Presentations this week
Monday, March 9, 2026
PhD Seminar • Algorithms and Complexity
Classes of Graphs with Sub-linear Twin-width
Taite LaGrange, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
2:45 p.m. • MC 5479
Supervisors: Professors Therese Biedl, Sophie Spirkl
Master’s Thesis Presentation • Computer Graphics
Physically-Based Simulation and Visualization of Optical Phenomena Elicited by Negative Refraction
Scott Steinfield, Master’s candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
3:00 p.m. • DC 3317
Supervisor: Professor Gladimir Baranoski
Tuesday, March 10, 2026
PhD Seminar • Human–Computer Interaction | Artificial Intelligence
Leveraging Interactive Human–AI Collaboration Methods to Enhance Key Stages of Programming Workflows
Xuye Liu, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
2:00 p.m. • Online PhD seminar
Supervisor: Professor Jian Zhao
Wednesday, March 11, 2026
Master’s Thesis Presentation • Artificial Intelligence | Machine Learning
On the Effect of Hyperparameters in Language Modelling for Linguistics
Ruoxi Ning, Master’s candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
8:00 a.m. • Online master’s thesis presentation
Supervisor: Professor Freda Shi
PhD Seminar • Software Engineering
Discovering Missed Peephole Optimizations with Large Language
Hongxu Xu, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
10:30 a.m. • Hybrid: DC 2310 | Online PhD seminar
Supervisor: Professor Chengnian Sun
Seminar • Artificial Intelligence | Machine Learning
From Heuristics to Principles in Machine Learning Optimization
Frederik Kunstner, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow
National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (Inria)
10:30 a.m. • DC 1304
PhD Seminar • Natural Language Processing | Information Retrieval
Resources for Automated Evaluation of Assistive RAG Systems that Help Readers with News Trustworthiness Assessment
Dake Zhang, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
12:00 p.m. • DC 3301
Supervisor: Professor Mark D. Smucker
Seminar • Algorithms and Complexity
Hilbert’s Nullstellensatz is in the Counting Hierarchy
Abhibhav Garg, Postdoctoral Researcher
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
12:00 p.m. • Hybrid: DC 1304 | Online seminar
Seminar • Software Engineering
Why Large Language Models Appear to Be Intelligent and Creative: Because They Generate Bullshit!
Daniel M. Berry, Professor
Cheriton School of Computer Science
12:00 p.m. • DC 2564
Thursday, March 12, 2026
Seminar • Algorithms and Complexity
New Quantitative Frontiers in Structure vs. Randomness
Zander Kelley, Postdoctoral Member
School of Mathematics, Institute for Advanced Study
10:30 a.m. • DC 1304
PhD Seminar • Human–Computer Interaction
Exploring Above-neck Unimanual Swipe Gestures for Off-Device Earable Interaction
Shaikh Shawon Arefin Shimon, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
1:00 p.m. • Online PhD seminar
Supervisor: Professor Jian Zhao
Friday, March 13, 2026
Master’s Thesis Presentation • Cryptography, Security, and Privacy (CrySP)
Decentralized Traffic Correlation Using Programmable Switches
Gurjot Singh, Master’s candidate
David. R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
2:00 p.m. • Online master’s thesis presentation
Supervisor: Professor Diogo Barradas
PhD Seminar • Quantum Computing
A Curious Problem in Quantum Channel Capacity
Amolak Ratan Kalra, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
2:00 p.m. • QNC 3206
Supervisor: Professor Michele Mosca
Seminar • Human–Computer Interaction
Unlocking Novel Human Interfaces Through Emerging Technologies
Clifton Forlines, Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
2:00 p.m. • DC 1304
PhD Seminar • Machine Learning | Multi-armed Bandits
A Practical Algorithm for Feature-Rich, Non-Stationary Bandit Problems
William Loh, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
3:00 p.m. • Hybrid: DC 2584 | Online PhD seminar
Supervisor: Professor Pascal Poupart
Upcoming presentations
Monday, March 16, 2026
Data Systems Seminar Series
Eliminating Spurious Dependencies in Data: From Cleaning to Private Data Generation
Mostafa Milani, Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science, Western University
10:30 a.m. • DC 1302
Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Data Systems Seminar Series
Efficient Query Processing and Learning on Dirty Data
Boris Glavic, Associate Professor
Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago
10:15 a.m. • DC 3301 | DSG Lab
PhD Seminar • Data Systems | Graph Data Management
Empirical Analysis of Locality for Graph Ordering Techniques
Zeynep Korkmaz, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
12:00 p.m. • DC 3301
Supervisors: Professors M. Tamer Özsu, Khuzaima Daudjee
PhD Defence • Cryptography, Security, and Privacy (CrySP) | Threshold Cryptosystems
Practical Distributed Key Generation and Signatures
Chelsea Komlo, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
1:00 p.m. • Hybrid: DC 2310 | Online PhD defence
Supervisors: Professors Ian Goldberg, Douglas Stebila
Seminar
Presentation of the National Institute of Informatics, and Collaboration Opportunities
Dr. Emmanuel Planas
Deputy Director, Global Liaison Office
National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo
2:10 p.m. • Hybrid: DC 1304 | Online seminar
Thursday, March 19, 2026
Master’s Thesis Presentation • Human–Computer Interaction
DSCode Comparator: An Interactive Interface for Comparing Models and Evaluating Code for Data Science Tasks
Xinxin Yu, Master’s candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
1:00 p.m. • DC 3317
Supervisor: Professor Anamaria Crisan
Friday, March 20, 2026
Master’s Thesis Presentation • Programming Languages
Linear Scala is All You Need for Safe Static Memory and Alias Management
Amirhossein Pashaeehir, Master’s candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
3:00 p.m. • Hybrid: DC 2314 | Online master’s thesis presentation
Supervisor: Professor Ondřej Lhoták
Monday, March 23, 2026
PhD Defence • Information Retrieval | Natural Language Processing
Benchmarks, Data, and Evaluation for Robust Retrieval and Retrieval-Augmented Generation on Heterogeneous Domains and Languages
Nandan Thakur, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
11:00 a.m. • Hybrid: DC 2310 | Online PhD defence
Supervisor: Professor Jimmy Lin
Tuesday, March 24, 2026
CrySP Speakers Series on Privacy
For All Tomorrow’s Survivors: Computer Security in Interpersonal Threat Models
Thomas Ristenpart, Professor
Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
1:30 p.m. • Hybrid: DC 1304 | Online talk
Wednesday, March 25, 2026
Master’s Thesis Presentation • Artificial Intelligence | Machine Learning
Training and Evaluating Semantic Segmentation Models with Soft Labels
Nima Jamali, Master’s candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
11:00 a.m. • Hybrid: DC 2314 | Online master’s thesis presentation
Supervisors: Professors Olga Veksler, Yuri Boykov
Friday, March 27, 2026
PhD Defence • Data Systems | Graph Data Management
Locality Optimizations and Analysis for Storage Hierarchies of Graph Databases
Zeynep Korkmaz, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
10:00 a.m. • DC 2314
Supervisors: Professors M. Tamer Özsu, Khuzaima Daudjee
Tuesday, March 31, 2026
PhD Defence • Human–Computer Interaction | Artificial Intelligence
Leveraging Interactive Human–AI Collaboration Methods to Enhance Key Stages of Programming Workflows
Xuye Liu, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
10:00 a.m. • Online PhD defence
Supervisor: Professor Jian Zhao
Monday, April 6, 2026
PhD Seminar • Human–Computer Interaction
To Slide or Not to Slide: Exploring Techniques for Comparing Immersive Videos
Xizi (Lucy) Wang, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
10:00 a.m. • DC 2314
Supervisor: Professor Jian Zhao
PhD Defence • Artificial Intelligence | Machine Learning
Efficient Inference-time Control and Alignment
Ahmad Rashid, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
10:30 a.m. • Hybrid: DC 2310 | Online PhD defence
Supervisor: Professor Pascal Poupart
Thursday, April 9, 2026
PhD Defence • Algorithms and Complexity
How to Color Graphs, and How Not to Chase Pointers
Parth Mittal, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
10:00 a.m. • Hybrid: DC 2314 | Online PhD defence
Supervisor: Professor Sepehr Assadi
Friday, April 10, 2026
PhD Defence • Systems and Networking
Efficiently Training Deep Learning Models on Elastic and Heterogeneous Cloud Resources
Runsheng (Benson) Guo, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
2:00 p.m. • Online PhD defence
Supervisor: Professor Khuzaima Daudjee
Tuesday, April 14, 2026
PhD Defence • Systems and Networking
Mitigating Risks to Dependability from Vibe-Coding C for Embedded Systems
Murray Dunne, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
12:00 p.m. • Online PhD defence
Supervisor: Professor Sebastian Fischmeister
Wednesday, April 22, 2026
PhD Seminar • Data Systems
GPM: The Gaussian Pancake Mechanism for Planting Undetectable Backdoors in Differential Privacy
Haochen Sun, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
12:00 p.m. • DC 3301
Supervisor: Professor Xi He
Wednesday, May 13, 2026
PhD Defence • Systems and Networking
Redesigning Datacenter Systems to Leverage Hardware-Acceleration
Sreeharsha Udayashankar, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
12:00 p.m. • Hybrid: DC 3317 | Online PhD defence
Supervisor: Professor Samer Al-Kiswany