Academic Lectures

We have invited several high-level experts and research leaders to give lectures and share your knowledge with you. Here is a short overview of their background and abstracts.

Isabelle Augenstein, Dr. Scient., Ph.D. - Primer on Large Language Models: Capabilities, Limitations and Open Research Challenges
University of Copenhagen Homepage, Google Scholar

Abstract:

Natural language processing is currently experiencing a golden age, thanks to the emergence of chatbots powered by large pre-trained language models (LLMs), able to produce fluent and coherent responses to user input. This has resulted in a wealth of possibilities and enabled new downstream NLP applications. However, powerful as they might seem at a first glance, LLMs have a number of limitations — including being brittle to differences in prompts as well as opaque, producing factually incorrect output, and their limited cross-cultural understanding. In this talk, I will provide technical background on large language models, discuss their limitations, and illustrate how these can be addressed based on ongoing research in my research group. Lastly, I will point out open research challenges and possibilities for future academic NLP research.

Bio: Isabelle Augenstein is a Professor at the University of Copenhagen, Department of Computer Science, where she heads the Copenhagen Natural Language Understanding research group as well as the Natural Language Processing section. Her main research interests are fair and accountable NLP, including challenges such as explainability, factuality and bias detection. Prior to starting a faculty position, she was a postdoctoral researcher at University College London, and before that a PhD student at the University of Sheffield. In October 2022, Isabelle Augenstein became Denmark’s youngest ever female full professor. She currently holds a prestigious ERC Starting Grant on 'Explainable and Robust Automatic Fact Checking', as well as the Danish equivalent of that, a DFF Sapere Aude Research Leader fellowship on 'Learning to Explain Attitudes on Social Media’. She is a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters and co-leads the Danish Pioneer Centre for AI.

Marco Zuñiga Zamalloa - Visible Light Communication and Sensing
Delft University of Technology Homepage, Google Scholar

Abstract: Nowadays, half of the world's population (along with billions of devices) connects to the Internet primarily using wireless technologies. Our demand for wireless communication is so high that the radio frequency spectrum is getting expensive and congested. To meet this demand for bandwidth, a new generation of devices uses the visible light spectrum to transmit data. This new paradigm is promising because the visible light spectrum is empty and free to use. In this course, you will explore the field of Visible Light Communication and Sensing (VLCS). You will learn about its history, current developments, and future opportunities. First, you will learn the main modulation techniques used to transmit data with light, so you could use that knowledge to create your own VLCS system. The course will also cover the latest research conducted on this topic at various universities worldwide.

Bio: Dr. Marco Zúñiga Zamalloa is an Associate Professor in Computer Science at TU Delft. His research interests are in the areas of the Internet of Things, Mobile Computing, and Visible Light Communication. He obtained his Ph.D. and MSc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and his BSc in Electronics Engineering from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.

Dr. Zúñiga has more than 70 scientific publications and has received three Best Paper Awards, five Best Paper Runner-ups, and an Accenture Innovation Award in 2017. Two of his publications are the 3rd and 16th most cited papers in the ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks. Dr. Zúñiga has also been invited to present his work on "Sunlight for wireless communication" at the Innovation Expo 2018, a flagship event organized by six Dutch Ministries to showcase Dutch innovation to the world.

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