Talks

Date	Speaker/Event	Location	Description
May 08, 2019	Chi Jin UC Berkeley	Cory Hall Berkeley, CA	A dissertation talk by Chi Jin on "Why Do Simple Algorithms Work So Well?" in machine learning, in particular perturbed gradient descent, Q-learning with UCB, and escaping saddle points in general
May 07, 2019	Pasin Manurangsi UC Berkeley	Soda Hall Berkeley, CA	A dissertation talk by Pasin Manurangsi on "Approximation and Hardness: Beyond P and NP" about problems between P and NP, parametrized problems, and problems in P
May 07, 2019	Robert Nishihara UC Berkeley	Cory Hall Berkeley, CA	A dissertation talk by Robert Nishihara on "Systems and Algorithms for Distributed Machine Learning" and Ray, a a flexible, high-performance distributed execution framework for machine learning
May 02, 2019	David Reich Harvard Medical School	Valley Life Sciences Building Berkeley, CA	A talk by David Reich on "Insights into language expansions from ancient DNA" with examples from Indo-European, Austronesian, Austroasiatic, Afroasiatic, and Na-Dene languages
April 19, 2019	Katie Bouman Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics	Sutardja Dai Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Katie Bouman, postdoc with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, on the methods and procedures used to produce the black hole image from the Event Horizon Telescope
April 18, 2019	Hélène Barcelo Deputy Director of MSRI	Evans Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Hélène Barcelo, deputy director of MSRI, on distinguishing shapes via topology and the history of invariants such as homotopy and homology
April 17, 2019	Antonio Montalbán UC Berkeley	Evans Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Antonio Montalbán, professor of mathematics, on infinite games, finite determinacy, and their interesting connection to the axiom of choice
April 17, 2019	Marc Raibert Founder and CEO of Boston Dynamics	Sutardja Dai Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Marc Raibert, founder and CEO of Boston Dynamics, on efforts to develop robots of the future, starting with building dynamic robots today such as BigDog, Atlas, Spot, and Handle
April 02, 2019	Janet Napolitano UC President	Goldman School of Public Policy Berkeley, CA	A talk by Janet Napolitano, UC President, former US Secretary of Homeland Security, and former Governor of Arizona on homeland security
March 27, 2019	Helen Nissenbaum Cornell Tech	David Brower Center Berkeley, CA	A talk by Helen Nissenbaum, entitled "What We Can Learn from AdNauseam about the Threat and Power of Data Obfuscation" as part of the Simons Institute's Theoretically Speaking Series
March 4, 2019	Angjoo Kanazawa UC Berkeley	Sutardja Dai Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Angjoo Kanazawa on her work in reconstructing 3D non-rigid, deformable objects, such as humans and animals, from everyday photographs and video
February 27, 2019	Michael Seibel CEO of Y Combinator	Evans Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Michael Seibel, CEO of Y Combinator and co-founder of Justin.tv, on product-market fit through the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology
February 26, 2019	Juan Garrahan University of Nottingham	Latimer Hall Berkeley, CA	The 2019 David Chandler Lecture in Physical Chemistry by Juan Garrahan entitled "Bubbles in space-time, or how to think about supercooled liquids, glasses and slow dynamics"
February 21, 2019	Jennifer Doudna UC Berkeley	International House Berkeley, CA	A talk by Jennifer Doudna entitled "Editing The Code Of Life: The Future Of Genome Editing" on the discovery of CRISPR-Cas9 and its applications
November 28, 2018	Jeff Dean Google	Soda Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Jeff Dean, Senior Fellow at Google, on how he and his research collaborators use deep learning to solve challenging problems
November 14, 2018	Andrew Chi-Chih Yao Tsinghua University	Sutardja Dai Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Andrew Chi-Chih Yao on "Game Theory in Auction and Blockchain" as part of the ACM A.M. Turing Laureate Colloquium
November 07, 2018	William Kahan UC Berkeley	Soda Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by William Kahan, Professor Emeritus of Math and EECS, entitled "A Numerical Analyst Thinks about Deep Learning" as part of the ACM A.M. Turing Laureate Colloquium
November 05, 2018	Jelani Nelson UC Berkeley	Simons Institute Berkeley, CA	A talk by Jelani Nelson, Associate Professor of Computer Science at Harvard University, on "Sketching Big Data", given through the Simons Institute public lecture series
October 31, 2018	Michael Stonebraker MIT	Sutardja Dai Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Michael Stonebraker intermixing a bicycle ride across America and the design, construction, and commercialization of Postgres as part of the Berkeley ACM A.M. Turing Laureate Colloquium
October 24, 2018	Richard Karp UC Berkeley	Soda Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Richard Karp, Professor Emeritus, on "Computational Complexity in Theory and in Practice" as part of the Berkeley ACM A.M. Turing Laureate Colloquium
October 24, 2018	Dawn Song UC Berkeley	Sutardja Dai Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Dawn Song, professor of Computer Science, on "Oasis Privacy-preserving Smart Contracts at Scale" as part of the CITRIS Research Exchange Seminar Series
October 10, 2018	David Patterson UC Berkeley	Sutardja Dai Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by David Patterson, Pardee Professor of Computer Science, Emeritus on "A New Golden Age for Computer Architecture" as part of the Berkeley ACM A.M. Turing Laureate Colloquium
October 03, 2018	Silvio Micali MIT	Sutardja Dai Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Silivio Micali, Ford Professor of Engineering at MIT, on "Proofs, Knowledge, and Computation" as part of the Berkeley ACM A.M. Turing Laureate Colloquium
September 25, 2018	Elisabeth Huber LMU Munich	Dwinelle Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Elisabeth Huber of LMU Munich on tripartite noun compounds in the English language, such as "football game" and "cancer research center"
September 21, 2018	Brian Nigito Jane Street	Soda Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Brian Nigito on the technical challenges involved in building electronic exchanges, which play an important role in the global financial system
April 20, 2018	Nicholas Weaver UC Berkeley	South Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Nicholas Weaver on why the ideas of cryptocurrency and blockchain need to die, presented at the UC Berkeley School of Information
April 12, 2018	Patrick Collison Co-founder and CEO of Stripe	North Gate Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Patrick Collison, co-founder and CEO of Stripe, on dropping out of MIT, his startup experience, visions for the future, and other general life advice
April 06, 2018	Alan Eustace Google	Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation Berkeley, CA	A talk by Alan Eustace, former SVP at Google, on StratEx and his experience setting the world record for highest-altitude free-fall jump (135,908 ft) as part of the Jacobs Design Conversations series
April 04, 2018	Jonathan Haidt New York University	Haas School of Business Berkeley, CA	A talk by social psychologist and NYU Stern Professor Jonathan Haidt on capitalism and morality, and a subsequent panel discussion with Laura Tyson and Robert Strand of the Haas School of Business
April 02, 2018	Christos Papadimitriou Columbia University	Soda Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Christos Papadimitriou, professor of Computer Science at Columbia University, entitled "A computer scientist thinks about the brain" as part of the Theory Seminar
March 20, 2018	Jason Wang Co-founder and CEO of Caviar	The House Berkeley, CA	A fireside chat with UC Berkeley alumnus Jason Wang, co-founder and CEO of Caviar (acquired by Square), at The House on his startup experience
March 19, 2018	Marion Nestle New York University Alice Waters Owner of Chez Panisse	International House Berkeley, CA	A panel discussion hosted by the UC Berkeley School of Public Health with Marion Nestle and Alice Waters on the current state of the U.S. food system
March 12, 2018	Rob Voigt Stanford University	South Hall Berkeley, CA	A seminar by Rob Voigt of the Stanford NLP Group on "Implicit Attitudes, NLP, and the ‘Real World'" as part of the Berkeley NLP Seminar series
February 27, 2018	Craig Newmark Founder of Craigslist	Morrison Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Craig Newmark on how he started Craigslist and the strong interplay between entrepreneurship and philanthropy
February 26, 2018	Jonathan Kummerfeld University of Michigan	South Hall Berkeley, CA	A seminar by Jonathan Kummerfeld on "Representing Online Conversation Structure with Graphs: A New Corpus and Model"
February 13, 2018	David Aaker UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus	Haas School of Business Berkeley, CA	A talk by David Aaker, Professor Emeritus at the Haas School of Business, on the power of signature stories in marketing and how they change perceptions
February 08, 2018	Krste Asanović UC Berkeley	Bechtel Engineering Center Berkeley, CA	A talk by Krste Asanović, UC Berkeley Professor of EECS, on the changing nature of the semiconductor industry and work being done at the ADEPT lab to advance the field
February 08, 2018	Sayeef Salahuddin UC Berkeley	Bechtel Engineering Center Berkeley, CA	A talk by Sayeef Salahuddin, UC Berkeley Professor of EECS, on "The Third Era of Scaling of Computing Technologies" and the technological advances making it all possible
February 07, 2018	Ash Bhat Co-founder of RoBhat Labs Rohan Pandte Co-founder of RoBhat Labs	Sutardja Dai Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by UC Berkeley students and RoBhat Labs founders Ash Bhat and Rohan Phadte on “The Horrors of Fake News Today” as part of the CITRIS Research Exchange Seminar Series
February 01, 2018	John Riccitiello Chairman and CEO of Unity Technologies	Haas School of Business Berkeley, CA	A discussion with John Riccitiello on the state of the AR/VR and gaming industries as part of the Dean's Speaker Series at the Haas School of Business
January 31, 2018	Stephen Wolfram Founder and CEO of Wolfram Research	Regency Ballroom San Francisco, CA	A talk by Stephen Wolfram on his work on the Wolfram Language and the interplay between how humans think and what is computationally possible
January 31, 2018	Lisha Li Investor at Amplify Partners	Regency Ballroom San Francisco, CA	A talk by Lisha Li on the differential learning paradigm and how to get the most out of deep learning as founders and enterprises
January 31, 2018	Christian Szegedy Google	Regency Ballroom San Francisco, CA	A talk by Christian Szegedy on the potential for auto-formalization of mathematics and the implications it might have if successful
January 24, 2018	Ilya Sutskever Co-founder and Research Director of OpenAI	Soda Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk entitled "Meta Learning and Self Play" as part of the UC Berkeley EECS Department Colloquium Series
January 22, 2018	Jacob Andreas UC Berkeley	South Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Jacob Andreas of the Berkeley NLP Group on "Learning from Language" and ways of using language to build better machine learning models
November 14, 2017	Gerald Abila Founder and Executive Director, BarefootLaw Alloysius Attah Co-founder and CEO, Farmerline Tonee Ndungu Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Kytabu	Haas School of Business Berkeley, CA	A panel discussion entitled "Creative Solutions for Social Innovation: A View from Africa" with recipients of the King Baudouin African Development Prize
November 08, 2017	Alfred Spector CTO and Head of Engineering at Two Sigma	Soda Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk entitled "Opportunities and Perils in Data Science" as part of the UC Berkeley EECS Department Colloquium Series
November 06, 2017	David Aldous UC Berkeley	Evans Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by David Aldous, UC Berkeley Professor of Statistics, entitled "Elo Ratings and the Sports Model: a Neglected Topic in Applied Probability"
November 02, 2017	Keith Devlin Founder of Stanford H-STAR Institute	Evans Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Keith Devlin entitled "When the precision of mathematics meets the messiness of the world of people"
October 30, 2017	Takaaki Kajita Physics Nobel Prize Winner	International House Berkeley, CA	The 2017 Emilio Segrè Lecture by Takaaki Kajita on his discovery of neutrino oscillations and work at the Super-Kamiokande Detector
October 30, 2017	Christopher Potts Stanford University	South Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Christopher Potts, Professor of Linguistics at Stanford University, on "Enriching distributional linguistic representations with structured resources"
October 24, 2017	Deborah Tannen Georgetown University	International House Berkeley, CA	A talk by Georgetown University professor Deborah Tannen, entitled "The Language of Friendship: The Role of Talk in an Understudied Relationship"
October 12, 2017	Josh Earnest Former White House Press Secretary	International House Berkeley, CA	A talk by Josh Earnest on his role and communications strategy as White House Press Secretary for President Barack Obama
October 10, 2017	Hartmut Neven Google	Sutardja Dai Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Dr. Hartmut Neven, founder and head of the Quantum Artificial Intelligence lab at Google, on the current state of quantum processing
October 09, 2017	Siva Reddy Stanford University	South Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Siva Reddy of the Stanford NLP Group on "Linguists-defined vs. Machine-induced Natural Language Structures for Executable Semantic Parsing"
September 28, 2017	Ellen Pao Former Reddit CEO	Haas School of Business Berkeley, CA	A talk on diversity and inclusion in tech and beyond, including discussion of her experiences at Kleiner Perkins, Reddit, and the Kapor Center for Social Impact
September 28, 2017	Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Brad Smith President & Chief Legal Officer at Microsoft	International House Berkeley, CA	A moderated discussion hosted by the Haas School of Business on the utilization of technology to protect freedom of expression
September 20, 2017	John Chambers Former Cisco CEO	Chou Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by John Chambers on the digital world and the current global technology transition as part of the Dean's Speaker Series at the Haas School of Business
September 11, 2017	Richard Borcherds UC Berkeley	Evans Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Fields Medal recipient and UC Berkeley Professor of Mathematics Richard Borcherds, entitled "To infinity and beyond: the strange world of ordinal arithmetic"
May 23, 2017	IBM thinkLeaders: Digital Founders Panel (May Edition)	Spark Labs Bryant Park New York, NY	A panel discussion with NYC startup founders Jessie Gould, Luis Navia, and Matt Curtis, moderated by Robert Schwartz
April 22, 2017	Mairi McLaughlin UC Berkeley	Dwinelle Hall Berkeley, CA	A Cal Day talk by Mairi McLaughlin, Professor of French at UC Berkeley, entitled "Language and the Media" on the evolution of the French language and its use by journalists
April 15, 2017	TEDxBerkeley 2017: Constellate [show/hide] TEDxBerkeley Orchestra Anna Lappé Esther Wojcicki Mike Roberts Fuji Lai Andres Roemer Minh Dang Damien Horne Vivienne Ming Tai Tran Brain Malow Jessica Hansen Lynne Twist Cal Wushu Francois Reyes Mayra Lozano Loretta Falcone Mike Duffy	Zellerbach Hall Berkeley, CA	A one-day "gathering of world-leading thinkers, makers, and doers at UC Berkeley to discuss 'Constellate'"
April 14, 2017	Berkeley Law Sports & Society Conference [show/hide] David Falk Woodie Dixon Brett Hirsch Carlos Kuri Brian Nelson Richard Brand Melissa Murray Andre Iguodala Rudy Cline-Thomas Christine Tsai	California Memorial Stadium Berkeley, CA	A premier gathering of industry professionals to discuss cutting-edge issues in sports at the University of California, Berkeley
April 13, 2017	Berkeley Law Sports & Society Conference [show/hide] Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf Layshia Clarendon Albert Bimper Na'ilah Nasir	Boalt Hall Berkeley, CA	A panel discussion entitled "Voice of the People: Athletes, Race, and Activism in Our Changing Times"
March 01, 2017	Marlon James Author	Zellerbach Hall Berkeley, CA	A conversation between Chancellor Nicholas B. Dirks and Jamaican author Marlon James, winner of the prestigious Man Booker Prize
November 15, 2016	Ann Swidler UC Berkeley	Alumni House Berkeley, CA	The 2016 Bernard Moses Memorial Lecture by Ann Swidler, Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley, on what makes "good" institutions
October 01, 2016	Ron Rivest MIT	Valley Life Sciences Building Berkeley, CA	A talk by Ron Rivest, an Institute Professor at MIT and co-inventor of the RSA cryptosystem, on the growth of cryptography
September 22, 2016	Ravi Vakil Stanford University	Evans Hall Berkeley, CA	The 2016 Serge Lang Undergraduate Lecture by Stanford University Professor of Mathematics Ravi Vakil, entitled "The Mathematics of Doodling"
September 21, 2016	Steve Kerr Golden State Warriors Head Coach	Zellerbach Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Steve Kerr, head coach of the Golden State Warriors, as part of the Berkeley Talks speaker series
September 12, 2016	Deepak Ahuja Former Tesla CFO	Wurster Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk about developments in electric vehicles, automated driving, and their broader implications, entitled "Innovations in the Automative Industry"
July 28, 2016	Liba Taub Curator of the Whipple Museum	Engineering Department Cambridge, England	A plenary lecture, entitled "Scientific heritage and collecting challenges for the future," discussing what scientific artifacts ought to be saved for posterity
July 13, 2016	Lord Chris Smith Baron Smith of Finsbury	Engineering Department Cambridge, England	A plenary lecture, entitled "Brexit and its Consequences", addressing the calling of the referendum, the nature and failures of the campaign, and what comes next
July 12, 2016	Sir Martin Rees Former President of the Royal Society	Mill Lane Lecture Rooms Cambridge, England	The Inaugural BlueSci Annual Public Lecture, entitled "The World in 2050", on technological and environmental existential risks to the human race
July 11, 2016	Stefan Halper University of Cambridge	Pembroke Old Library Cambridge, England	A talk entitled “China in the Year 2030” as part of a seminar series on United States foreign policy in East Asia
July 11, 2016	Madeleine Albright Former Secretary of State Vin Weber Republican Party Strategist	David Attenborough Building Cambridge, England	The keynote address of the 2016's Race to Change the World conference on the 2016 US presidential election and its implications for future US foreign policy
July 07, 2016	Stefan Halper University of Cambridge	Engineering Department Cambridge, England	A plenary lecture by Stefan Halper on the 2016 US presidential election, entitled "The US Election: Clash of Two Americas"
July 05, 2016	Stefan Halper University of Cambridge	Pembroke Old Library Cambridge, England	A talk on the current state of China, as part of a seminar series on United States foreign policy in East Asia
April 07, 2016	Julián Castro Secretary of Housing and Urban Development	International House Berkeley, CA	An address by Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro on gentrification and affordable housing
April 01, 2016	Clinton Global Initiative University [show/hide] Chelsea Clinton Richard Blum Nicholas Dirks President Bill Clinton Amani Al-Khatahtbeh Cady Coleman Wael Ghonim Salman Khan Ben Silbermann	Haas Pavilion Berkeley, CA	The opening plenary session to CGIU 2016, entitled "Fast Forward: Accelerating Opportunity for All"
February 23, 2016	Ralph Cicerone President of the National Academy of Sciences	Pauley Ballroom Berkeley, CA	A talk entitled "Contemporary Climate Change as Seen Through Measurements" as part of the Berkeley Graduate Lectures
February 10, 2016	Eric Schmidt Former Google CEO	Zellerbach Hall Berkeley, CA	A talk by Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Alphabet Inc., as part of the Berkeley Talks speaker series
February 06, 2016	TEDxBerkeley 2016 - Finding x. [show/hide] Celli@Berkeley Naveen Jain Jeromy Johnson Dr. Susan Lim Dr. Andrew Siemion Jacob Corn Kathy Calvin Sonia Rao UC Berkeley Azaad Christopher Ategeka Isha Ray Ellen Petry Leanse Amandine Roche Joshua Toch Rev. Deborah Johnson OSA Chamber Choir Rose Gelfand, Molly Gardner, Isabella Ansari Dr. Sriram Shamasundar Aran Khanna Stephanie Freid John Koenig Rob Hotchkiss	Zellerbach Hall Berkeley, CA	A one-day "gathering of world-leading thinkers, makers, and doers at UC Berkeley to discuss 'Finding x.'"
January 26, 2016	John Deutch Former CIA Director	Sutardja Dai Hall Berkeley, CA	An address by former CIA director John Deutch, discussing the challenges facing the US security apparatus
October 15, 2015	Steven Chu Physics Nobel Prize Winner	Wheeler Auditorium Berkeley, CA	The 2015 Emilio Segrè Lecture by Berkeley Physics alum Steven Chu, entitled "A Random Walk In Science"
September 15, 2015	Jeh Johnson Secretary of Homeland Security	International House Berkeley, CA	An address by Jeh Johnson on issues associated with domestic terrorism, entitled "Threats to the Homeland"