LCO prediction? What level of signal noise may the method tolerate before accuracy critically degrades? Can LCOs due to freeplay be accurately predicted and characterized for models with more complex dynamics? To answer these questions, several studies are proposed. First, the method is applied to cases of polynomial stiffness and combined freeplay-polynomial nonlinearity in a two-degree-of-freedom propeller-nacelle model and compared with alternative methods. Then, predictions are performed for increasing levels of simulated noise. Finally, two additional models are considered, a four-degree-of-freedom propeller-nacelle-wing and five-degree-of-freedom propeller-nacelle-wing-control surface model, with various forms of freeplay nonlinearity. The contributions of this thesis have the potential to improve the prediction of limit cycle oscillations in early design phases for nonlinear aeroelastic systems.\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EDate and time: 2026-05-28, 1:00pm\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ELocation: W200\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ECommittee:\u003Cbr\u003EDr. Cristina Riso (advisor), School of Aerospace Engineering\u003Cbr\u003EDr. Keegan Moore, School of Aerospace Engineering\u003Cbr\u003EDr. Graeme J. Kennedy, School of Aerospace Engineering\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EOutput-Based Limit-Cycle Oscillation Prediction in Aeroelastic Systems with Multiple Structural Nonlinearities and Noise\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Output-Based Limit-Cycle Oscillation Prediction in Aeroelastic Systems with Multiple Structural Nonlinearities and Noise"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-05-18 18:57:12","changed_gmt":"2026-05-18 18:57:43","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-28T13:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-28T15:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-28T15:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-28 17:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-28 19:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-28 19:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"W200","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"166866","name":"MS Proposal"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690362":{"#nid":"690362","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Proposal by Alberto Cardenas Melgar","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ECardenas Melgar, Alberto has requested to schedule their PhD Thesis Proposal. This request has been approved by their faculty advisor, the AE Associate Chair for Graduate Programs, and the AE Communications Office. Please proceed to post the annoucement on the OGE website. The details are as follows:\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EStudent Name: Alberto Cardenas Melgar\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAdvisor: Dr. Dimitri Mavris\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMilestone: PhD Thesis Proposal\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EDegree Program: Aerospace Engineering\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ETitle: An Uncertainty-Aware and Explainable Assurance Framework for Safety-Critical Aviation Deep Learning Models Using Conformal Prediction\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EAbstract: Machine Learning (ML) models are increasingly being implemented into aviation systems to support tasks such as trajectory prediction, anomaly detection, collision avoidance, aircraft inspection, and operational decision-making. However, the adoption of AI\/ML in operational aviation remains constrained by challenges related to safety assurance, uncertainty quantification, explainability, robustness, and certification. Traditional ML evaluation methods primarily focus on predictive performance metrics and often fail to provide the valid safety guarantees, interpretability, and operational trustworthiness required for uncertain safety-critical aviation environments. Recent efforts by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and related research initiatives have highlighted the need for learning assurance frameworks capable of addressing uncertainty, robustness, and continuous safety monitoring in AI-enabled aviation systems. The research focuses on aviation safety-event prediction and operational monitoring problems using sequential flight data and deep learning architectures, including recurrent and convolutional neural networks. This dissertation proposes a comprehensive framework for trustworthy aviation AI that integrates uncertainty-aware machine learning, conformal prediction, and explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) oriented for time-series aviation applications. First, the dissertation investigates conformal prediction methods for uncertainty quantification under distribution shift and non-stationary operational conditions. Online, semi-online, and traditional conformal prediction approaches are evaluated against Bayesian and ensemble-based uncertainty methods using metrics related to calibration, conditional coverage, interval efficiency, and robustness. Special attention is given to the relationship between conformal prediction set size, model generalization, and operational reliability. Second, the dissertation develops uncertainty-aware multi-objective optimization strategies for training aviation ML models. In addition to predictive performance objectives, the proposed optimization frameworks incorporate uncertainty-related objectives such as coverage gap and interval width metrics. The study evaluates whether uncertainty-aware optimization produces models with improved reliability, robustness, and operational trustworthiness compared to conventional performance-only optimization approaches. Third, this work explores explainability methods for predictive uncertainty in aviation AI systems. Existing XAI approaches, including KernalSHAP, TimeSHAP, and TSHAP are adapted and analyzed for sequential aviation data and conformal prediction outputs. The dissertation investigates whether local explanation techniques can effectively characterize uncertainty sources, identify failure modes, and support operational safety assessment for aviation decision-support systems. Finally, the dissertation proposes an integrated evaluation framework aligned with emerging aviation AI assurance concepts, including EASA\u2019s trustworthiness principles, learning assurance processes, and continuous safety paradigms. The framework combines statistical evaluation, uncertainty quantification, explainability analysis, robustness assessment, and operational performance metrics to support the development of certifiable and trustworthy AI systems for aviation. The contributions of this dissertation include: (1) a comparative evaluation of conformal prediction approaches for aviation time-series applications, (2) uncertainty-aware multi-objective optimization methodologies, (3) explainability techniques for predictive uncertainty in sequential models, and (4) a unified assurance-oriented framework for trustworthy aviation AI. Collectively, these contributions aim to bridge the gap between machine learning performance evaluation and the safety, reliability, and certification requirements.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EDate and time: 2026-06-05, 12:30\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ELocation: CoVE in the Weber building\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ECommittee:\u003Cbr\u003EDr. Dimitri Mavris (advisor), School of Aerospace Engineering\u003Cbr\u003EDr. Keegan Moore, School of Aerospace Engineering\u003Cbr\u003EDr. Karen Feigh, School of Aerospace Engineering\u003Cbr\u003EDr. Alexia Payan, School of Aerospace Engineering\u003Cbr\u003EDr. Yao Xie, Industrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAn Uncertainty-Aware and Explainable Assurance Framework for Safety-Critical Aviation Deep Learning Models Using Conformal Prediction\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"An Uncertainty-Aware and Explainable Assurance Framework for Safety-Critical Aviation Deep Learning Models Using Conformal Prediction"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-05-18 18:54:36","changed_gmt":"2026-05-18 18:55:08","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-06-05T12:30:48-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-06-05T14:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-06-05T14:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-06-05 16:30:48","gmt_time_end":"2026-06-05 18:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-06-05 18:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"CoVE in the Weber building","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"102851","name":"Phd proposal"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690361":{"#nid":"690361","#data":{"type":"event","title":"MS Proposal by Grace Beal","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBeal, Grace E has requested to schedule their MS Thesis Proposal. This request has been approved by their faculty advisor, the AE Associate Chair for Graduate Programs, and the AE Communications Office. Please proceed to post the annoucement on the OGE website. The details are as follows:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStudent Name: Grace Beal\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAdvisor: Dr. John Christian\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMilestone: MS Thesis Proposal\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDegree Program: Aerospace Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETitle: Optical Space-Based Constellation Design for Space Domain Awareness of Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbits\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAbstract: Once at the very edges of human exploration, cislunar space is attracting increasing interest as it becomes more accessible to all space actors. Over the next decade, many more satellites will be launched into cislunar orbits, increasing the need for supporting infrastructure. One critical aspect of that infrastructure is space domain awareness (SDA), which involves tracking satellites for various end goals including collision avoidance, sustainability, and national security. SDA is well-developed for Earth-orbiting satellites, with robust sensor networks distributed across the globe and data sharing between actors. No such infrastructure is currently operational for cislunar space, which is too far for Earth-based sensors to provide persistent coverage. The United States government is actively investing in the development of cislunar SDA capabilities including Oracle Prime, a satellite from the Air Force Research Laboratory, which is being designed to track objects in cislunar space while itself being in an L1 halo orbit. In this work, an observer constellation in select L1 and L2 halo orbits is investigated for its ability to provide optical SDA coverage of the near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) family. Targets are modeled as Lambertian spheres, and visibility constraints including apparent magnitude, lunar occultation, field of view, and exclusion angles are applied. Performance metrics including visibility and custody are evaluated across the candidate observer set. Candidate observer satellites are simulated across equally-spaced phases within each observer orbit, and mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) is applied to identify minimum viable constellation configurations based on prescribed coverage requirements. By comparing different constellation architectures, this work aims to provide insight into the optical sensor requirements for cislunar SDA of the NRHO family.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDate and time: 2026-05-22, 10:30am\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELocation: Coda C1015 Vinings\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECommittee:\u003Cbr\u003EDr. John Christian (advisor), School of Aerospace Engineering\u003Cbr\u003EDr. Koki Ho, School of Aerospace Engineering\u003Cbr\u003EDr. Tara Mina, School of Aerospace Engineering\u003Cbr\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EOptical Space-Based Constellation Design for Space Domain Awareness of Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbits\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Optical Space-Based Constellation Design for Space Domain Awareness of Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbits"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-05-18 18:52:25","changed_gmt":"2026-05-18 18:53:00","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-22T10:30:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-22T12:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-22T12:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-22 14:30:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-22 16:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-22 16:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"Coda C1015 Vinings","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"166866","name":"MS Proposal"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690335":{"#nid":"690335","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Proposal by Tanya Alexandra Balandin","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETanya Alexandra Balandin\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EAdvisor: Prof. Jason Azoulay\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cem\u003Ewill propose a doctoral thesis entitled\u003C\/em\u003E,\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESpin by Design: Organic Donor-Acceptor-Donor Diradicaloids as Tunable Spin Materials for Quantum and Electronic Applications\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cem\u003EOn\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EWednesday, May 20th at 1:00 p.m.\u003Cbr\u003EMoSE Room 1224\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003Eand\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;Virtually via MS Teams\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/teams.microsoft.com\/meet\/236993707059203?p=CRYrqctkRiNTJb2eaV\u0022 title=\u0022Meeting join\u0022\u003Ehttps:\/\/teams.microsoft.com\/meet\/236993707059203?p=CRYrqctkRiNTJb2eaV\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECommittee\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EProf. Jason Azoulay \u2013 School of Materials Science \u0026amp; Engineering, Chemistry \u0026amp; Biochemistry (advisor)\u003Cbr\u003EProf. Matthew Sfeir \u2013 School of Materials Science \u0026amp; Engineering, Chemistry \u0026amp; Biochemistry\u003Cbr\u003EProf. Juan-Pablo Correa-Baena \u2013 School of Materials Science \u0026amp; Engineering, Chemistry \u0026amp; Biochemistry\u003Cbr\u003EProf. Scott Danielsen \u2013 School of Materials Science and Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; Prof. Martin Mourigal \u2013 School of Physics\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbstract\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EOrganic molecules and polymers with open-shell diradical character (\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cem\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003Ey\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/em\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E) contain two weakly paired electron spins that interact across their \u03c0-conjugated frameworks.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003EThey offer a significant opportunity to engineer spin-active electronic states directly into a\u0026nbsp;p-conjugated backbone, providing novel optoelectronic, spintronic, magnetic, and quantum functionalities. Understanding the underlying molecular structure and solid-state physics of these materials is important for exploiting the spin degree of freedom in emerging spintronic and magneto-electronic devices. However, there is a lack of a unifying description of the electronic structure and its correlation to material properties. In donor-acceptor-donor (DAD) diradicaloids, open-shell character, small singlet-triplet energy gaps (D\u003Cem\u003EE\u003C\/em\u003EST), and tunable spin-spin interactions result in material properties that are highly sensitive to chemical structure, morphology, and packing. The latter motivates my research, which focuses on understanding the structure-spin-property relationships in DAD diradicaloids from isolated molecules to solid-state materials and single-molecule devices. I will use variable-temperature and multi-frequency electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), pulsed EPR, superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) magnetometry, and single-molecule transport measurements to connect molecular design with magnetic exchange, spin coherence, and charge\/spin-state energetics. First, I will determine how donor\/acceptor strength, conjugation length, backbone planarity, side-chain structure, and solid-state packing govern intermolecular exchange and magnetic response. Second, I will evaluate whether thermally accessible triplet states in specified DAD diradicaloids can function as high-operating-temperature molecular spin-qubit candidates by measuring relaxation times, coherent spin manipulation, and identifying decoherence pathways. Third, I will investigate how open-shell electronic structure manifests in single-molecule junctions through charge-state addition spectra and excited-state resonances. By establishing design rules that connect diradicaloid chemistry to magnetism, spin coherence, and device-relevant charge transport, this work will advance DAD diradicaloids as tunable organic materials for future magneto-electronic, spintronic, and quantum technologies.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESpin by Design: Organic Donor-Acceptor-Donor Diradicaloids as Tunable Spin Materials for Quantum and Electronic Applications\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Spin by Design: Organic Donor-Acceptor-Donor Diradicaloids as Tunable Spin Materials for Quantum and Electronic Applications"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-05-18 15:53:27","changed_gmt":"2026-05-18 15:53:57","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-20T13:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-20T15:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-20T15:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-20 17:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-20 19:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-20 19:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"MoSE Room 1224 and  Virtually via MS Teams","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"102851","name":"Phd proposal"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690333":{"#nid":"690333","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Proposal by Mikis M. Mays Jr.","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMikis M. Mays Jr.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAdvisor: Prof. Rosario Gerhardt\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003Ewill propose a doctoral thesis entitled,\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EInfluence of Controlled Film Fabrication and Thermal Processing on the Structure-Property Relationships of Sol-Gel Processed Indium Tin Oxide Thin Films\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOn\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETuesday, May 19 at 2:30 p.m.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELove Room 184\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbstract\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIndium Tin Oxide (ITO),\u0026nbsp; a material that is both transparent and conductive, is used in optoelectronic devices such as photovoltaics and LEDs. Sputtering, a commercial thin film deposition technique, wastes indium resources by coating the entire chamber with ITO. Although sputtering is often used to fabricate highly conductive samples, alternative methods of thin film fabrication are needed for reducing indium consumption. Sol-gel based deposition methods, such as spin-coating, dip-coating, and inkjet printing waste less indium, but often suffer from high resistance, preventing their use in commercial applications that require high conductivity. The first part of this work will evaluate how the correlation between laboratory fabrication conditions affects resultant sample morphology and conductivity. This synergistic behavior will be measured using impedance spectroscopy, UV-Vis spectrophotometry, and various microscopy methods. Furthermore, alternative annealing methods such as rapid thermal annealing and flash lamp annealing are explored to determine the combined effect of various thermal treatment techniques and optimized sol-gel processing such that a reproducible method for obtaining reproducible and conductive transparent sol-gel ITO thin films are obtained. The second phase of this research will investigate the relationship between thermal processing and the nucleation and growth of ITO sol-gel thin films using multimodal characterization techniques such as neutron reflectivity, x-ray characterization, ToF-SIMS and STEM analysis. This will allow us to form a connection between the film\u2019s structure, elemental distribution, and its final properties. As a result, the proposed research will provide insight into how to decrease resistivity within sol-gel processed thin films, understanding the phase transformation behavior of sol-gel systems, optimizing the sol-gel thin film fabrication process, tuning film properties, and decreasing overhead costs for ITO deposition.\u003Cstrong\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003EFinally, the insights obtained in this research will be used to fabricate high-performance sol-gel processed ITO thin films suitable for optoelectronic applications. The utility of the optimized sol-gel-process will then be assessed by using sol-gel derived ITO films in devices and composite materials.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECommittee\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003EProf. Rosario Gerhardt \u2013 School of Materials Science and Engineering (advisor)\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EProf. Mark Losego \u2013 School of Materials Science and Engineering\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EProf. Faisal Alamgir \u2013 School of Materials Science and Engineering\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EProf. Yong Ding \u2013 School of Materials Science and Engineering, Institute for Matter and Systems\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EDr. Jim Browning \u2013 Neutron Reflectometry Group Leader, ORNL\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EInfluence of Controlled Film Fabrication and Thermal Processing on the Structure-Property Relationships of Sol-Gel Processed Indium Tin Oxide Thin Films\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Influence of Controlled Film Fabrication and Thermal Processing on the Structure-Property Relationships of Sol-Gel Processed Indium Tin Oxide Thin Films"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-05-18 15:52:07","changed_gmt":"2026-05-18 15:52:38","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-19T14:30:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-25T16:30:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-25T16:30:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-19 18:30:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-25 20:30:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-25 20:30:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"Love Room 184","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"102851","name":"Phd proposal"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690332":{"#nid":"690332","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Proposal by Madison Hales","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETitle:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;Control of elongate systems adapted for complex environments\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDate:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;Tuesday, May 26th, 2026\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETime:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;8am ET\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELocation:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;Howey N201 (\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgatech.zoom.us%2Fj%2F5339541273%3Fpwd%3DPxPXdpFrPFrNii6dIb0vBHw4IEtbWD.1%26omn%3D97468267464\u0026amp;data=05%7C02%7Ctm186%40gtvault.onmicrosoft.com%7C6be37866bf1946074c6b08deb05ecbcb%7C482198bbae7b4b258b7a6d7f32faa083%7C1%7C0%7C639142118364923878%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C\u0026amp;sdata=8R6%2Fa%2BGWz8bQmhYC9ui%2F0BKReOLSTF%2FrUS9tab%2B1M74%3D\u0026amp;reserved=0\u0022 title=\u0022https:\/\/gatech.zoom.us\/j\/5339541273?pwd=PxPXdpFrPFrNii6dIb0vBHw4IEtbWD.1\u0026amp;omn=97468267464\u0022\u003Ezoom\u003C\/a\u003E)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMadison Hales\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERobotics Ph.D. Student\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWoodruff School of Mechanical Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECommittee:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Daniel I. Goldman (advisor) \u2013 School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. David Hu \u2013 Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Tony Chen \u2013 Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering,\u0026nbsp;Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Noah J. Cowan - Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Jason Bariteau \u2013 Emory School of Medicine, Emory University\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbstract:\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003ELiving systems have evolved over millennia to navigate through a complex world. As such, they provide invaluable physical insight and engineering inspiration for movement through unstructured terrain.\u0026nbsp; This thesis proposal examines two systems that achieve robust movement through complex environments with slender, elongated, highly actuated morphologies: one biological and one engineered. First, we look to rice roots, which navigate heterogenous soil using a decentralized control scheme based on local cell-to-cell interactions. In aim 1, we utilize a control theory framework to understand the role of gravitropic feedback in dynamic navigation. We applied sinusoidal stimulus to growing rice roots, establishing a frequency response relationship. We fit linear transfer functions, implicating an intercellular signaling delay, and propose ongoing work to capture nonlinear behavior. In aim 2, we examine the relationship between gravitropism and circumnutation, the helical motion of rice roots as they penetrate soil. We report entrainment and cancellation in the interaction of these processes and propose simulation- and experiment-based techniques to further understand them. In aim 3, we shift focus to multilegged elongate robots. These robots leverage principles of locomotion discovered in centipedes to achieve reliable locomotion through heterogenous terrain. However, there is currently no protocol for how they can exploit their highly actuated, deformable bodies to grasp objects in their environment. To this end, we have developed a miniaturized multilegged elongate robot for investigating this capability, and report on its ability to grasp and carry various objects. Together, these studies advance our understanding of how biological principles can give rise to robust, adaptive movement in complex environments.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EControl of elongate systems adapted for complex environments\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Control of elongate systems adapted for complex environments "}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-05-18 15:48:58","changed_gmt":"2026-05-18 15:49:31","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-26T08:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-26T11:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-26T11:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-26 12:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-26 15:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-26 15:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"Howey N201 (zoom)","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"102851","name":"Phd proposal"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690330":{"#nid":"690330","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Defense by Raja Selvakumar","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EPhD Thesis\u0026nbsp;Defense Announcement\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStudent Name: Raja Selvakumar\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThesis Title: Unlocking precise genetic control via predictive protein allostery and SMART Transcriptional Programming\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThesis Advisor: Corey J. Wilson\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThesis Co-Advisor: N\/A\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECommittee Members: Thomas J. DiChristina, School of Biological Sciences; Ravi Kane, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; Hang Lu, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; Matthew J. Realff, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDate: 05\/26\/2026\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETime: 1 PM\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELocation: Ford ES\u0026amp;T L1255\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EUnlocking precise genetic control via predictive protein allostery and SMART Transcriptional Programming\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Unlocking precise genetic control via predictive protein allostery and SMART Transcriptional Programming"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-05-18 15:47:24","changed_gmt":"2026-05-18 15:47:57","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-26T13:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-26T15:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-26T15:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-26 17:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-26 19:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-26 19:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"Ford ES\u0026T L1255","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"100811","name":"Phd Defense"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690328":{"#nid":"690328","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Proposal by Joshua Shippee","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EPhD\u0026nbsp;Thesis Proposal\u0026nbsp;Announcement\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStudent Name: Joshua Shippee\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThesis Title: Epoxy-Metal Alkoxide-Based Organic\/Inorganic Molecular Hybrids for Radiation Shielding\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThesis Advisor: Blair Brettmann\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThesis Co-Advisor: N\/A\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECommittee Members: Natalie Stingelin (MSE \u0026amp; ChBE); Micah S. Ziegler (ChBE \u0026amp; Public Policy); M.G. Finn (CHEM); Lukas Graber (ECE)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDate: 5\/28\/2026\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETime: 10 a.m. - 12 p.m.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELocation: MoSE 1224\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EEpoxy-Metal Alkoxide-Based Organic\/Inorganic Molecular Hybrids for Radiation Shielding\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Epoxy-Metal Alkoxide-Based Organic\/Inorganic Molecular Hybrids for Radiation Shielding"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-05-18 15:41:30","changed_gmt":"2026-05-18 15:43:00","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-28T10:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-28T12:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-28T12:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-28 14:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-28 16:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-28 16:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"MoSE 1224","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"102851","name":"Phd proposal"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690327":{"#nid":"690327","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Defense by Dongmin Li","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETitle\u003C\/strong\u003E:\u0026nbsp;Data-Driven Prediction and Adaptive Decision-Making for Sequential Monitoring of Complex Systems\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDate\u003C\/strong\u003E:\u0026nbsp;Friday, May 29th, 2026\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETime\u003C\/strong\u003E:\u0026nbsp;1pm-3pm EST\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELocation\u003C\/strong\u003E:\u0026nbsp;Groseclose 404\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMeeting link:\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/gatech.zoom.us\/j\/97030539974\u0022\u003Ehttps:\/\/gatech.zoom.us\/j\/97030539974\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDongmin Li\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPh.D. Candidate in Industrial Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EH. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECommittee\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Xiaochen Xian (Advisor), H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Jianjun Shi, H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Roshan Joseph, H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Xiao Liu, H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Hongcheng Liu, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Florida\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbstract\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESequential monitoring of complex systems, such as advanced manufacturing and environmental monitoring, is essential for ensuring system reliability and performance. However, challenges arise when evaluating system status from real-time observations and making detection decisions. Resource constraints, such as limited sensors and data storage, restrict observations to a subset of system variables, requiring adaptive sampling decisions for data collection that account for uncertainty in system status evaluation and potential changes. In addition, system variables often exhibit intricate interactions and may evolve over time, requiring the consideration of the interactions and prediction of system evolution for accurate and timely detection.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo address the challenges, this thesis leverages available data and system knowledge, such as spatial correlation and underlying physics, to enhance system status prediction, evaluation, and adaptive decision-making, ensuring effective detection performance. Chapter 2 proposes data-driven sampling strategies for moving vehicle-based sensors (MVSs) to quickly detect abrupt changes in an area. By integrating statistical process control and mathematical optimization, the strategies handle noisy and partial observations and adaptively adjust MVS routes under movement constraints. Chapter 3 further proposes a Bayesian jump model-based pathwise sampling approach that improves detection performance using MVSs by incorporating spatial correlation and quantifying uncertainties. Chapter 4 addresses monitoring design for optimal statistical or economic performance under partial observations. Through theoretical analysis that derives average detection delays as explicit functions of design parameters and system settings, such as the numbers of observed and total variables, a design framework is formulated to determine the optimal parameter setting to meet detection goals while accounting for sensor deployment costs. Chapter 5 leverages underlying physics for accurate prediction, developing a physics-informed machine learning framework to predict droplet evolution in the inkjet printing process. By incorporating the volume of fluid formulation, it seamlessly integrates the governing physics of the velocity and pressure fields with observed sequential images of droplet shapes, thereby achieving accurate future droplet shape prediction, reconstructing the underlying physics fields based on image observations, and supporting analysis of droplet evolution behaviors.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EData-Driven Prediction and Adaptive Decision-Making for Sequential Monitoring of Complex Systems\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Data-Driven Prediction and Adaptive Decision-Making for Sequential Monitoring of Complex Systems"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-05-18 15:39:57","changed_gmt":"2026-05-18 15:40:24","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-29T13:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-29T15:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-29T15:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-29 17:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-29 19:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-29 19:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"Groseclose 404","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"100811","name":"Phd Defense"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690326":{"#nid":"690326","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Proposal by Kamel Alrashedy","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETitle\u003C\/strong\u003E:\u0026nbsp;Feedback-Guided LLM Reasoning: A Unified Closed-Loop Framework for Code Generation and Decision Making\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDate\u003C\/strong\u003E: Tuesday, May 19, 2026\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETime\u003C\/strong\u003E: 2:30 PM to 4:30 PM Eastern Time (US)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELocation\u003C\/strong\u003E:\u0026nbsp;Klaus 1315\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EVirtual Meeting\u003C\/strong\u003E:\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgatech.zoom.us%2Fj%2F91561524771\u0026amp;data=05%7C02%7Ctm186%40gtvault.onmicrosoft.com%7Ccc85edbee7b74848fe9308deb13dedc8%7C482198bbae7b4b258b7a6d7f32faa083%7C1%7C0%7C639143076803904512%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C\u0026amp;sdata=DlY19lIDgjL516LCIfxxO7jDboay%2FcfoP6yCmXg60Pk%3D\u0026amp;reserved=0\u0022\u003Ehttps:\/\/gatech.zoom.us\/j\/91561524771\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EKamel Alrashedy\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECS Ph.D. Student\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESchool of Interactive Computing\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECollege of Computing\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fkamel773.github.io%2F\u0026amp;data=05%7C02%7Ctm186%40gtvault.onmicrosoft.com%7Ccc85edbee7b74848fe9308deb13dedc8%7C482198bbae7b4b258b7a6d7f32faa083%7C1%7C0%7C639143076803974869%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C\u0026amp;sdata=k%2BZBW9rHflppo%2F6nPc5tGKZVwTrRtmYCl0gQIN02yTE%3D\u0026amp;reserved=0\u0022\u003Ehttps:\/\/kamel773.github.io\/\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECommittee\u003C\/strong\u003E:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr.\u0026nbsp;Matthew Gombolay\u0026nbsp;- Advisor, School of Interactive Computing\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr.\u0026nbsp;Kartik Goyal\u0026nbsp;- Georgia Tech, School of Interactive Computing\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr.\u0026nbsp;Zsolt Kira\u0026nbsp;- Georgia Tech, School of Interactive Computing\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr.\u0026nbsp;Shreyes Melkote\u0026nbsp;- Georgia Tech,\u0026nbsp;School of Mechanical Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Jesse Thomason - University of Southern California, Department of Computer Science\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbstract\u003C\/strong\u003E:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELarge Language Models (LLMs) have shown strong potential for improving productivity in software engineering, design, and decision support. However, when deployed in real-world tasks, they often struggle to produce outputs that are correct, secure, and compliant with constraints. This thesis develops Feedback-Guided LLM Reasoning (FGLR), a closed-loop interaction framework that enables language models to improve solution quality through iterative feedback from external tools, rather than relying solely on static prompting or internal model knowledge. First, I introduce CADCodeVerify, a feedback-driven framework for CAD code generation that uses vision-language verification to iteratively detect and correct structural and geometric errors. Second, I develop Feedback-Driven Security Patching (FDSP), which integrates static code analyzers with LLMs to identify vulnerabilities and iteratively refine insecure code. Third, I propose Constraints-of-Thought (Const-o-T), a structured reasoning framework that transforms natural language strategies into executable intent-constraint representations, enabling constraint-guided planning and search. Finally, I investigate reliable feedback as a fundamental challenge in feedback-driven reasoning, studying when iterative refinement improves or degrades\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EFeedback-Guided LLM Reasoning: A Unified Closed-Loop Framework for Code Generation and Decision Making\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Feedback-Guided LLM Reasoning: A Unified Closed-Loop Framework for Code Generation and Decision Making"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-05-18 15:38:28","changed_gmt":"2026-05-18 15:39:00","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-19T14:30:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-19T16:30:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-19T16:30:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-19 18:30:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-19 20:30:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-19 20:30:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"Klaus 1315","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"102851","name":"Phd proposal"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690324":{"#nid":"690324","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Defense by Moamen Soliman","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETitle: Machine Learning Across the Critical Care Continuum: Sensing, Prediction, Treatment, and Faithful Explanation\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDate: 05\/28\/2026\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETime: 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM EDT\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELocation: TSRB room 523A\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EVirtual link: \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/teams.microsoft.com\/meet\/286236651306243?p=GJNt6ZfWFP7VluiuT3\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022 title=\u0022Meeting join\u0022\u003Ehttps:\/\/teams.microsoft.com\/meet\/286236651306243?p=GJNt6ZfWFP7VluiuT3\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMoamen Soliman\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMachine Learning PhD Student\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESchool of Electrical and Computer Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECommittee:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Omer T. Inan (Advisor) \u2014 School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Rishikesan Kamaleswaran (Co-advisor) \u2014 Department of Surgery, School of Medicine, Duke University\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Thomas Ploetz \u2014 School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. David Anderson \u2014 School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Gilles Clermont \u2014 School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Craig S. Jabaley \u2014 School of Medicine, Emory University\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAbstract\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis dissertation advances machine learning for critical care across sensing, prediction, treatment, and faithful explanation. A wearable chest patch with multimodal demodulation algorithms recovers respiratory mechanics from cardiomechanical signals without per-subject calibration. Building on this, septic shock onset is predicted from continuous physiological waveforms, first through a parsimonious bedside model and then through a multimodal fusion framework externally validated across two academic medical centers. Moving beyond prediction, XHemo pairs an offline reinforcement learning policy for fluid and vasopressor management with attribution-grounded large language model explanations, separating decision fidelity from explanatory faithfulness by anchoring generated reasoning to the same Integrated Gradients evidence the policy used. Together, these aims trace a continuum from measuring patient state to anticipating deterioration, recommending action, and explaining recommendations with traceable evidence, contributing methods toward more trustworthy clinical decision support for critical care.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMachine Learning Across the Critical Care Continuum: Sensing, Prediction, Treatment, and Faithful Explanation\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Machine Learning Across the Critical Care Continuum: Sensing, Prediction, Treatment, and Faithful Explanation"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-05-18 15:37:10","changed_gmt":"2026-05-18 15:37:42","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-28T09:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-28T11:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-28T11:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-28 13:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-28 15:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-28 15:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"TSRB room 523A","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"100811","name":"Phd Defense"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690322":{"#nid":"690322","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Defense by Dong Gun Oh","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EDong Gun Oh\u003Cbr\u003EBME PhD Defense Presentation\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EDate: 2026-05-29\u003Cbr\u003ETime: 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM\u003Cbr\u003ELocation \/ Meeting Link: HSRB2 N100 \/ \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/emory.zoom.us\/j\/92597159515\u0022\u003Ehttps:\/\/emory.zoom.us\/j\/92597159515\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ECommittee Members:\u003Cbr\u003ELaura Hansen, PhD (advisor); W. Robert Taylor, MD\/PhD; Hanjoong Jo, PhD; Hyojung Choo, PhD; Luke Brewster, MD\/PhD\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ETitle: Investigating Changes in Satellite Cell Proliferation and Angiogenic Potential in Response to Exercise Therapy\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EAbstract:\u003Cbr\u003ESupervised exercise therapy (SET) has emerged as a primary, non-invasive strategy to improve functional mobility in patients with Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD). Despite its widespread adoption, the cellular mechanisms driving this functional rehabilitation remain poorly understood. In particular, the role of skeletal muscle satellite cells (SCs) as active biological mediators that translate the mechanical and metabolic stress of exercise into tissue regeneration has been largely overlooked in the context of PAD pathophysiology. The chronically ischemic microenvironment characteristic of PAD imposes persistent stress that disrupts SC function and impairs the intercellular signaling networks required for vascular and structural adaptation. Furthermore, SET is not universally therapeutic; some patients paradoxically develop exacerbated ischemic myopathy with no functional improvement. The mechanisms underlying this variability in therapeutic responsiveness also remain poorly defined. This dissertation investigates the cellular, paracrine, and transcriptomic adaptations of SCs to elucidate the mechanisms governing SET-mediated rehabilitation and the divergent clinical responses to exercise therapy. In Aim 1, the temporal dynamics of SC proliferation and transcriptomic remodeling in response to exercise were characterized using an aged murine model. In Aim 2, the isolated and synergistic effects of exercise-induced stimuli, specifically hypoxia and lactate accumulation, on SC behavior were examined in vitro. In Aim 3, divergent regenerative trajectories and intercellular communication networks associated with heterogenous clinical outcomes in response to SET were analyzed in human PAD skeletal muscle using single-nuclei transcriptomics. Collectively, these studies demonstrate that transient exercise-induced stimuli can promote beneficial SC-mediated angiogenesis and oxidative muscle remodeling, whereas the hostile ischemic microenvironment in PAD drives SC functional exhaustion, maladaptive glycolytic remodeling, and persistent denervation in the patients experienced worsened clinical outcome post-exercise. These findings establish a mechanistic framework linking SC dysfunction to divergent rehabilitation outcomes and provide a critical foundation for the development of precision regenerative therapies targeting ischemic skeletal muscle in PAD.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EInvestigating Changes in Satellite Cell Proliferation and Angiogenic Potential in Response to Exercise Therapy\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Investigating Changes in Satellite Cell Proliferation and Angiogenic Potential in Response to Exercise Therapy"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-05-18 15:32:01","changed_gmt":"2026-05-18 15:32:47","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-29T11:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-29T13:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-29T13:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-29 15:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-29 17:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-29 17:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"HSRB2 N100 ","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"100811","name":"Phd Defense"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690321":{"#nid":"690321","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Defense by Jiawei Zhou","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETitle\u003C\/strong\u003E: Assessing and Communicating Risks of Generative AI in Public Health Information Ecosystems\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDate\u003C\/strong\u003E: Monday, June 1, 2026\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETime\u003C\/strong\u003E: 10 AM \u2014 12 PM ET\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELocation\u003C\/strong\u003E: \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgatech.zoom.us%2Fj%2F91343856866%3Fpwd%3DbXWN2nRPRANKaFt1kcIUzYTj7pyIiU.1\u0026amp;data=05%7C02%7Ctm186%40gtvault.onmicrosoft.com%7C3652cb1cb6734ae1033c08deb480c1b4%7C482198bbae7b4b258b7a6d7f32faa083%7C1%7C0%7C639146662290656677%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C\u0026amp;sdata=XzNAZ1nLxM853NVJwz3ppXYQnducn82CUGS%2F3dE13NM%3D\u0026amp;reserved=0\u0022\u003EVirtual - Zoom link\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EJiawei Zhou\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPh.D. Candidate in Human-Centered Computing\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESchool of Interactive Computing\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fjiaweizhou.me%2F\u0026amp;data=05%7C02%7Ctm186%40gtvault.onmicrosoft.com%7C3652cb1cb6734ae1033c08deb480c1b4%7C482198bbae7b4b258b7a6d7f32faa083%7C1%7C0%7C639146662290684419%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C\u0026amp;sdata=bFUD0U8%2Fwu%2FNwSdmX0EEZBGnms9iCgfSrC80wgBvfFY%3D\u0026amp;reserved=0\u0022\u003Ehttps:\/\/jiaweizhou.me\/\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECommittee\u003C\/strong\u003E:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Munmun De Choudhury (Advisor) \u2014 School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Andrea G. Parker \u2014 School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Srijan Kumar \u2014 School of Computational Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Nicholas Diakopoulos \u2014 School of Communication, Northwestern University\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Q. Vera Liao \u2014 Computer Science and Engineering, University of Michigan\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbstract\u003C\/strong\u003E:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETechnology is increasingly shaping the way we interact with information, where both the quality of that information and the affordances of information technologies shape people\u0027s attitudes and decision-making. Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, such as large language models (LLMs), differ fundamentally from prior information and communication technologies that were primarily task-centric, by producing new content in a probabilistic manner and at scale. This generative nature is both the power and the pitfall of this new technology: it provides instant and scalable content, yet it can produce low-quality information (e.g., hallucinated outputs and oversimplified answers) as it is rapidly embedded into everyday systems, often without users\u0027 awareness of its role. This imbalance between adoption speed and public understanding raises pressing questions about how generative AI disrupts the ecosystems through which people seek, evaluate, and act on health information.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis dissertation argues that generative AI introduces ecological disruptions to public health information ecosystems that require contextually grounded risk assessment and literacy-centered risk communication to understand and address underlying harms. Situated within the context of a range of public health crises and challenges, my work employs computational, qualitative, and experimental methods, alongside deep-seated domain collaborations with experts in public health, communication, and natural language processing.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAcross five studies amid the formative years of generative AI, this dissertation examines these disruptions at multiple levels. To assess risks, the thesis first showed that harm in low-quality information is jointly shaped by content composition and reader context, and that AI-generated content is structurally distinct from human-created content in ways that undermine existing detection and assessment solutions. The research then identified the risks of LLM adoption for public health information needs, spanning four ecological risk dimensions rooted in LLMs\u0027 generative nature. To examine how these risks are communicated, the work found that public discourse was not equipping people with a balanced view of AI capabilities and risks needed to navigate these technologies, and that explicit risk communication alone is insufficient to support informed AI use, with its effects contingent on the AI literacy users bring to it.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe dissertation reframes the problem of generative AI in public health information ecosystems in two directions: what AI does to the ecosystem by compressing distributed judgment into synthesized responses and simulating the signals users relied on to assess trustworthiness, and what the ecosystem fails to do in response by communicating risks to users who lack the conceptual foundation to act on them. Collectively, this research advances empirical grounding for more responsible adoption, communication, and governance of generative AI for health, with the aim of helping people safely and meaningfully engage with AI.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAssessing and Communicating Risks of Generative AI in Public Health Information Ecosystems\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Assessing and Communicating Risks of Generative AI in Public Health Information Ecosystems"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-05-18 15:30:26","changed_gmt":"2026-05-18 15:30:53","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-06-01T10:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-06-01T12:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-06-01T12:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-06-01 14:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-06-01 16:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-06-01 16:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"VIRTUAL","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"100811","name":"Phd Defense"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690246":{"#nid":"690246","#data":{"type":"event","title":"Ph.D. Dissertation Defense - Niyem Mawenbe Bawana","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETitle\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cem\u003E:\u0026nbsp; Deep Learning for Terahertz Damage Characterization in Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer Laminates: From Detection to Quantification\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECommittee:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr.\u0026nbsp;David Citrin, ECE, Chair, Advisor\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr.\u0026nbsp;David Anderson, ECE\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr.\u0026nbsp;Ryan Sherman, CEE\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr.\u0026nbsp;Doug Yoder, ECE\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr.\u0026nbsp;Nico Declercq, ME\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGlass-fibre reinforced polymer laminates are deployed at scale across aerospace, transportation,\u003Cbr\u003Eenergy, and pressure-vessel applications, yet remain vulnerable to barely-visible impact damage\u003Cbr\u003E(BVID) that compromises internal load paths while leaving minimal surface evidence. Terahertz\u003Cbr\u003E(THz) time-of-flight imaging offers a non-contact, non-ionizing, depth-resolved probe, but its\u003Cbr\u003Edeployment is limited by complex B-scans, expert-interpretation overhead, and the annotation cost\u003Cbr\u003Eof supervised learning. This dissertation develops physics-informed deep-learning pipelines that turn\u003Cbr\u003Ehigh-dimensional THz measurements into reliable, interpretable, and scalable inspection decisions\u003Cbr\u003Ewhile reducing the manual labelling and destructive supervision required to build them. Two\u003Cbr\u003Esynthetic corpora are produced: 1,071 BVID specimens generated by coupling Abaqus low-velocity\u003Cbr\u003Eimpact simulations to a 1D MEEP THz forward model; and 1,205 parametric Teflon-insert specimens\u003Cbr\u003Efrom MEEP alone. A transfer-learned DenseNet-121 classifier achieves 0.991 accuracy on a held-out\u003Cbr\u003Eexperimental cohort. A modality-agnostic Abaqus\u2013MEEP-pretrained weakly supervised pipeline\u003Cbr\u003Econverts gradient-based saliency into calibrated bounding boxes and a continuous severity output\u003Cbr\u003E(R2 = 0.81 on the synthetic test split), transferring without modification between THz and X-ray\u003Cbr\u003Emicro-computed tomography data, where a YOLOv8 student detector reaches mAP@50 \u2248 0.99.\u003Cbr\u003EA three-tier multi-task network coupled to a calibrated physics-based interface predictor jointly\u003Cbr\u003Eregresses defect presence, interface index, ply count, defect thickness (\u223c 30 \u00b5m MAE) and diameter,\u003Cbr\u003Elifting depth accuracy from \u223c 14% to 91.6%, and transferring to an external experimental benchmark\u003Cbr\u003Ewith front-surface normalization alone.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Deep Learning for Terahertz Damage Characterization in Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer Laminates: From Detection to Quantification "}],"uid":"28475","created_gmt":"2026-05-12 21:46:54","changed_gmt":"2026-05-12 21:48:10","author":"Daniela Staiculescu","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-06-03T09:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-06-03T11:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-06-03T11:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-06-03 13:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-06-03 15:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-06-03 15:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"Online","extras":[],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/teams.microsoft.com\/meet\/251359073936634?p=yzKFE2djjU5Lmc4Sip","title":"Microsoft Teams Link "}],"groups":[{"id":"434381","name":"ECE Ph.D. Dissertation Defenses"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"100811","name":"Phd Defense"},{"id":"1808","name":"graduate students"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690245":{"#nid":"690245","#data":{"type":"event","title":"Ph.D. Dissertation Defense - Mine Kerpicci","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETitle\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cem\u003E:\u0026nbsp; Leveraging Electromagnetic Signals for Non-intrusive Software and Hardware Characterization\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECommittee:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr.\u0026nbsp;Milos Prvulovic, CoC, Chair, Advisor\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr.\u0026nbsp;David Anderson, ECE\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr.\u0026nbsp;Matthieu Bloch, ECE\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr.\u0026nbsp;Gregory Durgin, ECE\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr.\u0026nbsp;Celine Lin, CoC\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAs embedded devices, Internet of Things systems, and cyber-physical platforms become more widespread, there is a growing need to characterize software and hardware behavior without privileged access or intrusive instrumentation. In many real deployments, conventional profiling is impractical because instrumentation may be too costly, unavailable, or disruptive to the behavior being measured. In contrast, electromagnetic (EM) signals can be captured externally in a contactless, non-intrusive manner and still carry information about underlying computation and hardware activity. This thesis develops methods that use externally captured EM signals for software and hardware characterization. The first contribution is a hierarchical framework for detecting multiple periodicities in software code analysis, enabling recovery of nested periodic structures, usually caused by execution of loop nests in software, from EM side-channels for fine-grained behavioral analysis. The second contribution is an efficient dissimilarity detection approach for time-series with application to EM side-channel analysis, supporting sensitive detection of deviations from reference behavior for program monitoring. The third contribution extends EM-based characterization to the wireless domain through hardware model identification, showing that measurement signatures can be used to distinguish radio models based on consistent hardware-dependent patterns. Together, these contributions demonstrate that EM signals provide a practical foundation for non-intrusive characterization of both software behavior and hardware platforms.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Leveraging Electromagnetic Signals for Non-intrusive Software and Hardware Characterization "}],"uid":"28475","created_gmt":"2026-05-12 21:43:56","changed_gmt":"2026-05-12 21:45:05","author":"Daniela Staiculescu","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-20T13:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-20T15:30:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-20T15:30:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-20 17:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-20 19:30:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-20 19:30:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"Room W218, Van Leer","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"434381","name":"ECE Ph.D. Dissertation Defenses"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"100811","name":"Phd Defense"},{"id":"1808","name":"graduate students"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690232":{"#nid":"690232","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Defense by Caleb Ju","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETitle: Fast and reliable optimization for dynamic decision-making under uncertainty\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDate:\u0026nbsp;May 21st, 2026\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETime: 3:00 PM \u2013 4:30 PM EST\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELocation: Groseclose 404 and Zoom\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMeeting Link: \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgatech.zoom.us%2Fj%2F97324269229\u0026amp;data=05%7C02%7Ctm186%40gtvault.onmicrosoft.com%7Cc75a35284bdc4c39aea908deaf8d4c8b%7C482198bbae7b4b258b7a6d7f32faa083%7C1%7C0%7C639141218600509858%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C\u0026amp;sdata=suEdjC1DKRWrQX1SFhp356pV4d%2FtaO6%2FN6i0EXlX55U%3D\u0026amp;reserved=0\u0022\u003Ehttps:\/\/gatech.zoom.us\/j\/97324269229\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECaleb Ju\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPh.D. Candidate in Operations Research\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESchool of Industrial and Systems Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECommittee:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Guanghui Lan\u0026nbsp;(advisor), School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Yuejie Chi, Department of Statistics and Data Science, Yale University\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Constance Crozier, School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Katya Scheinberg, School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Alexander Shapiro, School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAbstract:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis thesis focuses on the design and implementation of stochastic optimization methods towards dynamic decision-making under uncertainty. This includes problems such as reinforcement learning (RL), multi-stage stochastic programs, and stochastic optimal control, as well as applications in energy and sustainability. A central theme is developing new algorithms with state-of-the-art sample complexity under relaxed assumptions that better match practice.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis thesis starts by deriving new convergence guarantees and termination criteria for finite state and action Markov decision processes (MDPs) and RL problems. Chapter 2 introduces a new advantage gap function for these problems. This gap function provides close approximations of the (unknown) optimality gap, which can be easily estimated in a data-driven manner for RL. Moreover, by incorporating the gap function into the design of step size rules, we demonstrate that policy gradient methods can solve MDPs in strongly-polynomial time. This result shows popular gradient-based approaches can efficiently find exact solutions when the model is known, and it matches the strongly-polynomial runtime of simplex and Howard\u2019s policy iteration proven by Ye. In Chapter 3, we develop a novel framework called auto-exploration for solving RL problems in the online (or single-trajectory) model. We use the framework to derive a new algorithm-independent sample complexity under weaker mixing assumptions on the optimal policy. Moreover, our algorithm is parameter-free since it does not require a priori knowledge of the unknown mixing time. Additionally, the method can easily incorporate linear function approximation.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAfter investigating finite state and action problems, the thesis advances towards RL and classical control problems over continuous spaces. In Chapter 4, we revisit the linear quadratic regulator in the online model. Despite the non-convexity of the problem in policy space, we design a globally convergent natural policy gradient paired with a new conditional stochastic primal-dual algorithm. This combined algorithm delivers state-of-the-art sample complexity under a relaxed assumption on the stability of the initial controller (rather than the stability of all intermediate controllers, which is commonly posited in prior art). Then Chapter 5 introduces a new policy dual averaging (PDA) for solving RL problems over general state and action space. PDA can easily incorporate function approximation (e.g., nonlinear kernels and neural networks) while providing efficient global convergence guarantees.\u0026nbsp;Preliminary numerical results demonstrate the robustness of PDA and show it can be competitive with state-of-the-art RL algorithms. In Chapter 6, we study stationary stochastic programs over an infinite horizon. We introduce a continually-exploring infinite-horizon explorative dual dynamic programming. Compared to the celebrated stochastic dual dynamic programming, our method explores the feasible region longer and updates the cutting-plane model more frequently. These innovations yield new iteration complexities while offering numerically efficient performance on inventory control and hydrothermal planning problems.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe thesis concludes with RL applications towards energy and sustainability. Chapter 7 applies RL towards the operation of grid-scale batteries co-located with solar generation. Compared to simpler rules-based control, we show RL has two significant downstream effects: (1) solar energy is more effectively shifted towards high demand periods, and (2) potential to reduce ramping issues caused by super-position of many similar battery operations. In Chapter 8, we utilize RL for real-time control of multiple feedstocks in waste biorefining processes. In the short term, RL achieves faster target tracking with increased precision and accuracy, while in the long term, it shows adaptive and robust behavior even under additional seasonal supply variability, meeting downstream demand with high probability.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EFast and reliable optimization for dynamic decision-making under uncertainty\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Fast and reliable optimization for dynamic decision-making under uncertainty"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-05-11 18:59:09","changed_gmt":"2026-05-11 18:59:44","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-21T15:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-21T16:30:34-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-21T16:30:34-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-21 19:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-21 20:30:34","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-21 20:30:34","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"Groseclose 404 and Zoom","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"100811","name":"Phd Defense"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690208":{"#nid":"690208","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Proposal by Seth Golembeski","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETitle:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;A Diffusion Homotopy Algorithm for Nash Equilibria\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDate:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;Wednesday, May 20th, 2026\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETime:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;1pm - 2pm ET\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELocation:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;MRDC 3515 (\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/teams.microsoft.com\/meet\/225122560859133?p=BordRn7dHFBulSff2T\u0022 title=\u0022Meeting join\u0022\u003Ehttps:\/\/teams.microsoft.com\/meet\/225122560859133?p=BordRn7dHFBulSff2T\u003C\/a\u003E)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESeth Golembeski\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERobotics Ph.D. Student\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGuggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECommittee:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr Anirban Mazumdar (Advisor): School of Mechanical Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr Shreyas Kousik: School of Mechanical Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr Jonathan Rogers: School of Aerospace Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr Kyriakos Vamvoudakis: School of Aerospace Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr Scott Nivison: Air Force Research Lab\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbstract:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMany robotics problems involve multiple interacting agents, often with conflicting objectives. Robust control addresses problems involving systems that reject external disturbances, such as wind, uneven terrain, or mechanical vibrations. Adversarial settings consider agents that are in opposition, such as combat, markets, or navigating a crowd.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThese seemingly disparate problems are connected by Nash equilibria: the combination of all agents\u2019 actions from which no agent can unilaterally deviate to improve its reward. These solutions are not always globally optimal, but each agent can guarantee that it is locally optimal with respect to unilateral deviations by others. Computing Nash equilibria and optimal control solutions are exceptionally difficult. Most existing methods assume monotonicity and continuity to guarantee convergence \u2013 conditions rarely met in robotics systems, which are often complex, discontinuous, and operate in high-dimensional spaces.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EModel-Based Diffusion alleviates the above problems, but is restricted to single-agent, non-game-theoretic problems, lacks formal convergence analysis, and requires large numbers of samples. To this end, this work proposes 1) MBD efficiency improvements via adaptive importance sampling 2) a decentralized, latency-robust, multi-agent diffusion algorithm for cooperative (potential) games and 3) a fully game-theoretic version of MBD for adversarial games and robust control, with convergence analysis.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA Diffusion Homotopy Algorithm for Nash Equilibria\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"A Diffusion Homotopy Algorithm for Nash Equilibria"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-05-08 21:34:28","changed_gmt":"2026-05-08 21:35:19","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-20T13:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-20T14:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-20T14:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-20 17:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-20 18:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-20 18:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"MRDC 3515 ","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"102851","name":"Phd proposal"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690207":{"#nid":"690207","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Defense by Eun Soo Son","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EDear Faculty and Fellow Ph.D. Students,\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI cordially invite you to attend my\u0026nbsp;dissertation\u0026nbsp;defense\u0026nbsp;scheduled for \u003Cstrong\u003EThursday, May 21st, from 10:00 to 11:30 AM in Room 223,\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;Scheller College of Business. Please find an overview of the\u0026nbsp;dissertation\u0026nbsp;included below. Copies will be made available upon request.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EYou \u0026nbsp;are also welcome to join virtually via the following Zoom link: \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgatech.zoom.us%2Fj%2F91943023069\u0026amp;data=05%7C02%7Ctm186%40gtvault.onmicrosoft.com%7C3899f70193d14fb84d6908dead27e5d8%7C482198bbae7b4b258b7a6d7f32faa083%7C1%7C0%7C639138584065389285%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C\u0026amp;sdata=8A7kRdVpsYl7OZvz4VCpYV7EJdGhpBVhHYDxqIhEwDI%3D\u0026amp;reserved=0\u0022\u003Ehttps:\/\/gatech.zoom.us\/j\/91943023069\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EKind regards,\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EEun Soo Son\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPhD Candidate, Organizational Behavior\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology | Scheller College of Business\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:eunsoo.son@scheller.gatech.edu\u0022 title=\u0022eunsoo.son@scheller.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Eeunsoo.son@scheller.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EArea:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;Organizational Behavior\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECommittee Members\u003C\/strong\u003E: Dr. Christina E. Shalley (Chair), Dr. Terry C. Blum, Dr. Katie L. Badura, Dr. Hyunsun Park, and Dr. Fadel K. Matta (University of Georgia)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETitle:\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003EWaking Up from a Daydream: Unveiling the Curiosity-Driven Outcomes of Social Daydreaming at Work\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDissertation Overview:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDaydreaming\u2014the act of mind wandering that departs from the here and now\u2014occupies a substantial proportion of waking thought and much of it is known to be predominantly social. While daydreaming of any kind has long been viewed as futile, recent research highlights the affective and relational benefits of social daydreaming in particular. Acknowledging its prevalence and extending existing findings, social daydreaming may act as an underrated driver of employee outcomes in the workplace, especially by engaging thoughts and images that vary in psychological distance. Hence, drawing on construal level theory, I propose that daydreaming involving others elicits I-type and D-type curiosity\u2014the desire for new information or knowledge to either explore new areas or resolve uncertainty\u2014in distinct ways, with the construal level during social daydreaming shaping how each type arises. I further argue that these two types of curiosity, prompted by social daydreams, differentially motivate workplace behaviors, as I-type curiosity drives exploration while D-type curiosity fosters exploitation. Results across the two studies\u2014an experiment using a critical incident technique and a field experience sampling study\u2014yield mixed findings, providing partial support for the model. Overall, the findings support the effect of high construal level on I-type curiosity and the interactive effect of social daydreaming and construal level on I-type curiosity, which in turn relates to exploration and exploitation. Theoretical and practical implications of this model are discussed.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWaking Up from a Daydream: Unveiling the Curiosity-Driven Outcomes of Social Daydreaming at Work\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Waking Up from a Daydream: Unveiling the Curiosity-Driven Outcomes of Social Daydreaming at Work"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-05-08 21:31:53","changed_gmt":"2026-05-08 21:32:22","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-21T10:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-21T11:30:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-21T11:30:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-21 14:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-21 15:30:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-21 15:30:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"Room 223, Scheller College ","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"100811","name":"Phd Defense"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690203":{"#nid":"690203","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Proposal by Jitesh Jain ","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETitle:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;Toward Multimodal Intelligence: Perception, Memory \u0026amp; Any-Horizon Reasoning\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJitesh Jain\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPh.D. Student in Computer Science\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESchool of Interactive Computing\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpraeclarumjj3.github.io%2F\u0026amp;data=05%7C02%7Ctm186%40gtvault.onmicrosoft.com%7C7f59adeba41642bcc5fb08dead245ad8%7C482198bbae7b4b258b7a6d7f32faa083%7C1%7C0%7C639138568815976263%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C\u0026amp;sdata=%2F%2FAxXFbGuXGjDnBfs78Var04h02hrIl%2FTCsBXecDboo%3D\u0026amp;reserved=0\u0022\u003Ehttps:\/\/praeclarumjj3.github.io\/\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDate:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;May 22, 12:00 - 2:00 PM EST\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELocation:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;Coda 1215\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EZoom: \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgatech.zoom.us%2Fj%2F9814414092%3Fpwd%3DWnpkTjNhRHhYQlNzZGxTTW9SWmtJdz09\u0026amp;data=05%7C02%7Ctm186%40gtvault.onmicrosoft.com%7C7f59adeba41642bcc5fb08dead245ad8%7C482198bbae7b4b258b7a6d7f32faa083%7C1%7C0%7C639138568816002384%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C\u0026amp;sdata=mS7RP9bMeV0cYEjKB5mU1rGL8WkLEVY5V6Uhh%2BXu55c%3D\u0026amp;reserved=0\u0022\u003Ehttps:\/\/gatech.zoom.us\/j\/9814414092?pwd=WnpkTjNhRHhYQlNzZGxTTW9SWmtJdz09\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECommittee:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Humphrey Shi (Advisor) - School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Zsolt Kira - School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Kartik Goyal - School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Judy Hoffman - Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences, University of California, Irvine\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Jianwei Yang - Member of Technical Staff, xAI\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbstract:\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003EMultimodal large language models have made impressive strides in language understanding and reasoning yet struggle with abilities that come naturally to humans: perceiving objects in cluttered scenes, remembering context across long interactions, and reasoning adaptively over extended time horizons. In this thesis, we argue that overcoming this gap requires integrating three capabilities that remain weak in current systems: visual perception, multimodal memory, and any-horizon reasoning.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWe begin by identifying that vision-language models fail at basic object-level perception and show that incorporating structured segmentation and depth signals as visual inputs significantly improves performance. Second, we improve spatial reasoning more fundamentally by distilling expert visual knowledge into the model\u0027s internal representations during pre-training, with no added cost at inference. Third, we build a multimodal agent with a graph-structured cognitive memory that enables efficient retrieval of multimodal context across long conversations. Finally, we propose an adaptive agent system to reason over long videos, addressing the challenges of scalable data collection, system design and training recipe for open-ended video understanding.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EToward Multimodal Intelligence: Perception, Memory \u0026amp; Any-Horizon Reasoning\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Toward Multimodal Intelligence: Perception, Memory \u0026 Any-Horizon Reasoning"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-05-08 17:27:08","changed_gmt":"2026-05-08 17:27:36","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-22T12:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-22T14:00:26-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-22T14:00:26-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-22 16:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-22 18:00:26","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-22 18:00:26","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"Coda 1215","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"102851","name":"Phd proposal"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690202":{"#nid":"690202","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Proposal by Maxwell Asselmeier","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETitle:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;Perception-informed Semantic Autonomy for Legged Systems\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDate:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;Wednesday, May 20th, 2026\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETime:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;10am - 12pm ET\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELocation:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;Klaus 1212 (\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgatech.zoom.us%2Fmy%2Fmassel\u0026amp;data=05%7C02%7Ctm186%40gtvault.onmicrosoft.com%7Cb9dfa79c56184d4ccb1308dead19ede2%7C482198bbae7b4b258b7a6d7f32faa083%7C1%7C0%7C639138524056919522%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C\u0026amp;sdata=w5lzFlJJQ1hQkeT%2Bzul4ygb9CrkNQrsh7o0Hitgb4BE%3D\u0026amp;reserved=0\u0022 title=\u0022https:\/\/gatech.zoom.us\/my\/massel\u0022\u003EZoom link\u003C\/a\u003E)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMaxwell Asselmeier\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERobotics Ph.D. Student\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWoodruff School of Mechanical Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECommittee:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Ye Zhao (co-advisor) \u2013 Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Patricio A. Vela (co-advisor) \u2013 School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Sehoon Ha \u2013 School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Lu Gan - Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Zak Kingston \u2013 Department of Computer Science, Purdue University\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbstract:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn this proposal, we will discuss two perception-informed and semantically-aware autonomy frameworks, one for Quadrupedal Navigation (QuadNav) and one for Bipedal Loco-manipulation (BiLocoManip). Through presenting these two frameworks, we will demonstrate how the task, environment, and embodiment at hand are crucial aspects that should inform the design of an autonomy stack. Within QuadNav, we decompose the task of navigation into global and local levels, with the local level being further decomposed into torso-, foot-, and joint-level reasoning. Torso-level decision-making is done through QuadGap, a gap-based local planner. Foot- and joint-level planning is done through QuadPiPS, a bi-level graph search and trajectory optimization framework. These various framework levels are all coordinated through a learned experience heuristic. Within BiLocoManip, we decompose the task of whole-body loco-manipulation into task planning over a long horizon, contact planning over a short horizon, and joint control in the immediate future. At the task level, a Vision Language Model (VLM) synthesizes planning commands according to environmental affordances which inform sampling during Model Predictive Path Integral (MPPI) control through a learned world model. Joint-level commands are ultimately tracked through a whole-body reinforcement learning policy.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EPerception-informed Semantic Autonomy for Legged Systems\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Perception-informed Semantic Autonomy for Legged Systems"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-05-08 15:56:03","changed_gmt":"2026-05-08 15:56:45","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-20T10:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-20T12:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-20T12:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-20 14:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-20 16:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-20 16:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"Klaus 1212 (Zoom link)","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"102851","name":"Phd proposal"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690199":{"#nid":"690199","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Proposal by Claire Wang","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EClaire Wang\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBioE PhD Proposal Presentation\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E9:00 am, Wednesday May 20, 2025\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELocation: MoSE G021\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAdvisor:\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003EDr. John Blazeck\u003Cstrong\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E(School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECommittee Members:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Mark Stycztnski (School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Gabe Kwong (Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology \u0026amp; Emory University)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Alexander Vlahos (Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology \u0026amp; Emory University)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Sarwish Rafiq (Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Emory University School of Medicine)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAdenosine-Inducible Self-limiting Armored CAR-T cells for Breast Cancer Treatment\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EChimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy faces challenges in solid tumors, where the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME) is a major factor that limits efficacy of CAR-T cells. Specifically, breast cancer is a type of solid tumor that has been shown dysregulated metabolism leading to buildup of immunosuppressive byproducts such as adenosine (ADO). This high ADO environment suppresses the cancer killing function of CAR-T therapy. To address the immunosuppressive environment in TME, recent clinical trials have demonstrated that cytokine-armored\u0026nbsp;CAR-T cells can overcome immunosuppression through tumor-specific cytotoxicity. However, constitutive cytokine expression introduces systemic toxicities, thereby limiting therapeutic doses. Additionally, adenosine deaminase can degrade extracellular ADO into the benign inosine metabolite, thereby relieving TME immunosuppression and restoring T cell function. These findings highlight the need for a platform that combines ADO degradation with tumor specific cytokine delivery to simultaneously resolve toxicity and efficacy barriers. Therefore, this thesis proposes an ADO-inducible, self-limiting CAR-T platform that enables tumor- localized cytokine expression in response to tumor-derived ADO. Aim 1 will define the activation threshold, dynamic range, and shutdown kinetics of the ADO-inducible cytokine\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003Eplatform in ADA2Ph2 secreted HEK293T cells. Aim 2 will translate the optimized circuit into primary CAR-T cells and validate tumor-localized activation in vivo. Aim 3 will evaluate\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003Eantitumor efficacy and systemic safety in mouse breast cancer models, including in combination with immune checkpoint blockade. Together, we will establish a mechanistically defined, metabolism-guided CAR-T platform that reprograms the immunosuppressive breast cancer TME while tumor localized cytokine activity, providing a broadly applicable framework for safer and more effective breast cancer immunotherapy.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAdenosine-Inducible Self-limiting Armored CAR-T cells for Breast Cancer Treatment\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Adenosine-Inducible Self-limiting Armored CAR-T cells for Breast Cancer Treatment"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-05-08 14:48:53","changed_gmt":"2026-05-08 14:49:45","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-20T09:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-20T11:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-20T11:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-20 13:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-20 15:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-20 15:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"MoSE G021","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"102851","name":"Phd proposal"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690191":{"#nid":"690191","#data":{"type":"event","title":"Ph.D. Dissertation Defense Announcement: Sixu Li","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETitle:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;The Algorithm-Hardware Specialization Spectrum of Multi-Stage Intelligence Pipelines: From Dedicated Accelerators to Heterogeneous Systems\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDate:\u003C\/strong\u003E Tuesday, May 19, 2026\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETime:\u003C\/strong\u003E 4PM to 6PM Eastern Time\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELocation:\u003C\/strong\u003E Klaus 2100\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EVirtual Meeting:\u003C\/strong\u003E \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgatech.zoom.us%2Fmy%2Fli.sixu\u0026amp;data=05%7C02%7Ctm186%40gtvault.onmicrosoft.com%7Cec95bed082894f57fbe208deabc0429e%7C482198bbae7b4b258b7a6d7f32faa083%7C1%7C0%7C639137039449399711%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C\u0026amp;sdata=WgCgPf960o5Sw4a76CdzSFlKfHBBfzPQHBgnnUOb%2Bi0%3D\u0026amp;reserved=0\u0022\u003Ehttps:\/\/gatech.zoom.us\/my\/li.sixu\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECommittee members:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Yingyan (Celine) Lin, College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Josiah Hester, College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Hyesoon Kim, College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Tushar Krishna, College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Thierry Tambe, Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbstract:\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis dissertation develops a hardware-centric specialization framework for multi-stage intelligence pipelines, using 3D intelligence as the primary study domain. Pipelines in this domain span perception and reconstruction, rendering, and high-level reasoning; their stages differ fundamentally in computational regularity, memory behavior, and control-flow dynamics, and therefore interact with current hardware to very different degrees.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWe characterize this heterogeneity through algorithmic entropy, a hardware-oriented measure of execution unpredictability that decomposes into two orthogonal axes: intra-operator entropy (X, datapath irregularity) and inter-operator entropy (Y, scheduling unpredictability), quantified via GPU profiling across nine representative workloads. The resulting two-dimensional space partitions workloads into quadrants, each mapping to a substrate along a hierarchical specialization spectrum: Q1 (low X, low Y) \u2192 dedicated ASIC; Q2 (high X, low\u2013moderate Y) \u2192 enhanced fixed-function GPU; Q3 (low X, high Y) \u2192 heterogeneous GPU-PIM; Q4 (high on both axes) \u2192 commodity GPU\/CPU baseline. Three systems instantiate this principle, one per populated quadrant:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFusion-3D (Q1): a dedicated 3D-reconstruction ASIC with hierarchical spatial tiling and a unified on-chip pipeline, extended to multi-chip for large scenes. Achieves 2.5\u00d7 \/ 6\u00d7 throughput over prior accelerators in reconstruction and inference, validated on a silicon prototype.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGauRast (Q2): a 3D Gaussian Splatting rasterizer that extends the existing GPU fixed-function rasterizer with lightweight neural-rendering operations. Achieves 6\u00d7 \/ 4\u00d7 end-to-end speedup on original \/ optimized 3DGS pipelines at \u22640.2% SoC area overhead.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EORCHES (Q3): a GPU-PIM heterogeneous system for test-time-compute (TTC) LLM\/VLM reasoning, combining adaptive workload assignment, branch-prediction-guided pipelining, and fragmentation-aware memory structuring. Achieves 4.16\u00d7 \/ 3.10\u00d7 end-to-end speedup on text \/ vision reasoning over SOTA GPU baselines.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAcross the three quadrants, profile-guided substrate selection delivers substantial speedups for 3D intelligence workloads while specializing only the axis where existing hardware fails. Beyond 3D intelligence, we anticipate the same (X, Y) methodology serving as a starting point for substrate selection in other multi-stage, heterogeneous-workload domains.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe Algorithm-Hardware Specialization Spectrum of Multi-Stage Intelligence Pipelines: From Dedicated Accelerators to Heterogeneous Systems\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"The Algorithm-Hardware Specialization Spectrum of Multi-Stage Intelligence Pipelines: From Dedicated Accelerators to Heterogeneous Systems"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-05-07 15:31:19","changed_gmt":"2026-05-07 15:32:06","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-19T16:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-19T18:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-19T18:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-19 20:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-19 22:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-19 22:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"Klaus 2100","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"100811","name":"Phd Defense"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690190":{"#nid":"690190","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Proposal by Yesol Moon","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EStudent Name: Yesol Moon\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThesis Title: Standardized, data-driven framework for C. elegans brain atlases across development\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThesis Advisor: Dr. Hang Lu\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThesis Co-Advisor: N\/A\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECommittee Members: Dr. Matthew Realff (School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Tech), Dr. Lily Cheung (School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Tech), Dr. Nathan McDonald (School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Tech), Dr. Yun Zhang (Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDate: 5\/20\/2026\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETime: 2 PM\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELocation: EBB 3029\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EStandardized, data-driven framework for C. elegans brain atlases across development\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Standardized, data-driven framework for C. elegans brain atlases across development"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-05-07 15:26:19","changed_gmt":"2026-05-07 15:26:47","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-20T14:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-20T16:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-20T16:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-20 18:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-20 20:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-20 20:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"EBB 3029","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"102851","name":"Phd proposal"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690174":{"#nid":"690174","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Proposal by Jiaqi Zhang","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EPhD\u0026nbsp;Thesis Proposal\u0026nbsp;Announcement\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStudent Name: Jiaqi Zhang\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThesis Title: Mechanistic Studies on Degradation of Amine-Based Sorbent for Direct Air Capture (DAC)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThesis Advisor: Christopher W. Jones\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThesis Co-Advisor: Carsten Sievers\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECommittee Members: David W. Flaherty (ChBE); Bjarne Kreitz (ChBE); Will Gutekunst (Chem)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDate: 5\/22\/2026\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETime: 9am\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELocation: L1105 Classroom ES\u0026amp;T\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMechanistic Studies on Degradation of Amine-Based Sorbent for Direct Air Capture (DAC)\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Mechanistic Studies on Degradation of Amine-Based Sorbent for Direct Air Capture (DAC)"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-05-06 16:21:24","changed_gmt":"2026-05-06 16:21:57","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-22T09:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-22T11:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-22T11:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-22 13:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-22 15:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-22 15:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"L1105 Classroom ES\u0026T","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"102851","name":"Phd proposal"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690173":{"#nid":"690173","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Proposal by Khanh Le","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EPhD\u0026nbsp;Thesis Proposal\u0026nbsp;Announcement\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStudent Name: Khanh Le\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThesis Title: Reaction Mechanisms and Intrapore Interactions of The Direct Amination of Alcohols over Zeolites\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThesis Advisor: David W. Flaherty\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThesis Co-Advisor: N\/A\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECommittee Members: Christopher W. Jones (ChBE), William J. Koros (ChBE), Bjarne Kreitz (ChBE), Jesse G. McDaniel (School of Chemistry \u0026amp; Biochemistry)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDate: 5\/21\/2026\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETime: 11:00 am - 1:00 pm\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELocation: EBB Krone 4029 Conference Room\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EReaction Mechanisms and Intrapore Interactions of The Direct Amination of Alcohols over Zeolites\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Reaction Mechanisms and Intrapore Interactions of The Direct Amination of Alcohols over Zeolites"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-05-06 16:19:41","changed_gmt":"2026-05-06 16:20:42","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-21T11:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-21T13:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-21T13:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-21 15:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-21 17:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-21 17:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"EBB Krone 4029 Conference Room","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"102851","name":"Phd proposal"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690161":{"#nid":"690161","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Proposal by Shao-Yun Hsu","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EShao-Yun Hsu\u003Cbr\u003EBME PhD Proposal Presentation\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EDate: 2026-05-21\u003Cbr\u003ETime: 10:00 am to 12:00 pm\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003ELocation \/ Meeting Link: 102A Conference Room Pettit in the Pettit Microelectronics Building \/https:\/\/teams.microsoft.com\/meet\/23010688847336?p=rRVOT0BNqV7tAGEbRb\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ECommittee Members:\u003Cbr\u003EDr. Andres Garcia Dr. Susan Thomas Dr. Ankur Singh Dr. Robers Sibley\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ETitle: Engineered PEG-4MAL Hydrogels to Enhance and Simplify Lymphedema Microsurgery\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EAbstract:\u003Cbr\u003ELymphedema is a chronic, progressive condition of impaired lymphatic transport that affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide and remains incurable, with most patients managed only by lifelong compression. Microsurgical reconstruction by vascularized lymph node transplant (VLNT) and lymphovenous anastomosis (LVA) offers the most promising therapeutic option for eligible patients, but each procedure is constrained by distinct limitations. VLNT achieves meaningful volume reduction in only about one-third of patients, largely owing to inadequate lymphatic reconnection between the transplanted node and the host vasculature, and harvesting a vascularized flap exposes patients to donor-site morbidity, including donor-site lymphedema and nerve injury. LVA avoids a donor node but requires multiple circumferential microsutures to seal a junction between dramatically size-mismatched lymphatics and veins, restricting access to fewer than 10 percent of eligible patients. This proposal leverages a PEG-4MAL hydrogel platform with tunable stiffness, modular incorporation of adhesive and protease-cleavable peptides, and bioorthogonal growth-factor conjugation to address these gaps in a clinically relevant rat secondary lymphedema model. Aim 1 will establish a lymphedema model and a longitudinal near-infrared functional analysis platform. Aim 2 will determine whether a lymphangiogenic hydrogel implanted at the time of VLNT enhances host-to-graft reconnection and accelerates volume and functional recovery. Aim 3 will reduce surgical complexity through two complementary strategies: a flap-free, anastomosis-free artificial lymph node generated by VEGF-A-driven pedicle-to-node angiogenesis, and an in situ-gelling hydrogel sealant that replaces circumferential sutures in LVA. Collectively, these aims aim to expand both the efficacy and accessibility of lymphedema microsurgery.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EEngineered PEG-4MAL Hydrogels to Enhance and Simplify Lymphedema Microsurgery\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Engineered PEG-4MAL Hydrogels to Enhance and Simplify Lymphedema Microsurgery "}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-05-05 20:40:07","changed_gmt":"2026-05-05 20:40:46","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-21T10:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-21T12:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-21T12:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-21 14:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-21 16:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-21 16:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"102A Conference Room Pettit in the Pettit Microelectronics Building ","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"100811","name":"Phd Defense"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690048":{"#nid":"690048","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Proposal by McKenna Clinch","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EPhD\u0026nbsp;Thesis Proposal\u0026nbsp;Announcement\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStudent Name: McKenna Clinch\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThesis Title: Ingestible Electroceutical Device for Satiety and Digestion Hormone Regulation\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThesis Advisor: Alex Abramson\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThesis Co-Advisor: N\/A\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECommittee Members: Alex Abramson - Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; Hang Lu - Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; Michael Filler - Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; Matthew Flavin - Electrical and Computer Engineering; Shanthi Srinivasan - Department of Medicine (Emory)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDate: 5\/19\/2026\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETime: 1:00 PM\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELocation: MoSE 3201A\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIngestible Electroceutical Device for Satiety and Digestion Hormone Regulation\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Ingestible Electroceutical Device for Satiety and Digestion Hormone Regulation"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-04-29 15:58:41","changed_gmt":"2026-04-29 15:59:15","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-19T13:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-19T15:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-19T15:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-19 17:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-19 19:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-19 19:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"MoSE 3201A","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"102851","name":"Phd proposal"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"689994":{"#nid":"689994","#data":{"type":"event","title":"Ph.D. Dissertation Defense - Ruochu Yang","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETitle\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cem\u003E:\u0026nbsp; Towards Human-level Planning for Underwater and Household Robots in Large Complicated Environments\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECommittee:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Yorai Wardi, ECE, Chair, Advisor\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Fumin Zhang, ECE\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Matthieu Bloch, ECE\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Maegan Tucker, ECE\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Haomin Zhou, Math\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThis thesis develops planning, monitoring, and interaction frameworks that advance robots towards human-level planning intelligence in large, complicated environments. Across six chapters, we progress from domain-specific autonomous systems to general planning algorithms, spanning underwater and household robotics. In the marine domain, we build GENIoS_Python for real-time flow-informed glider navigation and an anomaly detection algorithm for autonomous health monitoring - together forming a complete autonomous glider operation stack. We then develop OceanChat and OceanPlan, which for the first time enable natural language AUV piloting through LLM-guided hierarchical task and motion planning with replanning. Transitioning to household robotics, we propose Inter-LLM, an interleaved LLM and motion planning algorithm that grounds semantic reasoning with physical execution costs for scalable multi-object collection. Finally, we present Inter-POMDP, an interleaved POMDP planning algorithm that systematically handles extensive uncertainty in multi-object search across unknown multi-room environments. Unifying these contributions is a consistent pursuit: like humans, robots should decompose complex missions hierarchically, adapt to unexpected situations in real time, reason jointly about semantics and physics, and interact with users through natural language. We believe the frameworks developed in this thesis represent meaningful steps towards this vision.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Towards Human-level Planning for Underwater and Household Robots in Large Complicated Environments "}],"uid":"28475","created_gmt":"2026-04-24 15:00:23","changed_gmt":"2026-04-24 15:01:47","author":"Daniela Staiculescu","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-05-21T13:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-05-21T15:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-05-21T15:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-05-21 17:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-05-21 19:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-05-21 19:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"Room 523A, TSRB","extras":[],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/gatech.zoom.us\/j\/9329600564?pwd=Mml6U1A0emdiS3FMOEFpRWRiMzQ0QT09","title":"Zoom link"}],"groups":[{"id":"434381","name":"ECE Ph.D. Dissertation Defenses"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"100811","name":"Phd Defense"},{"id":"1808","name":"graduate students"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}