Distinguished Lecture

Dr. Shafi Goldwasser, the Director of the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing and a professor of computer science at UC Berkeley, discussed how cryptography and computational learning have shared a curious history at the College of Engineering’s virtual distinguished lecture on November 9, 2020.

Goldwasser’s talk was titled “Cryptography for Safe Machine Learning.” She explained how the goals of these two fields are aligned, but a scientific success for one has often provided an example of an impossible task for the other.

Dr. Sandra K. Johnson, the founder of Global Mobile Finance, Inc., a fintech startup company, and the founder of SKJ Visioneering, LLC, a technology consulting company, presented an overview of blockchain and discussed her experience as a hidden figure in engineering at a virtual distinguished lecture on October 22, 2020.

“Blockchain opens the door for new, innovative and creative ways of doing things that are different than the processes we have in place now and I’m excited for the prospect,” said Johnson.

Stanford University’s Dr. Allison Okamura, this quarter’s College of Engineering Distinguished Lecture speaker, shared what she and her students have discovered through their research on soft haptics and robotics. Okamura’s presentation was delivered in the Student Community Center on April 15, 2019 to a full room of students, staff, and faculty.

Okamura presented projects that featured haptic devices for medical simulation, flexible patient-specific medical robots and biologically-inspired robot growth.

Dr. David Dzombak, Hamerschlag Professor and Department Head of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University spoke at this quarter’s College of Engineering Distinguished Lecture on Thursday, January 24. He delivered his lecture in the Student Community Center to a full room of faculty, staff, undergraduates and graduate students all interested in the nation’s vast and varying water landscape.