Seminar series

The ESE Seminar Series, hosted by the Preston M. Green Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering, features weekly presentations on diverse topics such as machine learning, large language models, optimization, neural networks, robotics, imaging, and microscopy. Our speakers include guest experts and scientists who often collaborate with ESE faculty and students on joint research endeavors.

If you have any questions or recommendations, please contact Madi Hester, Graduate Academic Program Coordinator. All full-time graduate students are required to register for and pass ESE 590: Graduate Seminar. For more details, please visit Canvas.

Spring 2025 ESE Seminar Series

March 21 - Lingyan Shi

• Associate Professor, Bioengineering
• Shu Chien-Gene Lay Department of Bioengineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, UC San Diego

Her research focuses on developing high resolution optical spectroscopy and imaging platforms, and its applications for studying metabolic dynamics in aging and diseases.

March 28 - Alejandro Dominguez-Garcia

• M. Stanley Helm Professorship in Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Research Topics: Cyberinfrastructures, Decision science, Distributed computing and storage systems, Energy, Network science and engineering, Smart grid and energy delivery, Smart infrastructures, Solar and renewable technology

April 4 - Ufuk Topcu

• Professor
• W.A. “Tex” Moncrief, Jr. Chair in Computational Engineering and Sciences VI
• Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, Cockrell School of Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin

Topcu’s research focuses on the theoretical and algorithmic aspects of the design and verification of autonomous systems, typically at the intersection of formal methods, reinforcement learning, and control theory.

April 11 - Magnus Egerstedt

• Stacey Nicholas Dean of Engineering
• Professor – Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
• University of California, Irvine, UCI Samueli School of Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Egerstedt’s research pursuits center on control theory and robotics. His work has resulted in innovations in remote environmental monitoring and precision agriculture, and he has worked extensively on the control and coordination of complex networks, such as multirobot systems, mobile sensor networks and cyber-physical systems.

April 18 - Aaron Ames

• Bren Professor of Mechanical and Civil Engineering and Control and Dynamical Systems
• Department of Mechanical and Civil Engineering, Division of Engineering and Applied Science, California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

Professor Ames' research interests center on robotics, nonlinear control, hybrid systems and cyber-physical systems, with special emphasis on foundational theory and experimental realization on robotic systems; his lab designs, builds and tests novel bipedal robots and prosthesis with the goal of achieving human-like bipedal robotic walking and translating these capabilities to robotic assistive devices.

April 25 - Alan E. Willner

• Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professorial Chair and Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, USC Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California (USC)

Prof. Willner has >1450 publications, including one book, 10 edited books, ~38 U.S. patents, ~45 keynotes/plenaries, ~23 book chapters, >400 refereed journal papers, and >300 invited papers/presentations. His research is in optical technologies, including: communications, signal processing, networks, and subsystems.