"Toward a more mechanistic evolutionary perspective on the evolution of avian cognition"

 
I will briefly discuss my work on the ecology and evolution of avian cognition and will discuss opportunities and challenges from a new collaborative initiative that I am leading, which aims to characterize (non-invasively) resting state functional connectivity patterns in hundreds of bird species over a time span of five years.

"From Settler Colonies to Black Utopias: The Dialectics of American Architecture in Black and White"

My academic research is propelled by a dialectic between a disciplinary critique of the racial biases of Euroamerican architecture theory and a recovery of the historical contributions of people of color to modern architecture culture. In a general sense, I explore the former theme in peer-reviewed studies and the latter in experimental design courses and architectural criticism. This talk will summarize the major themes of two of my previous book projects, a podcast, and a few design studios.

"Probing the beginning of the Universe with Precision Experiments"

 
I will discuss my work with the Simons Observatory, soon to be the most sensitive instrument in the world to a crucial signal from the early Universe.

 "Programming Biomaterial Self-assembly to Advance Molecular Robotics and Gene Delivery"

 
 Assembling biomaterials to build controllable nanoscale mechanical mechanisms and polymeric nanoparticles for nucleic acid delivery.

 "What do we want robots do for us and how do we get there?"

 
With the great advances in robotics from the last years, we are at the point to ask ourselves “what do we want robots for”? Answering this question could bring early on a human component into robotics and AI research. In this talk, I will tell us about our efforts to find out what people want robots to do for them. I will then present some of my lab’s directions to bring us closer to that goal, through novel perception, learning and control for mobile manipulating robots in human populated environment.