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DTSTAMP:20260227T094828
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260312T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260312T170000
SUMMARY:Presentation:Sequential Decision Making with Offline Data and under Partial Observability
DESCRIPTION:What Makes Partially Observable Decision Making Tractable?\n\nAbstract: \nReal-world sequential decision-making problems - such as those in healthcare\, recommendation\, and language model alignment - are complicated by latent variables that influence the data but are never directly observed. The most general framework for such settings\, the partially observable MDP\, is statistically intractable. What structure makes learning tractable despite the latent variables?\n\nThis work identifies a common structural pattern across four distinct settings: the latent variable's influence is confined to one part of the data-generating process\, and within that part it acts through a low-dimensional or low-complexity channel. We study this pattern in mixtures of MDPs\, confounded offline policy evaluation\, RLHF with partially observed reward states\, and linear latent contextual bandits. In each case\, we establish impossibility results showing what fails without the right assumptions\, then develop algorithms that exploit the structure through spectral subspace recovery\, decoupled estimation\, and optimism calibrated to the latent channel's complexity. The resulting regret bounds\, sample complexity bounds\, and structural characterizations scale with the dimension of the latent channel rather than the ambient problem\, and are matched by minimax lower bounds in key settings. We validate our methods on both synthetic and real-world data.
UID:146014-21898272@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/146014
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Mathematics,Graduate Students,Graduate,Dissertation
LOCATION:School of Education - 2328
CONTACT:
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260306T085718
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260312T153000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260312T163000
SUMMARY:Workshop / Seminar:IES Energy Seminar Series - Igniting Microrobotics: Combustion-Driven Actuation at Small Scales
DESCRIPTION:Abstract:\nThe field of microrobotics is experiencing a “Cambrian Explosion” before our very eyes. Applications for these diminutive devices span several disciplines\, including healthcare\, environmental monitoring\, exploration\, and industrial inspection. However\, scaling laws fundamentally constrain the design of microrobotic systems\, particularly in how they store energy\, deliver power\, and perform mechanical work. As robots shrink\, conventional actuators struggle to generate meaningful forces. The limited energy density of microbatteries leaves many platforms tethered to external energy sources.\n\nIn this talk\, I will present a new class of combustion-driven microactuators that leverage the high energy density of chemical fuels to produce rapid\, high-power mechanical motion at millimeter scales. I will show how these actuators enable microrobots that jump far beyond their body length (2 orders of magnitude)\, perform aerial maneuvers\, traverse challenging terrain\, and drive mechanical transmissions that convert linear actuation into rotary motion. Together\, these results point toward a new class of highly energetic\, untethered microrobotic systems capable of operating where conventional actuation and power technologies fail.\n\nBiography:\nCameron Aubin is an Assistant Professor of Robotics at the University of Michigan\, where he leads the Zoetic Robotics Laboratory. He received his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University (2014) and his M.S (2020) and Ph.D. (2023) in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University. His interdisciplinary team develops energy-material systems that blur the line between power\, structure\, actuation\, and control\, enabling more enduring\, adaptable\, and autonomous machines. Dr. Aubin’s research interests include soft and biologically inspired robots\, microrobots\, chemical and combustion-powered systems\, batteries\, and advanced materials and manufacturing. His work has been published in several reputable journals\, including Nature and Science\, and has been featured in popular media outlets\, including CNN\, PBS\, BBC\, Wired\, and Veritasium. Recent honors include a Best Paper Award in Benchmarking and Reproducibility and a Best Student Paper Finalist Award (as PI) at IEEE RoboSoft 2025.
UID:145465-21897380@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/145465
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering,seminar,Michigan Engineering,Mechanical Engineering,Materials Science,Law,Interdisciplinary,Industrial and Operations Engineering,Free,Environment,Engineering,North Campus,Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences,Research,Science,Social Sciences,Sustainability,Energy,Electrical Engineering and Computer Science,Civil and Environmental Engineering,CAEN
LOCATION:Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Building - 1303
CONTACT:
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260309T154141
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260312T153000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260312T162000
SUMMARY:Lecture / Discussion:The Department of Astronomy 2025-2026 Colloquium Series Presents:
DESCRIPTION:Joseph’s Title: Tracing Black Hole Winds Across Cosmic Time with Broad Absorption Line Quasars\n\nAbstract: Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) can launch powerful winds that inject large amounts of energy and mass into their host galaxies\, potentially regulating galaxy evolution. One of the clearest observational signatures of these winds appears in broad absorption line (BAL) quasars\, whose spectra show deep\, blueshifted absorption features tracing gas traveling at tens of thousands of kilometers per second. Despite decades of study\, the physical properties of BAL winds have remained poorly understood due to the complexity of their spectra. In this talk\, I will present an overview of my research using BAL quasars to map the physical properties of SMBH winds\, enabled by SimBAL\, a spectral synthesis software that made possible the first systematic analysis of BAL quasar spectra and provided robust constraints on outflow properties for large samples of quasars. I will also discuss new discoveries of high-redshift BAL quasars from surveys such as DESI and future studies with JWST and 4MOST that will expand our understanding of SMBH outflows across cosmic time.\n\n\nCody’s Title: How Galactic Winds Influence Cosmic Ecosystems\n\nAbstract: A central insight of modern galaxy formation is that galaxies are not isolated systems\, but dynamic reservoirs of gas and stars that continuously exchange matter and energy with their surroundings.  Galactic winds—driven by stellar and AGN feedback—can expel hundreds of solar masses of gas\, dust\, and metals to distances of tens of kiloparsecs\, reshaping the structure and thermodynamics of the circumgalactic and intergalactic media. These winds regulate star formation\, curb black hole growth\, and may play a critical role in enabling the escape of ionizing radiation that reionized the Universe during the Epoch of Reionization.  In this talk\, I will discuss how the physical properties of galactic winds—including mass outflow rates—are inferred from spectral line diagnostics\, the current state of the art in radiative transfer modeling and interpretation\, and key systematic uncertainties that remain. I will then explore how winds influence the escape of ionizing photons by altering the multiphase structure of the interstellar medium. Finally\, I will outline future directions for this work and describe how next-generation facilities such as the Extremely Large Telescopes will transform absorption line studies of galactic winds.
UID:146353-21898947@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/146353
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:astrophysics,astronomy
LOCATION:West Hall - 411
CONTACT:
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260125T202636
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260312T154500
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260312T170000
SUMMARY:Workshop / Seminar:Algebraic Geometry Learning Seminar: The Mumford construction
DESCRIPTION:Discuss the Mumford construction.
UID:144457-21895383@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/144457
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Mathematics
LOCATION:East Hall - 4096
CONTACT:
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260310T122938
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260312T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260312T173000
SUMMARY:Lecture / Discussion:A New World of Authoritarian Welfare?
DESCRIPTION:Moderator: Dan Slater\, Director\, U-M Center for Emerging Democracies\n\nDemocracy and social welfare have long been seen as mutually reinforcing\, but the connection is anything but universal or automatic. With illiberal and autocratic leaders around the world offering more generous welfare policies to consolidate their power\, do we need to rethink the relationships between democracy\, authoritarianism\, and welfare? Experts on Europe\, Latin America\, the Middle East\, the former Soviet Union\, and Asia tackle this topic from different world-regions and multiple analytical perspectives.\n\n*Cosponsored by the Open Society Foundations and the Central European University (CEU) Democracy Institute*.\n\nAtten in person or via Zoom. Zoom registration at https://myumi.ch/8qVGq.\n   \nIf there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you\, please contact us at emergingdemocracies@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.
UID:144144-21894723@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/144144
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:democracy,Authoritarianism
LOCATION:North Quad - Room 2435
CONTACT:
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260225T094937
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260312T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260312T170000
SUMMARY:Workshop / Seminar:Differential Equations Seminar: Einstein-Perfect Fluid Initial Data in General Relativity
DESCRIPTION:Fluids are a standard matter source for gravitation\, going back to the early days of general relativity. Nevertheless\, constructing initial data for this family of matter models is surprisingly nuanced. In this talk we describe a novel approach to building Einstein-fluid initial data based on a recently established phase-space technique for constructing non-vacuum initial data sets. Compared to prior approaches to working with fluids\, the input parameters allow for more direct specification of physical quantities\, such as the number of particles in any given region.
UID:143107-21892132@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/143107
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Mathematics,Differential Equations Seminar - Department Of Mathematics
LOCATION:East Hall - 4088
CONTACT:
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260120T123835
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260312T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260312T170000
SUMMARY:Workshop / Seminar:EEB Thursday Seminar Series - Temperate forest resilience in a changing world: linking ecological mechanism to management solutions
DESCRIPTION:Seminar Summary - Climate change and invasion by nonnative plant species are changing the composition and function of temperate forest ecosystems. This talk will discuss how we can measure resiliency in temperate forests to these two interacting global change factors and how management of these systems might shape their future.
UID:137388-21880194@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/137388
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Ecosystems,Ecology & Biology,ecosystem,Ecology And Evolutionary Biology,Ecology,Workshop,evolutionary biology,evolution,environmental,Environment,eeb
LOCATION:Biological Sciences Building - 1060
CONTACT:
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260205T145330
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260312T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260312T173000
SUMMARY:Lecture / Discussion:EIHS Lecture: Once Were Warriors: Colonial Mimesis\, Martial Masculinity\, and Imperial Nostalgia in Amazigh Morocco
DESCRIPTION:Amazigh cultural-political activism in North Africa is premised on a rhetoric of resistance for territorial autonomy against imperial invaders from the Roman empire through the Islamic conquest and the French protectorate to contemporary Arab nationalist regimes. Yet\, filtering through this dominant discourse are subaltern scripts that register nostalgia for particular pasts when\, even under colonial tutelage\, Amazigh groups felt recognized and effectively acted as self-determining agents of their own history making.  In this paper\, I draw on my research in southeastern Morocco to explore how Amazigh activists narrate the colonial past and memorialize martial masculine resistance and collaboration within it.\n\nPaul A. Silverstein is professor of anthropology at Reed College. He is author of Algeria in France: Transpolitics\, Race\, Nation (Indiana\, 2004) and Postcolonial France: Race\, Islam\, and the Future of the Republic (Pluto\, 2018)\, and co-editor of Bourdieu in Algeria (Nebraska\, 2009)\, among other publications. He has done extensive ethnographic and archival research on Amazigh cultural politics in southeastern Morocco. His translation of Moha Layid’s The Sacrifice of Black Cows—a Moroccan novel set during the nationalist uprising against French colonialism— was recently published by the MLA. He chairs the MERIP Board of Directors.\n\nThis event presented by the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies. It is made possible in part by a generous contribution from Kenneth and Frances Aftel Eisenberg.
UID:142518-21891067@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/142518
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Global,History,Interdisciplinary,International,Multicultural
LOCATION:Tisch Hall - 1014
CONTACT:
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