Computer Science Colloquia

Spring 2026

Time: Fridays, 11 a.m. – Noon

Date	Location	Speaker	Affiliation	Host	Title
January 23	Knowledge is Power, But Power Casts Shadows? Zoom	Yuji Zhang	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)	Hong Yu	Knowledge is Power, But Power Casts Shadows?
January 30	Dandeneau Hall, Room 321	Dustin Jamner	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	Anitha Gollamudi	Toward Automatic Compiler Verification for Modular Metatheory

Fall 2025

Time: Fridays, 11 a.m. – Noon

Date	Location	Speaker	Affiliation	Host	Title
September 12	Dandeneau Hall, Room 321, Large Language Models (LLMs) for Biomedical Applications Zoom	Hua Xu	Yale School of Medicine	Hong Yu	Large Language Models (LLMs) for Biomedical Applications
September 19	Dandeneau Hall, Room 321, LLMs in Education: Integrating Code and Text Generation Models in Educational Applications Zoom	Marcos Zampieri	George Mason University	Hadi Amiri	LLMs in Education: Integrating Code and Text Generation Models in Educational Applications
September 22	Dandeneau Hall, Room 321, Identification of Predictive Subphenotypes for Clinical Outcomes Using Real-World Data and Machine Learning Zoom	Weishen Pan	Weill Cornell Medicine	Hong Yu	Identification of Predictive Subphenotypes for Clinical Outcomes Using Real-World Data and Machine Learning
September 26	Dandeneau Hall, Room 321, eRevise+RF: A Writing Evaluation System for Assessing Student Essay Revisions and Providing Formative Feedback Zoom	Diane Litman	University of Pittsburgh	Hadi Amiri	eRevise+RF: A Writing Evaluation System for Assessing Student Essay Revisions and Providing Formative Feedback
October 3	Dandeneau Hall, Room 321, Towards Self-Improving Multimodal Models Zoom	Nanyun Peng	University of California, Los Angeles	Hadi Amiri	Towards Self-Improving Multimodal Models
October 10	Dandeneau Hall, Room 321, Making Computers Robust to Natural Language Negation Zoom	Eduardo Blanco	University of Arizona	Hadi Amiri	Making Computers Robust to Natural Language Negation
October 17	Dandeneau Hall, Room 321, TrustworthyML in the Era of Frontier Models Zoom	Chirag Agarwal	University of Virginia	Hadi Amiri	TrustworthyML in the Era of Frontier Models
October 31	Dandeneau Hall, Room 321, Towards Small, Open-Source, Multi-Modal Language Model Agents for Science and Society Zoom	Xuan Wang	Virginia Tech	Hadi Amiri	Towards Small, Open-Source, Multi-Modal Language Model Agents for Science and Society
November 7	Dandeneau Hall, Room 321, Train, Reason, and Act Under Value Function Guidance Zoom	Kiante Brantley	Harvard University	Hadi Amiri	Train, Reason, and Act Under Value Function Guidance
November 19	Evaluating and Understanding LLMs: From Scientific Reasoning to Alignment as Judges Zoom	Arman Cohan	Yale University	Hadi Amiri	Evaluating and Understanding LLMs: From Scientific Reasoning to Alignment as Judges
December 5	Safeguarding Large Language Models in Practice Zoom	Nathalie Baracaldo	IBM Almaden Research Center	Hadi Amiri	Safeguarding Large Language Models in Practice

Spring 2025

Time: Fridays, 11 a.m. –Noon

Date	Location	Speaker	Affiliation	Host	Title
February 7	Enabling and Evaluating Human-Agent Collaboration Zoom	Diyi Yang	Stanford University	Hadi Amiri	Enabling and Evaluating Human-Agent Collaboration
February 14	Why AI Is W.E.I.R.D. And Shouldn't Be This Way Zoom	Rada Mihalcea	University of Michigan	Hadi Amiri	Why AI Is W.E.I.R.D. And Shouldn't Be This Way
February 28	Human-AI Collaboration in Evaluating Large Language Models Zoom	Wei Xu	Georgia Institute of Technology	Hadi Amiri	Human-AI Collaboration in Evaluating Large Language Models
March 7	Dandeneau Hall, Room 321	Emily Prud'hommeaux	Boston College	Hadi Amiri	Overcoming Obstacles in NLP for Endangered Languages
March 14	Spring Break
March 21	Dandeneau Hall, Room 321	Byron Wallace	Northeastern University	Hadi Amiri	LLMs for Healthcare: Risks and Interpretability Methods to (Possibly) Mitigate Them
March 28	Dandeneau Hall, Room 321	Tom McCoy	Yale University	Hadi Amiri	Understanding the Abilities of AI Systems: Memorization, Generalization, and Points in Between
April 4	Dandeneau Hall, Room 321	Jiawei Han	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	Jie Wang	A Retrieval and Structuring Approach for LLM-Enhanced, Theme-Focused Science Discovery
April 11	Specializing LLMs for Reliability Zoom	Greg Durrett	University of Texas at Austin	Hadi Amiri	Specializing LLMs for Reliability
April 18	Dandeneau Hall, Room 321	Jessy Li	University of Texas at Austin	Hadi Amiri	Discourse Models with Language Models
April 25	Neuro-Symbolic Approaches for Explainable Natural Language Processing Zoom	Mihai Surdeanu	University of Arizona	Hadi Amiri	Neuro-Symbolic Approaches for Explainable Natural Language Processing

Fall 2024

Date	Location	Speaker	Affiliation	Host	Title
October 25	Persuasion for Social Good: How to Build and Break Persuasive Chatbots Zoom	Weiyan Shi	Northeastern University	Hong Yu	Persuasion for Social Good: How to Build and Break Persuasive Chatbots
November 1	Dandeneau Hall, Room 321	Ankush Das	Boston University	Paul Downen	Programming Language Principles for Distributed Systems
November 8	Synthetic Data for Self-Evolving AI Zoom	Tianyi Zhou	University of Maryland, College Park	Hadi Amiri	Synthetic Data for Self-Evolving AI
November 15	Dandeneau Hall, Room 321	Marco Gaboardi	Boston University	Paul Downen	Reasoning about Programs’ Adaptivity, with applications to Adaptive Data Analysis
November 20	Graph Representation Learning for Network Generation, Optimization, and Verbalization Zoom	Liang Zhao	Emory University	Hong Yu	Graph Representation Learning for Network Generation, Optimization, and Verbalization
November 22	Bridging the AI Translational Gap in Oncology Zoom	Danielle S. Bitterman	Harvard Medical School	Hadi Amiri	Bridging the AI Translational Gap in Oncology
December 6	Dandeneau Hall, Room 321, Machine Unlearning for Generative AI: A Model-Based Perspective Zoom	Sijia Liu	Michigan State University	Hadi Amiri	Machine Unlearning for Generative AI: A Model-Based Perspective