As part of the Department of Chemical Engineering Colloquium Series, Abraham Joy, Professor and Chair of the Department of Bioengineering at Northeastern University, will be presenting "Antibiofilm Polymers and Biomaterial Scaffolds to Address Biofilms and Wound Healing"

Title:A Journey from Academia to Industry Abstract:How I ended up working on the Department of Defense projects. Sharing my past research experiences from academia to industry to DOD projects. I started my journey as a physicist set for academia but discovered other possibilities that changed my way of thinking. During the seminar I will share my decade and a half of research experiences and discuss not so conventional paths to research. I will discuss my work as a Materials Scientist for optics and photonics applications. Speaker:Alket MertiriPrinciple Member, Technical Staff, Draper Bio:Alket Mertiri is a Principal Member of the Technical Staff at Draper. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Physics and Mathematics from Boston University concentrating on condensed‐matter physics and applied mathematics. He then pursued graduate studies in Materials Science and Engineering at Boston University. His research focused on ultrafast infrared spectroscopy and photothermal microscopy, leveraging quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) and infrared detection to enable label‐free biochemical sensing and imaging. Beyond his research, Mertiri took an active role in science advocacy. While serving as President of the Boston University chapter of the Optical Society of America (OSA), he participated in a visit to Washington D.C. to meet members of Congress and advocate for sustained funding in science and engineering. Host: Professor Ulkuhan Guler

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Employee Drop In: Benefit Enrollment Help Session: Do you need assistance entering your Open Enrollment benefit elections into Workday? Do you have a question about one of the benefit plans offered in 2026? Drop in to see a member of the Benefits Team during this session to get the support and help you need to make your benefit choices before November 5th. Please note: this is an informal drop-in session and not a formal presentation.

REGISTER WHO'S COMING?Join your host Arly Dungca '08, president of the WPI Alumni Association, for an alumni gathering in Cambridge, MA! Get together with old and new friends for snacks, drinks, and WPI memories.Wednesday, October 29, 20256:00 to 8:00 PMGeppetto100 N. First StreetCambridge, MA 02141This event is sponsored by the WPI Alumni Association. Appetizers and bar service will be available. Two-hour parking is available in front of 222 Jacobs Street every day. A self-park garage located 100 yards north of Geppetto at 211 Water Street is available after 4:00 PM. ($10 with validation from the restaurant host stand; please note there is a four-hour max.)The use of public transportation is encouraged. The nearest MBTA station is Lechmere Station on the MBTA's Green Line.Space is limited - advanced registration is strongly encouraged

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Employee Drop In: Benefit Enrollment Help Session: Do you need assistance entering your Open Enrollment benefit elections into Workday? Do you have a question about one of the benefit plans offered in 2026? Drop in to see a member of the Benefits Team during this session to get the support and help you need to make your benefit choices before November 5th. Please note: this is an informal drop-in session and not a formal presentation.

Neural Certificates for Safe Robotic System Planning and Control Abstract: Achieving safety, scalability, and high performance in complex systems, such as multi-agent systems (MAS) control, is a central challenge in many real-world robotic deployments due to its computational complexity as a large-scale constrained optimal control problem. To address this, we introduce a novel graph control barrier function (GCBF) as a core tool for large-scale distributed safe control, which guarantees safety for arbitrarily large MAS with only local observations. For MAS with known dynamic models, we present a self-supervised learning framework that can jointly learn GCBF and distributed control policies that consider actuation limits. For MAS with unknown dynamics, we discuss how to blend GCBF in multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) to achieve high-performance and safe distributed policies. Bio: Chuchu Fan is an Associate Professor (pre-tenure) in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro) and Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) at MIT. Before that, she was a postdoc researcher at Caltech and got her Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University. Her research group, the Realm at MIT, works on developing computational tools that integrate rigorous mathematics into machine learning and AI for the design, analysis, and verification of safe, large-scale, and complex systems. Chuchu is the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award, an AFOSR Young Investigator Program (YIP) Award, an ONR YIP Award, and the 2020 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award.

Looking for a way to make your day less stressful and more mindful...take some much-needed time for yourself and join us for Mindful Thursdays! Drop-in meditation sessions are open to the entire WPI community, and no experience is necessary. A certified meditation teacher will offer guided meditations appropriate for both beginners as well as experienced meditators. People can join in person or via zoom. Mindful Thursdays: 2:15PM to 2:35PM Center for Well-Being, Daniels Hall 102E Zoom: https://wpi.zoom.us/j/186050714 Each Friday an email will be sent out to the group called Mindfulness Tools To-Go which will include information about meditations, poems shared during the week, and mindful resources. If you have questions or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact Robin Benoit, rbenoit@wpi.edu

Learn more about your Medicare, Health Savings Account and long-term care benefits for today and tomorrow.

Global Asia Hub invites Dr. Andrew Erickson, Visiting Scholar Harvard Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and Prof of Strategy,China Maritime Studies Institute, US Naval War College to give a presentation discussing China's sea forces and XI seeks to use them in a time of dangerous shifting power dynamics. China under Xi Jinping has become a great maritime power, possessing the world's largest fleets numerically in every maritime category.

Be well at home while celebrating Wellness Day on November 4th. Drop by the Center for Well-Being or the lobby of Gateway 1 (60 Prescott) starting on Friday, October 31st to pick up your Wellness @ Home Kit to help de-stress and relax. Kits will be available October 31-November 4 or until we run out. Get one before they are gone! Sponsored by the CWB.

Department of Mathematical SciencesColloquiumFriday, October 31st, 202511:00AM-11:50AMStratton Hall 202Speaker: George Yin, University of ConnecticutTitle: Computational Nonlinear Filtering: A Deep Learning ApproachAbstract: Nonlinear filtering is a fundamental problem in signal processing, information theory, communication, control and optimization, and systems theory. In the 1960s, celebrated results on nonlinear filtering such the Kushner equation and the Duncan-Motensen-Zakai equation were obtained. Nevertheless, the computational issues for nonlinear filtering remained to be a long-standing and challenging problem. In this talk, in lieu of treating the stochastic partial differential equations for obtaining the conditional distribution or conditional measure, we construct finite-dimensional approximations using deep neural networks for the optimal weights. Two recursions are used in the algorithm. One of them is the approximation of the optimal weight and the other is for approximating the optimal learning rate. Convergence and rates of convergence will be discussed together with some examples. [This is a joint work with Hongjiang Qian (Auburn University) and Qing Zhang (University of Georgia).]

Department of Mathematical SciencesQIT Thinking SeminarWednesday, October 31st, 20254:00PM-4:50PMStratton Hall 207Speaker: Gabor Lippner, Northeastern UniversityTitle: State transfer via loops edgesAbstract: I will give an overview of the effect of weighted loops on quantum state transfer on graphs. I will discuss perfect, pretty good, and asymptotically strong variants, and explain the corresponding tools we introduced to analyze these situations. These tools range from Galois theory (field trace) to random walks on graphs, and often raise interesting questions in their own right

Join ODIME on Fridays from 12:00-2:00pm ET in OASIS House for milk and freshly baked cookies! For more information or accommodations, please contact ODIME at diversity@wpi.edu. All are welcome!

Join us on Friday, October 31, from 12:00–1:00 p.m. for a Lunch and Gather drop-in session in Innovation Studio 205. This gathering is an opportunity to connect with others who share your hobbies, interests, and likes.Don't forget to bring your lunch and a friend with you!Check out more Staff Council engagement opportunities here.

Join the Chemistry & Biochemistry Department in honoring the lives and memories of our loved ones at our Dia de Los Muertos celebration on Friday, October 31st!We’ll gather around a beautifully crafted ofrenda to pay tribute to friends, family, and colleagues who have passed, including CBC's very own Dr. Jim Dittami and others shared by our community. All are welcome to contribute photos of loved ones to be included in the ofrenda—please email them to chem-biochem@wpi.edu.Let’s come together to honor and celebrate the lives of our friends and loved ones!When: Friday, October 31stWhere: Innovation Studio Room 203Time: 4:00 PMPlease see the attached flyer PDF linked below for more information!

Dia de Los MuertosInnovation Studio Room 2034pm - 6pmPresentation by: Benjamin Juarez EcheniqueOfrenda, light refreshments