Distinguished Lecture Series: Michael Abrash - Reality Labs Research: A look back, a look forward
Abstract
11 years ago, as Michael started what was then called Oculus Research, at Facebook, he gave a talk at UW about the potential he saw in virtual reality. That talk turned out to be a pivotal moment on the path to where what is now called Reality Labs Research, at what is now called Meta. He’ll look at what his goals were back then and how that’s worked out in both expected and surprising ways, where things are today, and what might be coming over the upcoming years. BioMichael Abrash is the Chief Scientist of Facebook Reality Labs, a research laboratory that brings together a world-class R&D team of scientists, developers and engineers to build the future of connection via virtual reality, augmented reality, and wearables. He was graphics leads for the first two versions of Windows NT, teamed with John Carmack on Quake, worked on the first two versions of Microsoft’s Xbox, and helped develop virtual reality at Valve. He is also the author of several books, including Michael Abrash’s Programming Black…
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: dso@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Thursday, December 4, 2025, 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM.
Gates Center (CSE2), G20 | Amazon Auditorium.
For more info visit www.cs.washington.edu. Instruction Ends - Autumn 2025
Dates of Instruction
Instruction ends.
Event interval: Single day event. Year: 2025. Quarter: Autumn. Event Types: Academics.
Friday, December 5, 2025.
For more info visit www.washington.edu. Final Examinations - Autumn 2025
Dates of Instruction
Week of final examinations for autumn quarter.
Event interval: Ongoing event. Year: 2025. Quarter: Autumn. Event Types: Academics.
Saturday, December 6, 2025 – Friday, December 12, 2025.
For more info visit www.washington.edu. Ph.D. Dissertation Defense Talk: Grounded Multimodal Reasoning
Speaker: James Park, Advisors: Yejin Choi, Ali Farhadi, Ranjay Krishna, Supervisory Committee: Yejin Choi (Chair), Ali Farhadi (Chair), Aylin Caliskan (GSR, Information School), Ranjay Krishna, Abstract TBA.
Tuesday, December 9, 2025, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM.
Ph.D. Dissertation Defense Talk: Towards Interpretable and Robust ML Systems
Speaker: Sahil Verma, Advisors: Jeffrey Bilmes, Chirag Shah, Supervisory Committee: Jeffrey A Bilmes (Chair, Electrical and Computer Engineering), Chirag Shah (Chair, Information School), Tyler Harris McCormick (GSR, Statistics), Luke Zettlemoyer, Abstract: Recent advancements in ML have taken strides in enabling models to accomplish unprecedented tasks, starting from the bare minimum binary classification for loan applications to intrinsically complex self-driving. As the models have become better, faster, and much more powerful, so have they become much larger and more opaque. This has happened because of the widely prevalent use of neural networks which enable capturing and expressing incredibly complex representations, but however are uninterpretable to humans. This phenomenon raises the question of trust -- as humans who want to be able to control, how do we trust the model to make correct decisions? In this thesis I aim to answer this question by making models more interpretable, examining their…
Wednesday, December 10, 2025, 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM.
Ph.D. Dissertation Defense Talk: Steps Towards the Pluralistic Alignment of Language Models
Speaker: Taylor Sorensen, Advisor: Yejin Choi, Supervisory Committee: Yejin Choi (Chair), Aylin Caliskan (GSR, Information School), Yulia Tsvetkov, Amy Xian Zhang, Abstract: AI alignment is concerned with ensuring that AI systems understand and adhere to human values and preferences. However, most prior alignment work makes a simplifying assumption that preferences are monolithic. In reality, human values and preferences can vary between and within individuals, groups, and societies. In this dissertation, I formalize and advance the study of textit{pluralistic alignment}, or aligning AI systems with diverse human values, perspectives, and preferences. Specifically, I use large language models (LLMs) as a test-bed for pluralistic alignment. I first motivate the need for pluralism in alignment, outlining failure modes and risks of either assuming that value variation either doesn't exist or ignoring such variation. I propose a concrete framework for pluralistic alignment, including three definitions of how…
Friday, December 12, 2025, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM.
Quarter Break - Winter 2026
Dates of Instruction
Break between autumn and winter quarters.
Event interval: Ongoing event. Year: 2026. Quarter: Winter. Event Types: Academics.
Saturday, December 13, 2025 – Sunday, January 4, 2026.
For more info visit www.washington.edu. Improving Accessibility in Computing Courses: Open office hours
Drop-in (online via Zoom) office hours for computing instructors to talk through, co-design, or evaluate efforts to make computing course resources more accessible. Potential topics include broad overviews on digital accessibility, discuss auditing and remediation strategies for specific types of content (e.g. PDFs, websites, videos, math, diagrams), or co-develop a plan for implementing accessibility (for example, making a checklist, planning TA or staff trainings, or evaluating automated tools and their shortcomings).
Join the Zoom session during these times:
Thu, Sept 18 at 10 a.m. - Noon
Mon, Oct 6 at 9 - 11 a.m.
Thu, Oct 16 at 10 a.m. - Noon
Mon, Nov 3 at 9 - 11 a.m.
Thu, Nov 20 at 10 a.m. - Noon
Mon, Dec 1 at 9 - 11 a.m.
Thu, Dec 18 at 10 a.m. - Noon
Consultants: Kevin Lin and Matt Wang, Kevin Lin and Matt Wang are both teaching professors at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. They have prior experience in and are happy to consult about web…
Event interval: Single day event. Online Meeting Link: https://washington.zoom.us/j/98992837185. Accessibility Contact: doit@uw.edu. Event Types: Diversity Equity Inclusion. Information Sessions. Special Events. Academics. Target Audience: Computing instructors.
Thursday, December 18, 2025, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM.
For more info visit washington.zoom.us. Christmas Day
Holidays
No classes. Most University offices and buildings are closed. Check with specific offices to confirm.
Event interval: Single day event. Year: 2026. Quarter: Winter. Event Types: Academics.
Thursday, December 25, 2025.
For more info visit www.washington.edu. New Year's Day
Holidays
No classes. Most University offices and buildings are closed. Check with specific offices to confirm.
Event interval: Single day event. Year: 2026. Quarter: Winter. Event Types: Academics.
Thursday, January 1, 2026.
For more info visit www.washington.edu. Instruction Begins - Winter 2026
Dates of Instruction
Instruction begins.
Event interval: Single day event. Year: 2026. Quarter: Winter. Event Types: Academics.
Monday, January 5, 2026.
For more info visit www.washington.edu. Distinguished Lecture Series: Scott Aaronson - Forthcoming
Abstract
Abstract is forthcoming. BioI'm the Schlumberger Centennial Chair of Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin, and director of its Quantum Information Center. My research interests center around the capabilities and limits of quantum computers, and computational complexity theory more generally. For the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 academic years, I was on leave to work at OpenAI on the theoretical foundations of AI safety.
This lecture will be streamed live and recorded.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus room: Gates Center (CSE2), G20 | Amazon Auditorium. Accessibility Contact: dso@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Thursday, January 8, 2026, 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM.
Gates Center (CSE2), G20 | Amazon Auditorium.
For more info visit www.cs.washington.edu. Distinguished Lecture Series: David Baker - Forthcoming
Abstract is forthcoming.
Bio
David Baker is a Nobel laureate, professor of biochemistry, HHMI investigator, and director of the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington. His lab develops software for protein design and uses it to create molecules that address challenges in medicine, technology, and sustainability. Recent work includes the development of machine learning methods for generating functional proteins.
David is also an adjunct professor of genome sciences, bioengineering, chemical engineering, computer science, and physics at the University of Washington. He has published more than 650 scientific papers, been awarded over 100 patents, and co-founded 21 biotechnology companies. More than 100 of his trainees have gone on to independent faculty positions.
He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for computational protein design." He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and was included on TIME's list of…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus room: Gates Center (CSE2), G20 | Amazon Auditorium. Accessibility Contact: dso@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Thursday, January 15, 2026, 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM.
Gates Center (CSE2), G20 | Amazon Auditorium.
For more info visit www.cs.washington.edu. Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Holidays
No classes. Most University offices and buildings are closed. Check with specific offices to confirm.
Event interval: Single day event. Year: 2026. Quarter: Winter. Event Types: Academics.
Monday, January 19, 2026.
For more info visit www.washington.edu. Distinguished Lecture Series: Meredith Ringel Morris - HCI for AGI
The past few years have seen rapid advances in frontier AI models, demonstrating increasing performance and generality. As progress continues toward artificial general intelligence (AGI), Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) scholarship and practice has a critical role to play in ensuring that AI technology is useful to and usable by people to accomplish tasks they value. HCI insights can help us maximize the benefit of AI technologies to individuals, communities, and society while allowing us to understand how to mitigate harms. In this talk, I will describe a research vision for the field of HCI in the AGI era, examining how researchers can facilitate progress toward and adoption of advanced AI via interaction techniques, interface designs, physical form factors, design methods, evaluation methods, benchmarking approaches, and data collection techniques.
Bio
Meredith Ringel Morris is Director for Human-AI Interaction Research at Google DeepMind. Prior to joining DeepMind, she was Director of the People +…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus room: Gates Center (CSE2), G20 | Amazon Auditorium. Accessibility Contact: dso@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Thursday, January 29, 2026, 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM.
Gates Center (CSE2), G20 | Amazon Auditorium.
For more info visit www.cs.washington.edu. Presidents' Day
Holidays
No classes. Most University offices and buildings are closed. Check with specific offices to confirm.
Event interval: Single day event. Year: 2026. Quarter: Winter. Event Types: Academics.
Monday, February 16, 2026.
For more info visit www.washington.edu.