Presentations this week
Monday, December 8, 2025
PhD Seminar • Computer Graphics
An Introduction to Neural James Stein Combiner and its Following Method
Weijie Zhou, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
3:00 p.m. • Online PhD seminar
Supervisor: Professor Toshiya Hachisuka
Tuesday, December 9, 2025
PhD Seminar • Human–Computer Interaction
Haptic Retargeting with World-in-Miniature in Virtual Reality
Junhyeok Kim, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
10:00 a.m. • Online PhD seminar
Supervisors: Professors Mark Hancock, Daniel Vogel
Wednesday, December 10, 2025
Data Systems Seminar Series
Enabling Fast and Correct Approximate Query Processing in HTAP Systems
Zhuoyue Zhao, Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University at Buffalo
10:30 a.m. • DC 1302
Thursday, December 11, 2025
Master’s Thesis Presentation • Algorithms and Complexity
New Methods for Analyzing the Properties of Automatic Sequences
Mazen Khodier, Master’s candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
9:30 a.m. • Online master’s thesis presentation
Supervisor: Professor Jeffrey Shallit
Master’s Thesis Presentation • Data Systems
Parallel Oblivious Joins using Radix Partitioning
Nafis Ahmed, Master’s candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
10:30 a.m. • DC 2314
Supervisor: Professor Sujaya Maiyya
Master’s Thesis Presentation • Human–Computer Interaction
Exploring Gender and Gender-Based Stereotyping in a Voice Agent Running Coach
Casey O’Neill, Master’s candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
11:00 a.m. • Online master’s thesis presentation
Supervisor: Professor Edith Law
PhD Seminar • Cryptography, Security, and Privacy (CrySP)
Level Up: Private Non-Interactive Decision Tree Evaluation using Levelled Homomorphic Encryption
Rasoul Akhavan Mahdavi, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
11:30 a.m. • DC 2310
Supervisor: Professor Florian Kerschbaum
Friday, December 12, 2025
PhD Seminar • Machine Learning
A Unifying Framework for Gradient Aggregation in Multi-Objective Optimization
Zeou (Theo) Hu, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
11:00 a.m. • Hybrid: DC 1302 | Online PhD seminar
Supervisor: Professor Yaoliang Yu
Upcoming presentations
Wednesday, December 17, 2025
PhD Seminar • Software Engineering
Boosting Program Reduction with the Missing Piece of Syntax-Guided Transformations
Zhenyang Xu, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
11:00 a.m. • Online PhD seminar
Supervisor: Professor Chengnian Sun
Master’s Research Paper Presentation • Systems and Networking
Kernel-Level Threading, User-Level Speed: Optimizing Thread-per-Session I/O via Extensible Scheduler
Brian Song, Master’s candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
4:00 p.m. • Online master’s research paper presentation
Supervisor: Professor Martin Karsten
Thursday, December 18, 2025
Master’s Thesis Presentation • Computer Graphics
Time Stepping Methods for Coupled Fluid-rigid Body Simulation
Rikin Gurditta, Master’s candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
2:00 p.m. • Hybrid: DC 2314 | Online master’s thesis presentation
Supervisor: Professor Christopher Batty
Master’s Thesis Presentation • Software Engineering
Grounded or Guessing? An Empirical Evaluation of LLM Reasoning in Agentic Workflows for Root Cause Analysis in Cloud-Based Systems
Evelien Riddell, Master’s candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
3:00 p.m. • Hybrid: E7 5419 | Online master’s thesis presentation
Supervisor: Professor Krzysztof Czarnecki
Friday, December 19, 2025
Master’s Thesis Presentation • Cryptography, Security, and Privacy (CrySP)
Path Reduction and Coverage Complexity for Fuzzing
Zekun Wang, Master’s candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
2:00 p.m. • Online master’s thesis presentation
Supervisor: Professor Meng Xu
Wednesday, January 7, 2026
PhD Defence • Software Engineering
Pushing the Limit of Language-Agnostic Program Reduction
Zhenyang Xu, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
12:00 p.m. • Hybrid: DC 2314 | Online PhD defence
Supervisor: Professor Chengnian Sun
PhD Defence • Artificial Intelligence | Machine Learning
Contextual AI: Integrating Macro-Context with Transformer Architectures for Social Media Analysis, Federated Learning, and Recommender Systems
Liam Hebert, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
2:00 p.m. • Online PhD defence
Supervisors: Professors Robin Cohen, Lukasz Golab
Wednesday, January 14, 2026
PhD Defence • Cryptography, Security, and Privacy (CrySP)
Practically Efficient Protocols for Private Computation using Homomorphic Encryption
Rasoul Akhavan Mahdavi, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
10:00 a.m. • Hybrid: DC 3317 | Online PhD defence
Supervisor: Professor Florian Kerschbaum
Friday, January 16, 2026
Master’s Thesis Presentation • Artificial Intelligence
Integrating Symbolic Reasoning into Large Language Models
Varun Dhanraj, Master’s candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
10:30 a.m. • Hybrid: DC 2314 | Online master’s thesis presentation
Supervisor: Professor Chris Eliasmith
Friday, January 30, 2026
PhD Defence • Algorithms and Complexity | Quantum Computing
Lower Bounds on Average-Case and Non-Local Quantum Computation
Vahid Reza Asadi, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
2:00 p.m. • Hybrid: QNC 2101 | Online PhD defence
Supervisors: Professors Richard Cleve, Mohammad Hajiabadi