Clara Hung
Lensless imagers are low-cost, compact cameras with applications in medical imaging, photography, and more. Many designs for lensless imagers have been proposed, but the optimal design is not known as it is object-dependent. A method to capture images from different systems under similar conditions is needed to fairly compare system performance. Furthermore, as lensless imaging is moving towards data-intensive research, large-scale lensless measurement datasets are necessary for neural network evaluation. Yet, of the few existing datasets in the field, none fully address these demands. We propose a portable data acquisition […]
Benjamin Eisley
In the past few years, neural networks have gone from obscure to ubiquitous. This technology is shockingly versatile, but conceptually ill-understood: there is a large gap between practice and theory, and much has yet to even be conjectured. For example, scientists are baffled by the overfitting paradox. Overfitting is usually a problem when programmers model a complex system such as the brain. Programmers must base their model on finitely many examples of that system’s behavior. Traditionally, programs that perfectly replicate these examples forget the underlying system. Surprisingly, large neural networks […]
Nir Elber
One goal of arithmetic geometry is to enumerate the points on geometric surfaces with rational coordinates. Over the past century, it has been profitable to study the geometry of the surface directly. For example, a “cohomology theory” is a way to assign a sequence of geometric invariants to the surface; it turns out that one can use cohomology in order to count points. Given a surface, there tend to be many reasonable cohomology theories. This project is interested in the symmetries of a cohomology theory. Given a cohomology theory, it […]
Stephen Chen
Since proteins carry out the majority of work in living cells, how a cell operates is heavily determined by the relative abundances of different proteins at any given time. These relative abundances are largely determined by gene expression levels: the extent to which a gene is “activated.” Predicting gene expression levels from noncoding DNA sequence is a major unsolved problem in computational biology. Recently, machine learning (ML) has emerged as one of the most effective tools for this task. While significant work has been done with human genomes, much work […]
Jorge Diaz Chao
We are building a novel platform that introduces a new dimension to asynchronous learning—like YouTube did upon launch—by empowering users with no coding experience to democratize their knowledge on tasks involving coordinated motor skills through Augmented Reality (AR) scenarios. Our work involves designing a user interface capable of inferring motor and linguistic cues from demonstrations and explanations, and writing an algorithm that synthesizes probabilistic code, namely Scenic, that models motion primitives to build complex behaviors. To do so, we employ tools such as symbolic learning and Large Language Models (LLMs) […]
Keon Abedi
This project will investigate how the frequency of a mutation changes over time when in the presence of correlated environmental noise. This is an open question in the biophysics of evolutionary dynamics, which seeks a quantitative framework for Darwin’s theory of natural selection. The core idea of evolution is that a mutation’s frequency tends to increase over generations when it offers an advantage to its hosts. For example, in an environment with antibiotics, mutations conferring antibiotic resistance are strongly favored and can quickly become prevalent across a bacterial population; we […]
Josh Barua
The emergence of unique semantic subdivisions of concepts across languages is a natural byproduct of cultural, geographic, and historical factors. One example of concept variation is the choice between “boli” and “pluma” when translating “pen” in Spanish. While both loosely translate to pen, boli typically refers to a ballpoint pen whereas pluma refers to a fountain pen (or even a quill in historical contexts). For non-native speakers, learning these subtle lexical rules that govern which translation to use can prove challenging without expert help. For my research project, we aim […]
Hong Joo Ryoo
As a SURF fellow, my research project focuses on testing the effectiveness of a proposal presented in a previous paper for quantum computations of scattering observables when three-body intermediate states are involved. The proposal offers a strategy to deal with the finite system size and periodic spatial volume limitations that current quantum computation strategies face. We aim to investigate the impact of boundary conditions on the extraction of hadronic and Compton-like scattering amplitudes and quantify the systematic uncertainty that arises. By applying the proposed improvement strategy based on the reduced […]
Raela Richie
Kīlauea Volcano has exhibited both effusive and explosive behavior over several centuries, with recent studies suggesting that a 1790AD eruption that killed hundreds of native Hawaiians was not an isolated event. Despite the likelihood of future explosive eruptions, we do not understand what changes in the volcanic plumbing system or magma chemistry cause these shifts in eruptive style. This project will use the relationship between pressure and CO2 density in pockets of CO2-rich fluid trapped within growing crystals to constrain the depths of magma storage at Kīlauea during the last […]
Berenise Rangel
Volcanic eruptions present a major hazard to society, both in terms of infrastructure destruction through lava flows, and their influence on the Earth’s atmosphere and climate. Mauna Loa, HI, has the largest volume of any volcano on Earth, and is currently in its fastest growing ‘shield phase’ (meaning numerous lava flows have erupted over the last millenia, and many more are expected).Given the rapid growth and clear hazards presented by this volcano, it is absolutely vital to understand the magmatic plumbing system supplying lava to the surface. I will determine […]