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Workshop Details

Fall 2019 Mixer at Microsoft Research NYC

  • Start Date: September 13, 2019
  • End Date: September 13, 2019
  • Event Start Time: 2:00 PM
  • Event End Time: 5:00 PM
  • Organizers: Lazaros Gallos | David Pennock | Fred Roberts
  • Location: Microsoft Research - NYC | 641 6th Avenue, 7th Floor

  • Microsoft Research NYC will host the Fall 2019 DIMACS Mixer.

    The Mixer will give the DIMACS community a chance to learn about new things that are happening at DIMACS,  while meeting new people and reconnecting with others.

    The event features an invited talk entitled A Calculus for Brain Computation by Professor Christos Papadimitriou (Columbia University), as well as two-minute lightning presentations by participants who wish to present their current research interests. The Mixer concludes with a reception to help people get to know each other and learn more about the breadth of research being conducted within our community. 

    If you would like to attend the Mixer, please register below.

    Speaker Bio:

    Christos H. Papadimitriou is the Donovan Family Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University. Before joining Columbia in 2017, he was a professor at UC Berkeley for the previous 22 years, and before that he taught at Harvard, MIT, NTU Athens, Stanford, and UCSD.  He has written five textbooks and many articles on algorithms and complexity, and their applications to optimization, databases, control, AI, robotics, economics and game theory, the Internet, evolution, and the brain. He holds a PhD from Princeton (1976), and eight honorary doctorates. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the US, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Engineering, and he has received the Knuth prize, the Gödel prize, and the von Neumann medal. He has also written three novels: Turing, Logicomix, and his latest, Independence.

  • Thursday, September 12, 2019

    Workshop Talks

    2:00 PM – 2:05 PM

    Welcome

    2:05 PM – 2:20 PM

    A Short Introduction to DIMACS

    Fred Roberts - DIMACS

    2:20 PM – 2:30 PM

    DIMACS and MSR-NYC

    David Pennock - Microsoft Research

    2:30 PM – 3:30 PM

    A Calculus for Brain Computation

    Christos Papadimitriou - Columbia University

    How does the brain beget the mind?  How do molecules, cells and synapses effect reasoning, intelligence, language, science?   Despite dazzling progress in experimental neuroscience we do not seem to be making progress in the overarching question -- the gap is huge and a completely new approach seems to be required.  As Richard Axel recently put it:  "We don't have a logic for the transformation of neural activity into thought."  What kind of formal system would qualify as this "logic"?  I will sketch a possible answer.  

    (Joint work with Santosh Vempala, Dan Mitropolsky, Mike Collins, Wolfgang Maass, and Larry Abbott.)
    3:30 PM – 5:00 PM

    Lightning Talks & Reception

  • Audiences: General Research

  • This event is open to all. If you plan to attend, we ask that you register by September 6 using the link below.

     

    Everyone is welcome to submit a "lightning talk" to present during the event. If you would like to submit a two-minute lightning talk, you can upload your presentation when you register, or you can email it by September 10 to Lazaros Gallos at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

     

    Time limits will be enforced, so presentations containing just one slide are strongly encouraged. Slides must be received in advance.