Frontiers of Science Lecture Series

Feb 18th
Ming-Hsuan Yang
Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
University of California, Merced

Title: Learning to see

Abstract: In this talk, I will present research findings on how to teach
machines to see the world as humans. I will first give a brief historic account
of the image understanding and then the most recent findings. I will then
present some of our recent results on how to teach machines to infer as much
information from an image or a video (i.e., tell a story) and some applications.

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March 17th
Shawn Newsam
Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
University of California, Merced

Title: Computer Vision: Getting Computers to See

Abstract: Humans use their sense of vision to make sense of the world with alarming ease.
In this talk, I will discuss the challenging problem of getting computers to do
the same. This is known as computer vision. I will describe progress made in
computer vision over the last few decades, pointing out where techniques work
and where they still fail.

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April 14th
Juan C. Meza
Dean, School of Natural Sciences
Professor, Applied Mathematics
University of California, Merced

Title: Adventures in Computational Science and How Mathematics Will Help Save
the World

Abstract: Computational science is playing an increasingly important role in scientific
discovery. In fact, it is now seen as the equal of theory and experiments.
This is a result of better simulation tools and a rapid growth in computer
power. More importantly, it is a result of better mathematics. I will first
discuss some examples from climate modeling, energy, and the environment. I
will then explain how math is used in these examples and how it will help save
the world.