This course consists of seminar talks given by different faculty members of Columbia's Computer Science Department. Its goal is to give students an opportunity to hear about the breadth of research going on in our department, while satisfying their PhD elective requirements.
This course is led by Silvia Sellán and John Hewitt. Each session is given by a different faculty member of the Computer Science Department.
This course's teaching assistant is Xiana Carrera. Please contact her for any issues related to attendance.
If you have questions or suggestions about the course, please reach out to either instructor: silviasellan@cs.columbia.edu or jh5020@columbia.edu.
The seminar meets in Room 337, Mudd Building. Talk titles are tentative, and the remaining speakers will be announced as the schedule is confirmed.
| Week | Tuesday (2:40pm - 3:55pm) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | September 8th: Welcome — Silvia Sellán & John Hewitt | … |
| 2 | September 15th: Lydia Chilton | AI, HCI, The Universe and Everything |
| 3 | September 22nd: Aleksander Hołyński | … |
| 4 | September 29th: Itsik Pe'er | Beyond Flat Genomes: Mixed-Curvature Geometry for Single-Cell and Microbiome Inference |
| 5 | October 6th: Simha Sethumadhavan | … |
| 6 | October 13th: Kostis Kaffes | … |
| 7 | October 20th: David Blei | the magical mind-blowing world of empirical bayes |
| 8 | October 27th: Zhuo Zhang | … |
| 9 | November 3rd: No class: Election Day | … |
| 10 | November 10th: Speaker TBD | … |
| 11 | November 17th: Adam Block | … |
| 12 | November 24th: No class: Thanksgiving | … |
| 13 | December 1st: Speaker TBD | … |
| 14 | December 8th: Eugene Wu | … |
This course is graded based on attendance. Students who attend and are engaged in the lectures can expect to obtain an A grade.
Please review the Academic Honesty and Integrity policies from the Department of Computer Science and the School of Engineering. Students must abide by these policies, or suffer the penalties enumerated in them.
Knowledge flourishes when inquiry is free and respectful. The class syllabus may include controversial material relevant to topics being studied. While all participants and their views will be treated respectfully, no one should expect to be shielded from challenging or even upsetting ideas, as thoughtfully engaging such ideas is crucial to free inquiry and intellectual growth.
This language is adapted from the syllabus statement recommended by the Columbia University chapter of the AAUP in “Academic Freedom in the Classroom” (August 18, 2025).