Robert T. Chien Distinguished Lecturer Series

The Robert T. Chien Distinguished Lecturer Series has been bringing eminent researchers from all over the world to speak at CSL since 1979. It is just one of the lasting legacies of the former CSL director who started the lecture series.

Speaker Date Title

Dr. Steven Lavalle 

University of Oulu

Oct. 11, 2023 "Robot planning and the path to minimalism"

Dr. Kristin Pettersen

Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)

March 23, 2023 "Snake robotics research to a new class of marine robots"

Dr. Andrea Goldsmith

Princeton University

April 26, 2022 "Imagining the Next Generation of Wireless Networks"

Dr. Christos Papadimitriou

Columbia University

Feb. 9, 2022 "How does the brain beget the mind?"

Dr. Michael Levin

Tufts University

Nov. 17, 2021 "Basal Cognition Outside the Brain: the future of regenerative medicine, AI, and synthetic living machines"

Dr. Claire Tomlin

University of California, Berkeley

Feb. 10, 2021 "Safe Learning in Robotics"

Dr. Jon Kleinberg

Cornell University

May 8, 2019 "Inherent Trade-Offs in Algorithmic Fairness"

Dr. Maja Mataric

University of Southern California

February 27, 2019 "Automation vs. Augmentation – Assistive Robots and the Future of Work"

Dr. Dina Katabi

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

April 27, 2018 "Passive In-Home Health Monitoring: From Wearables to Invisibles"

Dr. Stephen Boyd

Stanford University

October 13, 2017 "Convex Optimization"

Dr. H. Vincent Poor

Princeton University

 April 26, 2017 "Smart Grid: Energy Meets Information"

Dr. Jean Walrand

University of California, Berkeley

March 7, 2017 "Scheduling Surgeries"

Dr. Andrew Chien  

University of Chicago         

Sept. 6, 2016  "Zero-Carbon Cloud: Can Dispatchable Computing Loads Shrink Computing’s Rapidly Growing Carbon"

Paola Pirjanian

iRobot

Sept. 9, 2015 “Robotics and Entrepreneurship”

Stéphane Mallat

CMAP, Ecole Polytechnique

October 17, 2014 "Learning Signals, Images and Physics with Deep Neural Networks"

John N. Tsitsiklis

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

April 29, 2014 "On the Power of (Even a Little) Resource Pooling and Flexibility"

A. Robert Calderbank

Duke University

October 1, 2013 "Big Data at Duke"

Maurice Herlihy

Brown University

April 9, 2013 "Type-Specific Synchronization for Software Transactional Memory"

Vijay Kumar

University of Pennsylvania

April 8, 2013 "Aerial Robot Swarms"

Gottfried Ungerboeck

University of Notre Dame

November 12, 2010 "PHY Layer Technologies: Evolutions in Transmission Rates, Transmission Efficiencies and Signal Processing"

Charlie Sodini

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

November 13, 2009 "Silicon mm-Wave Imaging Arrays"

Dr. Karl Aström

Lund University, Sweden

November 4, 2009 "The Future of Control"

K. Mani Chandy

California Institute of Technology

March 10, 2009 "An Attempt at Integrating Ideas from Distributed Control, Temporal Logic and Game Theory"

Dr. Yannis Tsividis

Columbia University

November 11, 2008

"Analog-Inspired DSP"

Dr. Martin Wikelski

Princeton University

October 22, 2008    

Dr. Shekhar Borkar

Intel Fellow                                              

April 11, 2006 "Extending and Expanding: Moor's Law Challenges and Opportunities"

Professor Nancy Lynch   

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

April 12, 2005 “Virtual Node Infrastructures For Mobile Wireless Networks”

Dr. Steven M. Bellovin

AT&T Labs-Research                       

December 1, 2004 “Nuclear Weapons, Permissive Action Links, and the History Of Public Key Cryptography”

Professor Chenming Hu

University of California, Berkeley

October 8, 2004 “How Much Longer CMOS?”

Professor Nancy Leveson

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

May 4, 2004 “A New Model of Accident Causation”

Professor Joachim Hagenauer

Institute of Communications Engineering

Munich University of Technology

February 25, 2003 “The Turbo Principle in Communications Systems"

Professor Yale N. Patt

University of Texas at Austin

December 5, 2002 “The High Performance Micro-processor”

Professor Ronald W. Schafer

Georgia Institute of Technology                 

November 9, 2000 “DSP Research and Education: Past, Present, and Future”

Professor Mischa Schwartz

Columbia University

April 12, 2000 “Multimedia Wireless Networks of the Future – Some Research Issues To Be Addressed"

Professor James L. Massey

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology

March 29, 2000    “Prognosis for 21st Century Cryptography”

Dr. James F. Kaiser

Duke University 

February 25, 1999 “Engineering vs. Science in Problem Solving—A Perspective”

Professor Alberto Isidori

University of Rome “La Sapienza,” Italy and Washington University, St. Louis, MO

September 15, 1997 “Nonlinear Feedback Design”

Dr. Tsuneo Nakahara

Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd.                                                

December 6, 1996 “Fiber Optic Industry in a Borderless Economy”

Dr. Samuel H. Fuller

Digital Equipment Corporation                    

October 29, 1996 “Future of Information Systems: Technology Drivers, Trends, and Possibilities"

Dr. Stephen W. Director

Carnegie Mellon University 

November 14, 1995 “A Formal Basis for Design Process Planning and Management"

Professor Brian Randell

University of Newcastle upon Tyne

February 21, 1995 "Fault Tolerance in Concurrent Object-Oriented Software through Coordinated Error Recovery"

Professor E. J. Davison

University of Toronto

May 2, 1994

“Intelligent Control of Complex Systems"

Dr. Hiroyuki Sakaki

University of Tokyo and Japan Research Development Corp.

April 8, 1994 “Quantum Structure Materials and Devices for Advanced Electronics - Current Status and Outlook"

Professor William A. Wulf

University of Virginia

December 9, 1993 “Processors are Getting Faster. Faster than Memories are Getting Faster"

Dr. Pallab Chatterjee

Texas Instruments

October 13, 1993 “Impact of Gigachip Technologies on Future Systems"

Professor Bede Liu

Princeton University

October 6, 1993

“Some Recent Work on Motion Compensated Video Coding"

Dr. William C. Holton

Semiconductor Research Corporation

September 17, 1993 “The Role of the University in Today's Economic Environment"

Dr. Kenneth L. Davis

Motorola Corporation

September 17, 1993

“University-Industry Research Relationships"

Dr. J. Iafrate

U.S. Army Research Office

September 17, 1993 “Managing Science and Technology"

Professor Dimitri P. Bertsekas

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

March 22, 1993 “Auction Algorithms: A New Generation of Linear Network Optimization Methods"

Professor Robert M. Gray

Stanford University

March 15, 1993 “Clustering and Classification Trees for Image and Compression Classification"

Professor Ernest S. Kuh

University of California, Berkeley

November 1, 1991 “Physical Design in Microelectronics: Past, Present and Future"

Professor C. V. Ramamoorthy

University of California, Berkeley

April 23, 1991 “Software Engineering: Status and Trends"

Professor J. K. Aggarwal

University of Texas at Austin

March 8, 1991 “Computer Vision: A Perspective"

Professor Donald L. Snyder

Washington University in St. Louis

October 26, 1990 “Stargazing with Estimation Theory (Application of Medical Imaging Techniques)"

Dr. Jerry M. Woodall

IBM Research Division

T. J. Watson Research Center

April 10, 1990 “The Rise and Fall of GaAs. What's Next?"

Professor Yakov Tsypkin 

Institute of Control Problems

Moscow, USSR

December 5, 1989 “When is it Optimal to Mix Online and Batch Data Processing?"

Professor Thomas M. Cover

Stanford University

November 10, 1989 “Information Theory and the Stock Market"

Professor Algirdas Avizienis

University of California, Los Angeles

March 14, 1989 “Can We Write Software that We Can Trust"

Professor Michael Brady

University of Oxford

April 21, 1988 “The Problems of Robotics"

Professor Robert G. Gallager

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

October 13, 1987 “Energy Limited Communication Channels: Coding, Multiaccess and Spread Spectrum"

Professor John Bardeen

University of Illinois

Nobel Prize winner

May 12, 1987 “Recent Developments in Superconductivity"

Dr. Klaus von Klitzing

Max Planck Institute

October 13, 1986 “Physics and Applications of the Quantum Hall Effect"

Dr. John Hopfield

California Institute of Technology

April 9, 1986 “Collective Computation by 'Neutral' Networks"

Dr. Robert E. Brayton

University of California

December 6, 1985 “Algorithms for Optimizing Silicon Compilers"

Dr. Horst L. Stormer

AT&T Bell Laboratories

September 23, 1985

“Two-Dimensional Physics in High Magnetic Fields"

Dr. Edward J. McCluskey

Stanford University

September 4, 1985 “VLSI-Oriented Built-In Self Test”

Prof. Mark A. Aizerman

Institute of Control Sciences

Moscow, USSR

March 6, 1985 “Search for the Better: A Broader View on Optimization"

Dr. W. Fichtner

AT&T Bell Laboratories

March 5, 1985 “Supercomputers in VLSI Technology Development and Device Design"

Professor James L. Merz

University of California, Santa Barbara

February 18, 1985 “The Visible and the Invisible of Semiconductors: Defects and Other Effects"

Professor Stewart D. Personick

Bell Communications Research, Inc.

September 12, 1984 “Optical Fiber Communications Technology and Applications - Present and Future"

Professor T. C. McGill

California Institute of Technology

April 25, 1984 “Superlattices and Small Structures for Electronic Devices for the 1990s"

Professor Azriel Rosenfeld

University of Maryland at College Park

April 10, 1984 “Human and Machine Vision”

Professor Karl Astrom

Lund Institute of Technology

December 5, 1983 “Theory and Applications of Adaptive Control"

Dr. J. L. Lions

Institut National de la Recherche en Informatique et an Automatic

March 10, 1982

“Trends in Homogenization Theory"

Dr. Andrew J. Viterbi

LINKABIT Corporation

November 3, 1980 “Some Theoretical Foundations for New Communication Network Services"

Professor Hans Bethe

Cornell University

Nobel Prize

May 6, 1980 “Nuclear Energy”

Professor D.O. Pederson

University of California, Berkeley

April 9, 1980

“The Status of Computer Aided Design for Integrated Circuits in the U.S., Europe and Japan"

Professor Herbert Simon

Carnegie-Mellon University

Nobel Prize

November 14, 1979 "Artificial Intelligence and Decision Making"

Dr. Robert W. Lucky

Bell Telephone Laboratories

October 25, 1979 “Telecommunication in the Future”