Information Sciences Institute

A suspicious job interview inspired an AI tool that could help protect others.

USC researchers developed a system that analyzes multilingual job ads and flags patterns linked to human trafficking — before potential victims are harmed.

Trained on more than 85,000 job postings, the tool uncovered warning signs ranging from vague promises of easy visas and unusually high pay to requests that applicants communicate by phone or text.

The research was led by Emilio Ferrara, professor in the USC Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and the USC Stevens School of Computing and AI, and a research team leader at the USC Information Sciences Institute.

Read the story:
https://lnkd.in/gUS-Ze7e

What if the next leap in computing didn’t move electrons—but waves of magnetism?

Ajey Jacob is leading SWIFT, a three-year, $5.5 million Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency \(DARPA\)-funded effort to reinvent the transistor. If the technology reaches its targets, a SWIFT-based GPS processor could be approximately 18,000× more energy-efficient than a conventional digital version, while producing less heat and better resisting jamming.

Jacob is director of advanced electronics at the USC Information Sciences Institute, part of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and USC Stevens School of Computing and AI. He also leads ISI’s Application Specific Intelligent Computing Lab and serves as a research professor in the USC Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering .

It’s a bold attempt to change the physics of computation—and potentially reshape everything from AI data centers to phones and satellites.

Read “Building a Better Transistor”:
https://lnkd.in/g9mAQE\_A

Fifty years of engineering better health — and counting.

About 150 students, alumni, faculty and friends gathered Thursday, Sept. 3, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the USC Viterbi Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering.

USC President Beong-Soo Kim and Professor Mark Humayun — whose Argus II became the first FDA-approved artificial retina in the United States — helped mark the milestone. A research symposium showcased advances in computational biosystems, biomedical devices and imaging, molecular and cellular systems, and neuroengineering.

The celebration continued Friday, Sept. 4, with alumni entrepreneurs, academics and leaders in the medical device, biotech and pharmaceutical industries sharing their career journeys — and how the USC Viterbi School of Engineering helped shape them.

Here’s to the next 50 years of discovery and innovation.

Eight years of leadership. Three ISI locations. One well-earned celebration.

On Sept. 1, the USC Information Sciences Institute honored Craig Knoblock with lunches—and cake—in Marina del Rey, Arlington, Virginia, and Boston to celebrate his eight years leading ISI, including two as interim executive director.

During his tenure, Knoblock helped restore ISI’s financial footing and transform the original MOSIS into California DREAMS, a major microelectronics hub.

Knoblock a research professor of computer science and spatial sciences in the USC Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science at the USC Stevens School of Computing and AI, will remain at ISI.

Congratulations, Craig, on an extraordinary chapter of leadership—and the impact still to come.

Your ZIP code may be costing you money.

AI systems can quietly use where you live to influence insurance premiums, mortgage rates and access to services—even when race and ethnicity are removed from the equation.

Nripsuta (Ani) Saxena “Ani” Saxena, a doctoral student in the USC Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and the USC Stevens School of Computing and AI, and Professor Abigail Horn, a USC Viterbi research assistant professor and research computer scientist at the USC Information Sciences Institute, are helping expose this hidden bias—and showing why fairer AI must account for geography.

Read the story: https://lnkd.in/g45mTKeZ