Tue 17 Jun 14:30: Title to be confirmed
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Patrick Allen (McGill)
- Tuesday 17 June 2025, 14:30-15:30
- Venue: MR13.
- Series: Number Theory Seminar; organiser: Rong Zhou.
Fri 02 May 10:30: Biologically Inspired Soft Robotics
Robotics has the potential to address many of today’s pressing problems in fields ranging from healthcare to manufacturing to disaster relief. However, the traditional approaches used on the factory floor do not perform well in unstructured environments. The key to solving many of these challenges is to explore new, non-traditional designs. Fortunately, nature surrounds us with examples of novel ways to navigate and interact with the real world. Dr. Tolley’s Bioinspired Robotics and Design Lab seeks to borrow the key principles of operation from biological systems and apply them to robotic design. This talk will give an overview of recent projects in the lab that investigate the ways in which the use of non-traditional materials can help solve challenging problems in robotics. These projects seek to develop bioinspired systems capable of navigating the world by walking, digging, and swimming (inspired by animals like turtles, worms, and squid) and of interacting safely with humans and delicate objects.
The seminar will be held in JDB Seminar Room , Department of Engineering, and online (zoom): https://newnham.zoom.us/j/92544958528?pwd=YS9PcGRnbXBOcStBdStNb3E0SHN1UT09
- Speaker: Michael T. Tolley UC San Diego
- Friday 02 May 2025, 10:30-11:30
- Venue: JDB Seminar Room, Department of Engineering and online (Zoom).
- Series: CUED Control Group Seminars; organiser: Fulvio Forni.
Fri 20 Jun 13:00: Well-posed initial value formulation of general effective field theories of gravity
In this talk, I will show that all higher-derivative effective field theories (EFTs) of vacuum gravity admit a well-posed initial value formulation when augmented by suitable regularising terms. These regularising terms can be obtained by field redefinitions and do not affect the dynamics in the regime of validity of EFT . I will explain how our result applies to the quadratic, cubic, and quartic truncations of the EFT of gravity and to various truncations of a simple EFT of a scalar field. Finally, I will also discuss some numerical results on the non-linear dynamics of this simple scalar field theory.
- Speaker: Aron Kovacs, Queen Mary University of London
- Friday 20 June 2025, 13:00-14:00
- Venue: Potter room/Zoom.
- Series: DAMTP Friday GR Seminar; organiser: Daniela Cors.
Tue 06 May 14:00: Cocktail Effects in Superconductivity: High-Entropy Approach to Antimonide Compounds
High-entropy compounds, stabilized by configurational entropy, have attracted considerable attention due to their unique properties and functionalities [1-3]. In this study, we applied the high-entropy concept to antimonide systems and discovered an entropy-stabilized antimonide compound with a NiAs-type structure [4]. Specifically, we investigated the superconducting properties of (RuRhPdIr)₁₋ₓPtₓSb and found that the superconducting transition temperature (Tc) and upper critical field (Hc₂) exhibit strong composition dependence [5]. A maximum Tc of 3.1 K and a significant enhancement in Hc₂ were observed at intermediate compositions, indicating a novel “cocktail effect” arising from chemical disorder. These results demonstrate the potential of entropy engineering in designing new superconducting materials.
[1] J. W. Yeh et al., Adv Eng Mater 6, 299 (2004).
[2] B. Cantor et al., Materials Science and Engineering: A 375 –377, 213 (2004).
[3] C. M. Rost etal., Nat. Commun. 6, 8485 (2015).
[4] D. Hirai et al., Inorg. Chem. 62, 14207 (2023).
[5] D. Hirai et al., Chem. Mater. 36, 9547 (2024).
- Speaker: Professor Daigorou Hirai, Nagoya University
- Tuesday 06 May 2025, 14:00-15:00
- Venue: RDC Seminar East.
- Series: Quantum Matter Seminar; organiser: Mads Fonager Hansen.
Wed 07 May 14:30: Excitations with a Twist
Quantum geometry allows us to quantify the distance between quantum states. It underpins numerous phenomena in condensed matter physics, from electron transport in flat band systems to topological twists of electronic wave functions. In this talk, I will give an overview of how quantum geometry can be extended to explore the excited states of materials. Focusing on excitons, bound electron-hole pairs, I will first give an overview of the possible exciton topological phases as they arise from the underlying electron and hole states. I will next describe how quantum geometry dictates that topological excitons are larger than their trivial counterparts and show how this results in enhanced exciton diffusion. I will use a family of organic semiconductors hosting topological excitons to illustrate these ideas.
- Speaker: Professor Bartomeu Monserrat, University of Cambridge
- Wednesday 07 May 2025, 14:30-15:30
- Venue: Unilever Lecture Theatre, Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry.
- Series: Theory - Chemistry Research Interest Group; organiser: Lisa Masters.
Fri 30 May 14:00: PhD Students' talks
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Speakers listed in abstract in due course
- Friday 30 May 2025, 14:00-17:00
- Venue: MR3.
- Series: Fluid Mechanics (DAMTP); organiser: Professor Grae Worster.
Fri 16 May 14:00: Does AI help humans make better decisions? A statistical evaluation framework for experimental and observational studies.
The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), or more generally data-driven algorithms, has become ubiquitous in today’s society. Yet, in many cases and especially when stakes are high, humans still make final decisions. The critical question, therefore, is whether AI helps humans make better decisions compared to a human-alone or AI-alone system. We introduce a new methodological framework to empirically answer this question with a minimal set of assumptions. We measure a decision maker’s ability to make correct decisions using standard classification metrics based on the baseline potential outcome. We consider a single-blinded and unconfounded treatment assignment, where the provision of AI-generated recommendations is assumed to be randomized across cases with humans making final decisions. Under this study design, we show how to compare the performance of three alternative decision-making systems— human-alone, human-with-AI, and AI-alone. Importantly, the AI-alone system includes any individualized treatment assignment, including those that are not used in the original study. We also show when AI recommendations should be provided to a human-decision maker, and when one should follow such recommendations. We apply the proposed methodology to our own randomized controlled trial evaluating a pretrial risk assessment instrument. We find that the risk assessment recommendations do not improve the classification accuracy of a judge’s decision to impose cash bail. Furthermore, we find that replacing a human judge with algorithms— the risk assessment score and a large language model in particular—- leads to a worse classification performance.
- Speaker: Kosuke Imai (Harvard University)
- Friday 16 May 2025, 14:00-15:00
- Venue: MR12, Centre for Mathematical Sciences.
- Series: Statistics; organiser: Qingyuan Zhao.
Fri 30 May 14:00: PhD Students' talks
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Speakers listed in abstract in due course
- Friday 30 May 2025, 14:00-17:00
- Venue: MR2.
- Series: Fluid Mechanics (DAMTP); organiser: Professor Grae Worster.
Thu 05 Jun 15:00: Translation Validation for LLVM's AArch64 Backend
Alive2 is a practical oracle for determining whether a transformation on LLVM IR is a refinement—that is, whether it is valid under the rules for LLVM optimizations. In this talk I’ll describe an analogous translation validation solution for LLVM ’s AArch64 backend that we’ve used to find 42 miscompilation bugs, many of which were in architecture-neutral code and hence could have also affected other backends. Our tool, arm-tv, reuses Alive2 as a source of LLVM semantics and offers a choice of two AArch64 semantics, one that we wrote by hand and the other derived from ARM ’s machine readable specification of their ISA .
John Regehr is a computer science professor at the University of Utah, USA . He liked to build tools for compiler developers to use, and then write papers about them.
If you want to attend the compiler social, please remember to sign up: https://grosser.science/compiler-social-2025-06-05/
- Speaker: John Regehr - University of Utah
- Thursday 05 June 2025, 15:00-16:00
- Venue: Computer Laboratory, William Gates Building, LT1.
- Series: compiler socials; organiser: Luisa Cicolini.
Tue 13 May 13:00: Explainable AI in Neuroscience: From Interpretability to Biomarker Discovery
Explainability plays a pivotal role in building trust and fostering the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare, particularly in high-stakes domains like neuroscience where decisions directly affect patient outcomes. While progress in AI interpretability has been substantial, there remains a lack of clear, domain-specific guidelines for constructing meaningful and clinically relevant explanations. In this talk, I will explore how explainable AI (XAI) can be effectively integrated into neuroscience applications. I will outline practical strategies for leveraging interpretability methods to uncover novel patterns in neural data, and discuss how these insights can inform the identification of emerging biomarkers. Drawing on recent developments, I will highlight adaptable XAI frameworks that enhance transparency and support data-driven discovery. To validate these concepts, I will present illustrative case studies involving large language models (LLMs) and vision transformers applied to neuroscience. These examples serve as proof of concept, showcasing how explainable AI can not only translate complex model behavior into human-understandable insights, but also support the discovery of novel patterns and potential biomarkers relevant to clinical and research applications.
- Speaker: Mike Mamalakis (University of Cambridge)
- Tuesday 13 May 2025, 13:00-14:00
- Venue: Lecture Theatre 2, Computer Laboratory, William Gates Building.
- Series: Artificial Intelligence Research Group Talks (Computer Laboratory); organiser: Mateja Jamnik.
Wed 21 May 16:30: TBC
TBC
- Speaker: Anja Meyer, University of Loughborough
- Wednesday 21 May 2025, 16:30-17:30
- Venue: MR12.
- Series: Algebra and Representation Theory Seminar; organiser: Adam Jones.
Wed 21 May 15:05: Recreating the Physical Natural World from Images
For centuries, unraveling the mysteries of nature through the lens of physics has captivated countless scientists. Today, generative AI models excel at reproducing visual worlds in pixels, but still struggle with basic physical concepts such as 3D shape, motion, material, and lighting—-key elements that connect computer vision to a wide range of real-world engineering applications, including interactive VR, robotics, biology, and medical analysis. The main challenge arises from the difficulty of collecting large-scale physical measurements for training machine learning models.
In this talk, I will discuss an alternative unsupervised approach based on inverse rendering, which enables machine learning models to learn explicit physical representations from raw, unstructured image data, such as Internet photos and videos. This approach thus circumvents the need for any direct supervision, allowing us to model a wide variety of 3D objects in nature, including diverse wildlife, using only casually recorded imagery. The resulting model can generate physically-grounded 3D assets with controllable animations instantly, ready for downstream rendering and analysis. The papers presented can be found at: https://elliottwu.com/.
Link to join virtually: https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/87421957265
This talk is being recorded. If you do not wish to be seen in the recording, please avoid sitting in the front three rows of seats in the lecture theatre. Any questions asked will also be included in the recording. The recording will be made available on the Department’s webpage
- Speaker: Dr Elliott Wu - Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge
- Wednesday 21 May 2025, 15:05-15:55
- Venue: Lecture Theatre 1, Computer Laboratory, William Gates Building.
- Series: Wednesday Seminars - Department of Computer Science and Technology ; organiser: Ben Karniely.
Wed 14 May 15:05: Type-driven Development with Idris 2
Idris is a functional programming language with first-class types, which allow properties to be expressed in the type system, and with an interactive type-driven editor which allows programs to be developed as a formal conversation with the machine. In this talk I will introduce Idris and its type system, and cover recent developments in Idris 2. In particular, I will describe how the quantities in the type system give additional expressivity which allows us to implement state machines and communicating systems and verify their properties, interactively.
Link to join virtually: https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/87421957265
This talk is being recorded. If you do not wish to be seen in the recording, please avoid sitting in the front three rows of seats in the lecture theatre. Any questions asked will also be included in the recording. The recording will be made available on the Department’s webpage
- Speaker: Dr Edwin Brady - School of Computer Science, University of St Andrews
- Wednesday 14 May 2025, 15:05-15:55
- Venue: Lecture Theatre 1, Computer Laboratory, William Gates Building.
- Series: Wednesday Seminars - Department of Computer Science and Technology ; organiser: Ben Karniely.
Thu 05 Jun 15:00: Translation Validation for LLVM's AArch64 Backend
Alive2 is a practical oracle for determining whether a transformation on LLVM IR is a refinement—that is, whether it is valid under the rules for LLVM optimizations. In this talk I’ll describe an analogous translation validation solution for LLVM ’s AArch64 backend that we’ve used to find 42 miscompilation bugs, many of which were in architecture-neutral code and hence could have also affected other backends. Our tool, arm-tv, reuses Alive2 as a source of LLVM semantics and offers a choice of two AArch64 semantics, one that we wrote by hand and the other derived from ARM ’s machine readable specification of their ISA .
John Regehr is a computer science professor at the University of Utah, USA . He liked to build tools for compiler developers to use, and then write papers about them.
- Speaker: John Regehr - University of Utah
- Thursday 05 June 2025, 15:00-16:00
- Venue: Computer Laboratory, William Gates Building, LT1.
- Series: compiler socials; organiser: Luisa Cicolini.
Thu 15 May 11:30: Vertical mixing and associated biogeochemical fluxes via radium isotopes
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Tristan McKenzie, Uni of Gothenberg
- Thursday 15 May 2025, 11:30-12:30
- Venue: Open Plan Area, Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows, Madingley Rise CB3 0EZ.
- Series: Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows (IEEF); organiser: Catherine Pearson.
Wed 28 May 11:00: Conditional Expectation and Machine Learning
The problem addressed by machine learning can also be formulated as one of computing conditional expectation, an approach little explored because of the success of machine learning. The focus of this presentation is to view conditional expectation, not as an alternative, but as a means of performance enhancement for machine learning. In particular, we show that conventional machine learning is itself a vehicle for computing conditional expectation, both post training and during training. A neural network architecture that combine conventional machine learning and computing conditional expectation will be presented.
- Speaker: Eugene Wong(UC Berkeley and Clare Hall, Cambridge)
- Wednesday 28 May 2025, 11:00-12:30
- Venue: Cambridge University Engineering Department, CBL Seminar room BE4-38..
- Series: Machine Learning Reading Group @ CUED; organiser: Xianda Sun.
Wed 28 May 11:00: Conditional Expectation and Machine Learning
The problem addressed by machine learning can also be formulated as one of computing conditional expectation, an approach little explored because of the success of machine learning. The focus of this presentation is to view conditional expectation, not as an alternative, but as a means of performance enhancement for machine learning. In particular, we show that conventional machine learning is itself a vehicle for computing conditional expectation, both post training and during training. A neural network architecture that combine conventional machine learning and computing conditional expectation will be presented.
- Speaker: Eugene Wong(UC Berkeley and Clare Hall, Cambridge)
- Wednesday 28 May 2025, 11:00-12:30
- Venue: Cambridge University Engineering Department, CBL Seminar room BE4-38..
- Series: Machine Learning Reading Group @ CUED; organiser: Xianda Sun.
Fri 16 May 16:00: Can AI weather and climate emulators predict out-of-distribution gray swan extreme events?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming weather and climate modeling. For example, neural network-based weather models can now outperform physics-based models for up to 15-day forecasts at a fraction of the computing time. However, these AI models have challenges with learning the rarest yet most impactful weather extremes, particularly the gray swans (i.e., physically possible events so rare they have never been seen in the training set). They also poorly learn multi-scale chaotic dynamics. I will discuss some of these challenges, as well as some of the surprising capabilities of these models, e.g., transferring what they learn from one region to another for dynamically similar event. I will present ideas around integrating tools from applied math, climate physics, and AI to address some of these challenges and make progress. In particular, I will discuss the use if rare event sampling algorithms and the Fourier transform and adjoint of the deep neural networks.
- Speaker: Prof Pedram Hassanzedeh, University of Chicago
- Friday 16 May 2025, 16:00-17:00
- Venue: MR2.
- Series: Fluid Mechanics (DAMTP); organiser: Professor Grae Worster.
Tue 13 May 16:00: Einstein-Maxwell instantons, complex structures, and the Geroch group
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Bernardo Araneda (Edinburgh)
- Tuesday 13 May 2025, 16:00-17:00
- Venue: CMS, MR11.
- Series: Mathematical Physics Seminar; organiser: Professor Maciej Dunajski.
Wed 07 May 13:00: The SIREN study at five years: Tracking SARS-CoV-2 and respiratory infections in UK healthcare workers since 2020
All are invited to the Bradford Hill Seminar:
The SIREN study at five years: Tracking SARS -CoV-2 and respiratory infections in UK healthcare workers since 2020
Speaker: Victoria Hall, Consultant Epidemiologist, Antimicrobial Resistance & Healthcare Associated Infections Division of the UK Health Security Agency (UK HSA )
Register to attend Please note this will be a free hybrid seminar, with the option to attend in-person (Large Seminar Room, East Forvie Building, Forvie Site, Robinson Way, Cambridge CB2 0SR ) or virtually (via Zoom).
No registration is required to attend in person.
Register in advance to attend this seminar online at:
https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/register/CoavXVmNQtWN8j8TOFv-rg#/registration
Abstract The SARS -CoV-2 Immunity and Reinfection Evaluation (SIREN) study is a prospective cohort study of hospital-based healthcare workers across the UK. It was established in 2020 as a pandemic response study, with over 44,000 healthcare workers recruited from 135 NHS trusts/health boards. The study initially investigated SARS -CoV-2 reinfections and the durability of immunity following infection, and subsequently COVID -19 vaccination. It has expanded its scope to evaluate Winter Pressures on the healthcare workforce, and questions related to immunity more broadly.
SIREN has been running since 2024. This has involved collecting data on symptoms and absence from time off work trends in around 5000 participants recruited from the original SIREN cohort. In addition to investigating Winter Pressures, SIREN provides an opportunity to address new research questions of public health importance that impact healthcare workers, including the emergence of multidrug resistant organisms and risk factors for healthcare associated infections.
More details on the study and publications from the study can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/siren-study
About Victoria Hall Victoria Hall is a Consultant Epidemiologist in the Antimicrobial Resistance & Healthcare Associated Infections Division of the UK Health Security Agency and has been leading the SIREN study team since 2020. She completed public health speciality training in the East of England and the UK Field Epidemiology Training Programme based in South East and London Regional Field Epidemiology Service. She holds a part-time position at the Institute for Health Informatics, UCL working on research on infections and AMR in care homes with the VIVALDI study.
About the Bradford Hill seminars The Bradford Hill seminar series is the principal series of The Cambridge Population Health Sciences Partnership, in collaboration with the PHG Foundation. This comprises the Departments of Public Health & Primary Care, MRC Biostatistics Unit and MRC Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge, bringing together a multi-disciplinary partnership of academics and public health professionals. The Bradford Hill seminar programme of internationally recognised speakers covers topics of broad interest to our public health research community. It aims to transcend as well as connect the activities of our individual partners.
All are welcome at our Bradford Hill seminars.
- Speaker: Victoria Hall, UK Health Security Agency
- Wednesday 07 May 2025, 13:00-14:00
- Venue: Large Seminar Room, East Forvie Building, Forvie Site Robinson Way Cambridge CB2 0SR..
- Series: Bradford Hill Seminars; organiser: Paul Browne.