Distinguished Lectures

Events For Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Dr. Jennifer Chayes, Microsoft Research New England  Event Type: Distinguished Lecture Time: 3:30 PM - 5 PM Location: SSL 150 Speaker: Dr. Jennifer Chayes Distinguished Scientist and Managing Director, Microsoft Research New England Abstract: Everywhere we turn, we find that networks have become increasing appropriate descriptions of relevant interactions. In the high tech world, we see mobile networks, the Internet, the World Wide Web, and a variety of online social networks. In economics, we are increasingly experiencing both the positive and negative effects of a global networked economy. In epidemiology, we find disease spreading over our ever growing social networks, complicated by mutation of the disease agents. In problems of world health, distribution of limited resources, such as water resources, quickly becomes a problem of finding the optimal network for resource allocation. In biomedical research, we are beginning to understand the structure of gene regulatory networks, with the prospect of using this understanding to manage the many diseases caused by gene misregulation. In this talk, I look quite generally at some of the models we are using to describe these networks, and at some of the methods we are developing to indirectly infer network structure from measured data. In particular, I will discuss models and techniques which cut across many disciplinary boundaries. Bio: Jennifer Tour Chayes is Distinguished Scientist and Managing Director of Microsoft Research New England in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which she co-founded in July 2008. Before this, she was Research Area Manager for Mathematics, Theoretical Computer Science and Cryptography at Microsoft Research Redmond. Chayes was also the former Vice-President of the American Mathematical Society and was for many years Professor of Mathematics at UCLA until 1997, when she joined Microsoft Research and co-founded the Theory Group. She received her Ph.D. in mathematical physics at Princeton and B.A. in biology and physics at Wesleyan University. Her research areas include phase transitions in discrete mathematics and computer science, structural and dynamical properties of self-engineered networks, and algorithmic game theory. She is the co-author of over 110 scientific papers and the co-inventor of more than 25 patents. Chayes is well known for her work on phase transitions, in particular for laying the foundation for the study of phase transitions in problems in discrete mathematics and theoretical computer science; this study is now giving rise to some of the fastest known algorithms for fundamental problems in combinatorial optimization. Among Chayes' contributions to Microsoft technologies are the development of methods to analyze the structure and behavior of various networks, the design of auction algorithms, and the design and analysis of various business models for the online world. She is the recipient of a Sloan Fellowship and the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award, and a Fellow of ACM, AAAS, the Fields Institute. She is also currently a member of the ACM Turing Award Selection Committee. Chayes lives with her husband, Christian Borgs, who also happens to be her principal scientific collaborator. In her spare time, she enjoys overworking.

Events For Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Tuomas Sandholm: Algorithms for large incomplete-information games  Event Type: Distinguished Lecture Time: 11 AM - 1 PM Location: RTH 526 RTH 526 February 15 11 AM Tuomas Sandholm Professor Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science Department Algorithms for large incomplete-information games ABSTRACT: Incomplete-information games -- such as most auctions, negotiations, and card games -- cannot be solved using minimax search; rather, totally different algorithms are needed. I will overview our work on incomplete-information games from the last six years. I will start by discussing lossless and lossy abstraction algorithms. I will present brand new results on the first lossy abstraction algorithms with bounds on solution quality. I will then discuss first-order algorithms for finding an epsilon-equilibrium in two-person zero-sum games; one of these algorithms has O(log(1/epsilon)) convergence, which is exponentially faster than prior first-order methods. I will then discuss how qualitative knowledge of the structure of equilibrium can be used to enable and speed up equilibrium finding. I will finish with brand new results on opponent exploitation and strategy purification. We have applied the techniques discussed in this talk to poker, yielding some of the world's best poker-playing programs. BIO: Tuomas Sandholm is Professor in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University. He has published over 430 papers on game theory; electronic commerce; artificial intelligence; multiagent systems; auctions and exchanges; automated negotiation and contracting; coalition formation; voting; search and integer programming; safe exchange; normative models of bounded rationality; resource-bounded reasoning; machine learning; and networks. He has over 20 years of experience building optimization-based electronic marketplaces, and has fielded several of his systems. He was Founder, Chairman, and CTO/Chief Scientist of CombineNet, Inc. from 1997 until its acquisition in 2010. During this period the company commercialized over 800 large-scale generalized combinatorial auctions, with over $60 billion in total spend and over $6 billion in generated savings. Since early 2009, he has been the design consultant of Baidu's sponsored search auctions; Baidu's market cap increased 5x to $50 billion during this period due to better monetization. He has also consulted for Yahoo!, Netcycler, Google, and others. He holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in computer science and an M.S. (B.S. included) with distinction in Industrial Engineering and Management Science. He is recipient of the NSF Career Award, the inaugural ACM Autonomous Agents Research Award, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, the Carnegie Science Center Award for Excellence, and the Computers and Thought Award. He is Fellow of the ACM and AAAI.

Events For Tuesday, April 03, 2012

Lori Clarke, Professor and Dept. Chair - UMass Amherst  Event Type: Distinguished Lecture Time: 3:30 PM - 5 PM Location: SSL 150