Computing Colloquium

Can AI be creative? To know requires brushing aside a cloud of rhetoric from tech companies that obscures its true power and perils. In this workshop, participants will expand their practice with generative AI beyond monolithic oracles like ChatGPT to understand better how large language models produce ideas and images that have never existed before — and what limits we should place on its use accordingly. Participants are encouraged to bring a laptop and an open mind to the presentation.

Jon Ippolito is an artist, writer and curator who teaches New Media and Digital Curation at the University of Maine. Winner of Tiffany, Lannan, American Foundation and Thoma awards, Ippolito is co-founder of the Variable Media Network for preserving new media art, UMaine's Digital Curation and Just-in-Time Learning programs, and Learning With AI, a toolkit for educators and students that makes it easy to filter for AI assignments and resources by discipline or purpose. Ippolito has given over 200 presentations, co-authored the books "At the Edge of Art" and "Re-collection: Art, New Media, and Social Memory" and published 80 chapters and articles in periodicals from Artforum to the Washington Post. His AI focus is creators — writers, programmers and media makers — and how the technical, aesthetic, and legal ramifications of generative AI empower and frustrate them. 

Join us on Tuesday, Feb. 20, for this exciting presentation from Ippolito. The presentation will begin in Oden 120 at 11:10 a.m. We hope to see you there!

The direct detection of gravitational waves in 2015 opened up a new window in astronomy and astrophysics and provided new opportunities to study fundamental physics that is not accessible in the lab. Chad Hanna, professor of physics, astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State University, will describe what we have learned about our universe through observing merging black holes and neutron stars with LIGO and Virgo.  He will also discuss ongoing observations and the prospects for new discoveries going forward.

Join us on Friday, Mar. 22, for this exciting presentation from Hanna. Lunch will be available in Hayes 216 from 11:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. and the presentation will begin in Hayes 211/213 at 12:10 p.m. We hope to see you there!

Kenyon alumni are engaging in exciting and various careers in computing. This panel will feature four alumni currently working in computing-related careers. Come learn about opportunities in tech, education, and data science!

Eva Nesbit ('16) is a data scientist at CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society. As a data scientist with CAS, Eva works with CAS data on a daily basis to train machine learning codes, develop algorithms to better improve products and search engines, and provide datasets to all areas of the company.   Sejin Kim ('22) is a Systems Analyst in Library and Information Services, Information Technology at Kenyon College. He specializes in enterprise systems support, including student information systems, accounting and financial systems, and integrations between different data systems. He is a member of EDUCAUSE and the Association for Computing Machinery.   Savannah Overly ('21) is currently working as a Lead Analyst in the Cybersecurity field. Savannah leads a dynamic team of five analysts at a Managed Detection and Response company. Tasked with the critical mission of 24/7 monitoring for organizations worldwide, Savannah's team operates at the forefront of defending against cyber threats in various sectors including health, education, government, energy, and manufacturing.    Leah Finn ('09) currently works as a Principal Product Manager at Workday, an enterprise software company that provides human resources and financial management applications to >10K businesses. As a Product Manager, Leah works closely with software engineers to design, build, and bring to market new products and features that solve customer problems while being performant, globally compliant, and user-friendly.

Join us on Thursday, April 25 for this exciting presentation from our panel. The presentation will begin in Hayes 109 at 4:00 p.m. We hope to see you there!

Associate professor of computer science at Denison University, Matt Kretchmar joins us on campus to discuss language models in AI, such as ChatGPT, and how to expand the capabilities of these models.

The proper care and feeding of large language models in AI is important for their viability and fidelity. In this talk we explore how unanswerable questions can be used to expand the capabilities of these AI models. We also introduce techniques to mitigate the costs of constructing datasets with unanswerable questions. The talk is suitable for a general audience with a curiosity of how language models (like chatGPT) work and are built.

Join us on Tuesday, Oct. 10, for this exciting presentation from Kretchmar. The presentation will begin in the Higley Auditorium at 11:10 a.m. We hope to see you there!

The Department of Art History welcomes Anthony Masinton, digital archaeologist and the director of MatchstickCathedral.

Join Masinton for a hands-on workshop on Tuesday, Oct. 17, from 11:10 a.m. to noon in HSA Horvitz Hall 206 Digital Studio 2.

Masinton will also give a lecture at 4:10 p.m. in the Community Foundation Theater.

This workshop and lecture is sponsored by the Mesaros Fund and the Department of Art History.

The Walter Kemp Professor in the Natural Sciences and Professor of Physics Amy Graves will be visiting campus from Swarthmore College to discuss gender in physics and where that conversation is heading today.

Physics, in the form that we do it today, has long been the domain of cis males (and in western countries, cis white males). Happily, this is changing. But the past casts a long shadow, and we live in a real world where race and gender identity strongly define us. This makes change slow and circuitous.   

Questions and comments are welcome during this talk. You are warmly encouraged to draw on your own lived experiences in school and college and/or hope for a STEM career.  The talk which will be structured around some useful themes:

Myths – Commonly held beliefs about what it means to be a successful physics student or professional … not always grounded in the truth.

Memes – The words and images in popular culture that spread themselves around the world …  signifying what physics is and what we should be.

Marginality – The exciting (lol) situation of existing on the margins of academic or workplace culture …  What are some of the coping strategies we can adopt, and resources that we can access to be resilient ourselves, and a good advocate for others?

This week's colloquium is co-sponsored with the Physics Department. Join us on Friday, Oct. 20, for this exciting presentation from Graves. Lunch will be available in Hayes 216 from 11:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. and the presentation will begin in Hayes 211/213 at 12:10 p.m. We hope to see you there!