Seminars

Upcoming Seminars / Seminars This Week



Tue 9/25/18 12 noon	Gerstenzang 121
Neurobiology Journal Club
Joseph Ransdell (Washington University, St. Louis)
Voltage-gated Sodium Channel Accessory Proteins Fine Tune Purkinje Neuron Excitability and Cerebellar Function
Hosted by Postdocs
Tue 9/25/18 3:40 pm	Gerstenzang 121
Chemistry Seminar
Ji-Xin Cheng (Boston University )
Imaging Chemistry in Living Cells
Hosted by Bing Xu
Wed 9/26/18 12 noon	Volen 101
Thesis Seminar (Graduate Program in Computer Science)
Nick Moran (Jordan Pollack)
Complexity in Coevolution and Deep Learning
Interactions between multiple competing and cooperating populations can drive the evolution of complexity. In this thesis, we will demonstrate that specific topologies of interactions are particularly successful at developing complexity, and will apply these lessons to a class of multi-agent deep learning algorithms, thereby demonstrating the parallels between the fields of artificial life and deep learning. Our analysis will cover multiple different evolutionary models, focusing on the paradigm of matrix games, which serve as an effective testbed for hypotheses about simulated evolution.  In seeking to measure the evolution of complexity, the problem of defining a clear and computable metric of complexity is critical. We will present an overview of complexity definitions and formulas from the literature, and show how techniques can be adopted from automata theory and information theory to create meaningful metrics for specific classes of artificial organisms.  We will leverage these metrics to present experiments which show that topologies which mix cooperative and competitive interactions are able to generate faster complexity growth, and sustain that growth over longer time scales than pure competitive arms races or pure cooperative symbiosis. We will present analysis of the roadblocks that stall complexity growth in unsuccessful topologies, and the manner in which successful topologies overcome these obstacles.  Many of the phenomena which have been studied in the field of artificial life are being rediscovered, and re-examined in the field of deep learning (DL), especially in models with multiple interacting DL agents. The same obstacles which prevent successful evolution of complex forms also stymie these deep models, and the same tricks which have been developed by artificial life researchers to overcome them are now being developed by DL researchers. We will demonstrate how lessons from our models can be translated to the realm of DL to improve model performance.
Hosted by Jordan Pollack
Wed 9/26/18 2 pm	Goldsmith 300
Special Seminar
Jeff Ford (Gustavus Adolphus College)
Blending Team-Based Learning with Mastery Grading
Some common issues college teachers encounter in lower level courses are a lack of student engagement, and problems with student success in future courses. This approach seeks to help address both of those issues. The engagement is addressed by implementing team-based learning. The success for future courses is addressed with mastery grading. I will describe both pedagogies and explain how they are implemented in a Calculus I classroom. We will cover team formation, and how it gets beyond the group project to give students a sense of being accountable to their classmates, and improves engagement. We will discuss how using mastery allows student to learn from their failures, to see those failures as productive, and to eventually reach a higher level of understanding, which carries over nicely to future courses.
Hosted by Prof. Rebecca Torrey
Thu 9/27/18 11 am	Volen 201
Computational Neuroscience Journal Club
John Ksander (Gutchess Lab)
Online learning of symbolic concepts
Pizza will be served.
Thu 9/27/18 12 noon	Gerstenzang 121
Molecular Genetics Journal Club
Julie Klaric (Lovett Lab)
Dual roles of Poly (dA:dT) tracts in replication initiation and fork collapse
Jihyun Choi (Haber Lab)
Inter-homologue repair in fertilized human eggs
Thu 9/27/18 12 noon	International Lounge, Usdan
Psychology Department Colloquium
Dr. Donald Katz (Department Chair, Psychology)
The nose is not enough: re-evaluating our typology of the chemosensory systems
It is quite natural that we think of the chemosensation as consisting of two separate systems--taste, which originates on the tongue, and olfaction, which originates in the nose; while there is quite a bit of evidence suggesting that the two modalities interact, this is generally put down to "smell's influence on taste." In our work, we have found that this influence goes the other way as well, and these findings call us to question the assumed organization of the chemosenses: I will present electrophysiological, behavioral, and perturbative evidence revealing that primary taste cortex impacts olfactory coding, and that this impact preferentially targets the smell of food that is already in the mouth (called "retronasal olfaction"); these results suggest that one system processes "internal" stimuli--taste and this form of olfaction--while a separate system processes the smell of stimuli in the external environment. I discuss implications of this conclusion, and mechanisms that might underlie the observed phenomena.
Light refreshments served
Thu 9/27/18 4 pm	Abelson 333
Dark Universe Seminar
Matthew Szydagis (University at Albany)
Hosted by Bjoern Penning
Fri 9/28/18 11:15 am	Rosenstiel 118
Biochemistry-Biophysics Friday Lunchtime Pizza Talks
Kyu Rhee (Weill Cornell Medicine)
Mycobacterial metabolomics: Chemical biology at the intersection of pathogen biology and drug development
Hosted by Liz Hedstrom
Fri 9/28/18 12:30 pm	Gerstenzang 123
Molecular and Cell Biology & Neuroscience Student Seminars
Rylie Walsh (Rodal Lab)
Mark Zielinski (Jadhav Lab)
Fri 9/28/18 2 pm	Gerstenzang 121
Thesis Seminar (Graduate Program in Neuroscience)
Madelen Diaz (Rosbash Lab)
Behaviors, circuits, and molecular rhythms in the circadian neuronal network of Drosophila melanogaster
Tue 10/2/18 11 am	Abelson 307
String Theory Seminar
Onkar Parrikar (University of Pennsylvania)
TBA
Hosted by High Energy Theory Group
Tue 10/2/18 12:30 pm	Gerstenzang 121
M.R. Bauer Colloquium Series
Michael Yassa (University of California, Irvine)
Dissecting Episodic Memory Computations
Hosted by Angela Gutchess
Tue 10/2/18 1 pm	Goldsmith 300
Combinatorics Seminar
Sanjay Ramassamy (Ecole Normale Superieur de Paris)
Extensions of partial cyclic orders, boustrophedons and polytopes
While the enumeration of linear extensions of a given poset is a well-studied question, its cyclic counterpart (enumerating extensions to total cyclic orders of a given partial cyclic order) has been subject to very little investigation. In this talk I will introduce some classes of partial cyclic orders for which this enumeration problem is tractable. Some cases require the use of a multidimensional version of the classical boustrophedon construction (a.k.a Seidel-Entringer-Arnold triangle). The integers arising from these enumerative questions also appear as the normalized volumes of certain polytopes.This is partly joint work with Arvind Ayyer (Indian Institute of Science) and Matthieu Josuat-Vergès (Laboratoire d'Informatique Gaspard Monge / CNRS).
Hosted by Prof. Olivier Bernardi and Duncan Levear
Tue 10/2/18 4 pm	Abelson 131
Physics Department Colloquium
Stefan Söldner-Rembold (University of Manchester)
DUNE – an International Neutrino Observatory
Abstract: The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) will be an international observatory for neutrino science, designed, constructed and operated by a global collaboration of scientists. Primary science drivers are the discovery of CP violation in the neutrino sector, the detection of neutrinos from supernovae, and the search for baryon number violation. DUNE will consist of two neutrino detectors placed in the world's most intense neutrino beam. A near detector will record particle interactions near the source of the beam at Fermilab close to Chicago. A second, much larger, far detector operating with more than 40 kt of liquid-argon will be installed a mile underground in South Dakota. Several mid-size liquid-argon detectors at Fermilab and CERN are being constructed to demonstrate the potential of the cutting-edge liquid-argon technology employed for DUNE. I will introduce the technology and give an overview of the current status and future discovery potential of the DUNE programme. Speaker Bio: Stefan Söldner-Rembold is Professor of Particle Physics at the University of Manchester and Spokesperson of the DUNE Collaboration.  He graduated from the University of Bonn in 1987 and received his doctorate from the Technical University of Munich in 1992, working at the Max Planck Institute and Fermilab. He worked at the University of Freiburg from 1992 to 1999, where he received his Habilitation in 1996. He held a Heisenberg Fellowship from 1999 to 2003 and joined the faculty of the University of Manchester in 2003, where he is now Head of the Particle Physics group. He was Spokesperson of the DØ Collaboration at the Tevatron from 2009 to 2011, and also served as Physics Coordinator of the DØ Collaboration and of the OPAL Collaboration at LEP. Stefan is a fellow of the American Physical Society and of the Institute of Physics (IoP) in the UK. He received a Royal Society Wolfson Research Award in 2013 and the IoP’s Chadwick Medal and Prize in 2018.
Wed 10/3/18 4 pm	Abelson 333
Dark Universe Seminar
Ian dell'Antonio (Brown University)
TBA
Hosted by Bjoern Penning
Thu 10/4/18 11 am	Volen 201
Computational Neuroscience Journal Club
Ben Ballintyn (Miller Lab)
Application of drift diffusion models to value-based decision-making
Pizza will be served
Thu 10/4/18 12 noon	Gerstenzang 121
Molecular Genetics Journal Club
Dr. Becky Lamason (MIT, Department of Biology)
Bacterial pathogens hijack host machinery to promote cell-to-cell spread
Hosted by Bruce Goode
Thu 10/4/18 4 pm	Abelson 229
MRSEC Seminar
Georgios Katsikis (MIT)
TBA
Hosted by John Berezney
Fri 10/5/18 11:15 am	Rosenstiel 118
Biochemistry-Biophysics Friday Lunchtime Pizza Talks
Toshi Kawate (Cornell University)
Structure and functional reconstitution of an ATP-gated P2X7 receptor
Hosted by Chris Miller
Fri 10/5/18 12:30 pm	Gerstenzang 123
Molecular and Cell Biology & Neuroscience Student Seminars
Brenda Lemos (Haber Lab)
Linnea Herzog (Katz/Jadhav)
Mon 10/8/18 12 noon	Gerstenzang 121
Neurobiology Journal Club
Shen Wang (Van Hooser Lab)
TBA
Yunpeng Zhang (Griffith Lab)
TBA
Mon 10/8/18 3:40 pm	Gerstenzang 121
Chemistry Seminar
Tinghu Zhang (Harvard University )
Hosted by Tom Pochapsky
Tue 10/9/18 11 am	Abelson 307
String Theory Seminar
TBA
TBA
Tue 10/9/18 12:30 pm	Gerstenzang 121
M.R. Bauer Colloquium Series
Eva Anton (UNC Chapel Hill)
How Tiling of Radial Glial Cells Sculpts Cerebral Cortical Development
Hosted by Piali Sengupta
Tue 10/9/18 4 pm	Shapiro Campus Center Theater
Gabbay Award Lectures in Biotechnology and Medicine
Lorenz Studer (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center)
Building and repairing the human brain: from pluripotency to cell therapy
Hosted by Dagmar Ringe
Tue 10/9/18 4 pm	Abelson 131
Physics Department Colloquium
Kerstin Perez (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
In Search of Cosmic-Ray Antinuclei from Dark Matter
Abstract: Cosmic-ray antiprotons have been a valuable tool for dark matter searches since the 1970s. Recent years have seen increased theoretical and experimental effort towards the first-ever detection of cosmic-ray antideuterons, in particular as an indirect signature of dark matter annihilation or decay in the Galactic halo. In contrast to other indirect detection signatures, which have been hampered by the large and uncertain background rates from conventional astrophysical processes, low-energy antideuterons provide an essentially background-free signature of dark matter, and low-energy antiprotons are a vital partner for this analysis. I will discuss the upcoming balloon-borne GAPS experiment, which exploits a novel detection technique utilizing exotic atom capture and decay to provide sensitivity to antiproton, antideuteron, and antihelium cosmic-ray signatures. In particular, I will detail the fabrication of the lithium-drifted Silicon detectors that are essential to its success. Speaker Bio: Kerstin Perez is originally from West Philadelphia, and earned her B.A. in physics from Columbia University in 2005. She received her Ph.D. from Caltech in 2011, where her research focused on commissioning the ATLAS pixel detector in preparation for the very first LHC collisions and on understanding hadronic jet physics with initial data. She then returned to Columbia University as an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow, developing the GAPS Si(Li) detectors and NuSTAR Galactic Center analysis. In January 2015, she began as an Assistant Professor of Physics at Haverford College, before joining MIT as an Assistant Professor of Physics in July 2016.
Wed 10/10/18 1 pm	Volen 201
Safety Training
Andy Finn
Lab Safety Training
Thu 10/11/18 11 am	Volen 201
Computational Neuroscience Journal Club
Bolun Chen (Miller Lab)
TBA
Pizza will be served.
Thu 10/11/18 12 noon	Gerstenzang 121
Molecular Genetics Journal Club
Rylie Walsh (Rodal Lab)
TBA
Joyce Rigal (Marr Lab)
TBA
Thu 10/11/18 4 pm	Abelson 333
Dark Universe Seminar
Tom McClintock (Brookhaven National Laboratory)
TBA
Hosted by Bjoern Penning
Fri 10/12/18 12:30 pm	Gerstenzang 123
Molecular and Cell Biology & Neuroscience Student Seminars
Dave Hampton (Marder Lab)
Mike Hobin (Griffith Lab)
Mon 10/15/18 12 noon	Gerstenzang 121
Neurobiology Journal Club
Chang Liu (Griffith Lab)
TBA
Sarah Richards (Van Hooser Lab)
TBA
Tue 10/16/18 11 am	Abelson 307
String Theory Seminar
Lampros Lamprou (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
TBA
Hosted by High Energy Theory Group
Tue 10/16/18 12:30 pm	Gerstenzang 121
Joint Biology/Neuroscience Colloquium
Julie Brill (Cell Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, and Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto)
PIP signaling drives cell dynamics during Drosophila sperm development
Hosted by Avi Rodal
Tue 10/16/18 4 pm	Abelson 131
Physics Department Colloquium
TBA
TBA
Thu 10/18/18 12 noon	Gerstenzang 121
Molecular Genetics Journal Club
Anna Kazatskaya (Sengupta Lab)
TBA
Drew Sawyer (Marr Lab)
TBA
Thu 10/18/18 3:40 pm	Gerstenzang 121
Chemistry Seminar
Stefanie Sydlik (Carnegie Mellon University)
Hosted by Grace Han
Thu 10/18/18 4 pm	Abelson 333
Dark Universe Seminar
TBA
TBA
Hosted by Bjoern Penning
Fri 10/19/18 12:30 pm
Molecular and Cell Biology & Neuroscience Student Seminars
Laura Laranjo (Lovett Lab)
Derek Wise (Nelson/Van Hooser Labs)
Mon 10/22/18 12 noon	Gerstenzang 121
Neurobiology Journal Club
Raul Ramos (Turrigiano Lab)
TBA
Johanna Adams (Griffith Lab)
TBA
Tue 10/23/18 11 am	Abelson 307
String Theory Seminar
TBA
TBA
Tue 10/23/18 12:30 pm	Gerstenzang 121
M.R. Bauer Colloquium Series
Samantha Butler (Department of Neurobiology,Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research,)
Rethinking the role of netrin1 in axon guidance: chemotaxis vs haptotaxis
Hosted by Sue Paradis
Tue 10/23/18 4 pm	Abelson 131
Physics Department Colloquium
Greg Landsberg (Brown University)
TBA
Thu 10/25/18 12 noon	xxx
Psychology Department Colloquium
Nancy Kanwisher (Harvard Unviersity)
TBD
Thu 10/25/18 12 noon	Gerstenzang 121
Molecular Genetics Journal Club
Tom Rands (Goode Lab)
TBA
Nikita Alimov (Goode Lab)
TBA
Thu 10/25/18 4 pm	Abelson 333
Dark Universe Seminar
TBA
TBA
Hosted by Bjoern Penning
Thu 10/25/18 4 pm	Abelson 229
MRSEC Seminar
Katja Taute (Rowland Institute at Harvard)
TBA
Hosted by John Berezney
Fri 10/26/18 12:30 pm	Gerstenzang 123
Molecular and Cell Biology & Neuroscience Student Seminars
Justin Shin (Jadhav Lab)
Alejandro Torrado Pacheco (Turrigiano Lab)
Mon 10/29/18 12 noon	Gerstenzang 121
Neurobiology Journal Club
Daniel Powell (Marder Lab)
TBA
Lauren Tereshko (Sengupta Lab)
TBA
Mon 10/29/18 3:40 pm	Gerstenzang 121
Chemistry Seminar
Malika Jeffries-EL (Boston University )
Hosted by Klaus Schmidt-Rohr