Past Public Lectures

Spring 2022

Speaker: Panel featuring Scott Aaronson (UT Austin), Geoffrey Penington (UC Berkeley), and Edward Witten (IAS); Umesh Vazirani (UC Berkeley; moderator).

May 10, 2022

Quantum Colloquium – Black Holes and the Quantum-Extended Church-Turing Thesis

Speaker: Leonard Susskind (Stanford University)

May 10, 2022

Quantum Colloquium – Panel

Speaker: Panel featuring Kenneth Brown (Duke University), Ignacio Cirac (Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics), Liang Jiang (University of Chicago), and Mark Saffman (UW Madison); Umesh Vazirani (UC Berkeley; moderator).

May 3, 2022

Quantum Colloquium – Efficient Error Correction in Neutral Atoms via Erasure Conversion

Speaker: Jeff Thompson (Princeton)

May 3, 2022

Theoretically Speaking — Noncausal Dependence and Why It Matters for Causal Reasoning

Speaker: Issa Kohler-Hausmann (Professor of Law at Yale Law School) Panelists: Shamik Dasgupta (UC Berkeley), Robin Dembroff (Yale), & Maegan Fairchild (University of Michigan)

Apr. 26, 2022

Quantum Colloquium – Panel

Speaker: Panel featuring Daniel Gottesman (University of Maryland), Matt Hastings (Microsoft Research), and Barbara Terhal (TU Delft); Umesh Vazirani (UC Berkeley; moderator).

Apr. 26, 2022

Quantum Colloquium – The Quantum LDPC Manifesto

Speaker: Anthony Leverrier (INRIA)

Apr. 26, 2022

Quantum Colloquium – Panel

Speaker: Panel featuring Yael Kalai (Microsoft Research), Vinod Vaikuntanathan (MIT), and Thomas Vidick (Caltech); Umesh Vazirani (UC Berkeley; moderator).

Apr. 19, 2022

Quantum Colloquium – Verifiable Quantum Advantage Without Structure

Speaker: Mark Zhandry (Princeton)

Apr. 19, 2022

Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture — Equilibrium Computation and Machine Learning

Speaker: Constantinos Daskalakis (MIT)

Apr. 18, 2022

Quantum Colloquium – Panel

Speaker: Panel featuring Lin Lin (UC Berkeley), Birgitta Whaley (UC Berkeley), James Whitfield (Dartmouth), and Nathan Wiebe (University of Toronto); Umesh Vazirani (UC Berkeley; moderator).

Apr. 12, 2022

Quantum Colloquium – Is There Evidence of Exponential Quantum Advantage in Quantum Chemistry?

Speaker: Garnet Chan (Caltech)

Apr. 12, 2022

Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture — Stability and Learning in Repeated Games

Speaker: Éva Tardos (Cornell University)

Apr. 11, 2022

Theoretically Speaking — The Science of Cause and Effect: From Deep Learning to Deep Understanding

Speaker: Judea Pearl (UCLA) (Speaker presenting remotely)

Apr. 6, 2022

Quantum Colloquium – Panel

Speaker: Panel featuring Sergio Boixo (Google), Soonwon Choi (MIT), and Bill Fefferman (University of Chicago); Umesh Vazirani (UC Berkeley; moderator).

Apr. 5, 2022

Quantum Colloquium – On the Limits for Certifying Quantum Speedups for Noisy Circuits

Speaker: Boaz Barak (Harvard University)

Apr. 5, 2022

CANCELED: Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture — From Statistical to Causal Machine Learning

Speaker: Bernhard Schölkopf (Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems)

Apr. 4, 2022

Theoretically Speaking — Opportunities for the Application of Quantitative Models in a Fully Integrated Healthcare System

Speaker: Noam Barda (Harvard, Tel-HaShomer Medical Center and Ben-Gurion University) Noa Dagan (Harvard, Clalit Research Institute and Ben-Gurion University)

Mar. 23, 2022

Theoretically Speaking — Monitoring People and Their Vital Signs Using Radio Signals and Machine Learning

Speaker: Dina Katabi (MIT) (Speaker presenting remotely)

Mar. 9, 2022

Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture — Causality and Autoencoders in Light of Drug Repurposing for COVID-19

Speaker: Caroline Uhler (MIT)

Mar. 7, 2022

Thinking Like a Journalist — Science Communicator in Residence Talk

Speaker: Nathaniel Popper (Science Communicator in Residence, Simons Institute)

Mar. 4, 2022

Fall 2021

Theoretically Speaking — Foundations for a Democratic Metaverse

Speaker: Ehud Shapiro (Weizmann Institute and Columbia University)

Dec. 10, 2021

Quantum Colloquium – Panel on Making Predictions in a Quantum World

Speaker: Panel featuring Scott Aaronson (UT Austin), Dorit Aharonov (Hebrew University), Ignacio Cirac (Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics), Elad Hazan (Princeton). Umesh Vazirani (UC Berkeley; moderator).

Nov. 30, 2021

Quantum Colloquium – Making Predictions in a Quantum World

Speaker: Hsin-Yuan Huang (Caltech)

Nov. 30, 2021

Quantum Colloquium – Panel on Verifiable Quantum Advantage

Speaker: Panel featuring Chris Monroe (Duke University), Lieven Vandersypen (TU Delft), Mark Zhandry (Princeton University), and Umesh Vazirani (UC Berkeley; moderator).

Nov. 16, 2021

Quantum Colloquium – Interactive Protocols for Classically-Verifiable Quantum Advantage with an Ion-Trap Quantum Computer

Speaker: Andru Gheorghiu (ETH Zürich) and Daiwei Zhu (University of Maryland)

Nov. 16, 2021

Quantum Colloquium – Panel on Achieving Quantum Advantage in the NISQ Era

Speaker: Panel featuring Andrew Childs (University of Maryland), Norman Yao (UC Berkeley), Markus Greiner (Harvard University), Monika Aidelsburger (University of Munich), and Umesh Vazirani (UC Berkeley; moderator).

Nov. 9, 2021

Quantum Colloquium – Exploring New Scientific Frontiers with Programmable Quantum Simulators

Speaker: Mikhail Lukin (Harvard University)

Nov. 9, 2021

Quantum Colloquium – Panel on Novel Fault-Tolerant Qubits

Speaker: Panel featuring Amir Safavi-Naeini (Stanford University), Daniel Litinski (PsiQuantum), Robert Raussendorf (University of British Columbia), and Umesh Vazirani (UC Berkeley; moderator).

Nov. 2, 2021

Quantum Colloquium – Simple Architecture for a Fault-Tolerant Qubit

Speaker: Patrick Hayden (Stanford University)

Nov. 2, 2021

Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture — Finding Large Cliques in Random and Semi-Random Graphs

Speaker: Uriel Feige (Weizmann Institute of Science)

Nov. 1, 2021

Quantum Colloquium – Panel on Bosonic Error Correction Codes

Speaker: Panel featuring Daniel Gottesman (University of Maryland), Shruti Puri (Yale University), Jonathan Home (ETH Zurich), Chen Wang (UMass Amherst), and Umesh Vazirani (UC Berkeley; moderator).

Oct. 26, 2021

Quantum Colloquium – An Error-Corrected Logical Quantum Bit Encoded in Grid States of a Superconducting Cavity

Speaker: Michel Devoret (Yale University)

Oct. 26, 2021

Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture — Mathematical Imaging: From Geometric PDEs and Variational Modeling to Deep Learning for Images

Speaker: Carola-Bibiane Schönlieb (University of Cambridge) (Speaker presenting remotely)

Oct. 21, 2021

Quantum Colloquium – Panel on Quantum Machine Learning and Barren Plateaus

Speaker: Panel featuring Patrick Coles (Los Alamos National Labs), Aram Harrow (MIT), Maria Schuld (UKZN and Xanadu), Jarrod McClean (Google), and Umesh Vazirani (UC Berkeley; moderator).

Oct. 19, 2021

Quantum Colloquium – Barren Plateaus and Quantum Generative Training Using Rényi Divergences

Speaker: Nathan Wiebe (University of Toronto)

Oct. 19, 2021

Theoretically Speaking — Deep Nets and the Primate Visual System

Speaker: Anil Ananthaswamy (Simons Institute, moderator) Panelists: James DiCarlo (MIT), Grace Lindsay (University College London), Jitendra Malik (UC Berkeley), and Santosh Vempala (Georgia Tech)

Oct. 18, 2021

Quantum Colloquium – Panel on Securing Cryptography Against Quantum Adversaries

Speaker: Panel featuring Zvika Brakerski (Weizmann Institute), Anne Broadbent (U. Ottawa), Yael Kalai (Microsoft Research) and Umesh Vazirani (UC Berkeley; moderator).

Oct. 12, 2021

Quantum Colloquium – Post-Quantum Succinct Arguments: Breaking the Quantum Rewinding Barrier

Speaker: Fermi Ma (Simons Institute)

Oct. 12, 2021

Breakthroughs — Locally Testable Codes with Constant Rate, Distance, and Locality

Speaker: Irit Dinur (Weizmann Institute of Science)

Oct. 6, 2021

Quantum Colloquium – Panel on Quantum Interactive Dynamics

Speaker: Panel featuring Adam Nahum (I'Ecole Normale Supérieure), Pedram Roushan (Google), Barbara Terhal (TU Delft), and Umesh Vazirani (UC Berkeley; moderator).

Oct. 5, 2021

Quantum Colloquium – Towards a Quantum Interactive Dynamics

Speaker: Shivaji Sondhi (Oxford University)

Oct. 5, 2021

Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture — Computational Barriers in Statistical Estimation and Learning

Speaker: Andrea Montanari (Stanford)

Oct. 4, 2021

Quantum Colloquium – Panel on Lattice Algorithms and Cryptography

Speaker: Panel featuring Lior Eldar (MIT), Vinod Vaikuntanathan (MIT), Daniel Apon (NIST), Umesh Vazirani (UC Berkeley; moderator).

Sep. 21, 2021

Quantum Colloquium – An Efficient Quantum Algorithm for Lattice Problems Achieving Subexponential Approximation Factor

Speaker: Sean Hallgren (Penn State University & Senior Visitor at Simons Institute 2021-22)

Sep. 21, 2021

Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture — On Some Optimization Problems Involving a Large Number of Matrices

Speaker: Wilfrid Gangbo (UCLA)

Sep. 20, 2021

Summer 2021

Breakthroughs — An Almost Constant Lower Bound of the Isoperimetric Coefficient in the KLS Conjecture

Speaker: Yuansi Chen (Duke University)

Aug. 5, 2021

Breakthroughs — A Refined Laser Method and Faster Matrix Multiplication

Speaker: Virginia Vassilevska Williams (MIT)

Jun. 16, 2021

Spring 2021

Theoretically Speaking — A Panel Discussion on the Film Coded Bias

Speaker: Ashia Wilson (MIT, moderator) Panelists: Seny Kamara (Brown University Department of Computer Science and Aroki Systems), Shalini Kantayya (7th Empire Media and UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism), Sendhil Mullainathan (University of Chicago Booth School of Business), Omer Reingold (Stanford University Computer Science Department), and Patricia Williams (Northeastern University School of Law)

May 7, 2021

A New Theory of Adversarial Examples in Machine Learning

Speaker: Adi Shamir (Weizmann Institute)

May 6, 2021

Theoretically Speaking — Market Design through the Lens of Approximation

Speaker: Michal Feldman (Tel Aviv University)

Apr. 28, 2021

Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture — How Difficult Is It to Certify That a Random SAT Formula Is Unsatisfiable?

Speaker: Toniann Pitassi (University of Toronto)

Apr. 19, 2021

Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture — Back to the Future: A Fresh Look at Linear Temporal Logic

Speaker: Javier Esparza (Technical University of Munich)

Mar. 31, 2021

Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture — Trustworthy and Distributed Automated Reasoning

Speaker: Marijn Heule (Carnegie Mellon University)

Mar. 19, 2021

Science Communicator in Residence – Embracing the Uncertainties

Speaker: Siobhan Roberts

Mar. 2, 2021

Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture — Automated Formal Program Repair

Speaker: Orna Grumberg (Technion - Israel Institute of Technology)

Feb. 25, 2021

Fall 2020

Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture — Reductionism in Reinforcement Learning

Speaker: D ale Schuurmans (Google Brain & University of Alberta)

Nov. 23, 2020

Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture — Is Your Distribution in Shape?

Speaker: Ronitt Rubinfeld (MIT)

Nov. 9, 2020

Theoretically Speaking — The Ethical Algorithm

Speaker: Michael Kearns (University of Pennsylvania)

Oct. 14, 2020

Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture – Safe Learning in Robotics

Speaker: Claire Tomlin (UC Berkeley)

Oct. 5, 2020

The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values

Speaker: Brian Christian (UC Berkeley)

Sep. 17, 2020

Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture — Insights on Gradient-Based Algorithms in High-Dimensional Learning

Speaker: Lenka Zdeborová (EPFL)

Sep. 14, 2020

Hard Choices in Artificial Intelligence

Speaker: Thomas Gilbert (UC Berkeley)

Sep. 10, 2020

Summer 2020

Advances in Boolean Function Analysis — Pseudorandom Generators from Polarizing Random Walks

Speaker: Pooya Hatami (Ohio State University)

Aug. 18, 2020

Advances in Boolean Function Analysis — KKL via Random Restrictions

Speaker: Esty Kelman (Tel Aviv University)

Aug. 12, 2020

Advances in Boolean Function Analysis — Concentration Inequalities for Boolean Functions via Pathwise Stochastic Analysis

Speaker: Ronen Eldan (Weizmann Institute)

Aug. 5, 2020

Advances in Boolean Function Analysis — Improved Bounds for the Sunflower Lemma

Speaker: Shachar Lovett (UC San Diego)

Aug. 3, 2020

Theoretically Speaking — The Mathematical Essence of Aging

Speaker: Uri Alon (Weizmann Institute of Science)

Jul. 30, 2020

Advances in Boolean Function Analysis — Sensitivity Conjecture and Its Applications

Speaker: Hao Huang (Emory University) & Avishay Tal (UC Berkeley)

Jul. 22, 2020

Advances in Boolean Function Analysis — On the Fourier-Entropy Influence Conjecture

Speaker: Dor Minzer (Institute of Advanced Study)

Jul. 15, 2020

Theoretically Speaking — AI for Intelligent Financial Services

Speaker: Manuela Veloso (Head of J.P. Morgan AI Research, Carnegie Mellon University)

Jun. 22, 2020

Spring 2020

Theoretically Speaking — Computational and Statistical Tools to Control a Pandemic: A Panel Discussion

Speaker: Peter Bartlett (Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, moderator) Panelists: Klaske van Heusden (University of British Columbia), Madhav Marathe (University of Virginia), Ankur Moitra (MIT), Shai Shalev-Shwartz (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Anil Vullikanti (University of Virginia), and Bin Yu (UC Berkeley)

May 11, 2020

Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture — A Tale of Turing Machines, Quantum-Entangled Particles, and Operator Algebras

Speaker: Henry Yuen (University of Toronto)

Apr. 20, 2020

Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture — Lattices, Post-Quantum Security and Homomorphic Encryption

Speaker: Daniele Micciancio (UC San Diego)

Apr. 6, 2020

Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture — Lattices ∩ Quantum

Speaker: Zvika Brakerski (Weizmann Institute of Science)

Mar. 16, 2020

Fall 2019

Theoretically Speaking — Artificial Stupidity: The New AI and the Future of Fintech

Speaker: Andrew W. Lo (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Dec. 3, 2019

Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture — Average-Case Complexity through the Lens of Interactive Arguments

Speaker: Rafael Pass (Cornell University)

Dec. 2, 2019

Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture — Byzantine Fault Tolerance Meets Flexibility

Speaker: Dahlia Malkhi (Calibra)

Nov. 4, 2019

Theoretically Speaking — Algorand's Forthcoming Blockchain Technology

Speaker: Silvio Micali (Founder of Algorand and faculty at MIT)

Oct. 30, 2019

Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture — Secure Multiparty Computation

Speaker: Yuval Ishai (Technion Israel Institute of Technology)

Oct. 14, 2019

Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture — Algorithmic Opportunities in Matching Markets

Speaker: Vijay Vazirani (UC Irvine)

Sep. 9, 2019

Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lectures — Launch Celebration

Speaker: Sanjeev Arora, Faith Ellen, Dan Gusfield, Dorit Hochbaum, Russell Impagliazzo, Ravi Kannan, Don Knuth, Mike Luby, Antony Ng, Prabhakar Raghavan, Scott Shenker, Robert Tarjan, Vijay Vazirani, and Dick Karp.

Sep. 3, 2019

Summer 2019

Theoretically Speaking — Algorithms and the Law

Speaker: Peter Bartlett (Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, moderator) Panelists: Shafi Goldwasser (Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing), Martha Minow (Harvard University), Elliot Schrage (Facebook), and Patricia Williams (Columbia University)

Jun. 7, 2019

Spring 2019

Open Lecture — Randomness in Number Theory

Speaker: Peter Sarnak (Princeton University)

Apr. 15, 2019

Blockchains, Micropayments and Zero Knowledge (ZK Day 2019)

Apr. 13, 2019

Theoretically Speaking — What We Can Learn from AdNauseam about the Threat and Power of Data Obfuscation

Speaker: Helen Nissenbaum (Cornell Tech)

Mar. 27, 2019

Open Lecture — The Polynomial Paradigm in Algorithms

Speaker: Shayan Oveis Gharan (University of Washington) and Nikhil Srivastava (UC Berkeley)

Mar. 11, 2019

Theoretically Speaking — The Predictive Brain

Speaker: Anil Ananthaswamy (Fall 2018 Simons Institute Journalist in Residence, moderator) Panelists: Celeste Kidd (UC Berkeley), Bruno Olshausen (UC Berkeley), Christos Papadimitriou (Columbia University) and Michael Pollan (UC Berkeley)

Mar. 7, 2019

When Scientists Write for the Public: Objective Consideration of Contemporary Phenomena

Speaker: Konstantin Kakaes (Simons Institute Journalist in Residence)

Feb. 6, 2019