Seminar Schedule
We bring in a variety of speakers to campus to talk about things that might not normally be covered in our classes.
When possible, these seminars are recorded and made available to current students and faculty/staff in (requires 1Hope login).
Unless otherwise noted, all seminars take place from 11–11:50 a.m. in VanderWerf room 102.
Spring 2026
January 13 — Logan Peters
Modeling Neural Dynamics of Decision Making with Interpretable Machine Learning
Making decisions is a fundamental part of our daily lives, from choosing what to eat for lunch to deciding which movie to watch. Each time we make one of these decisions, the neurons in our brain need to compute the comparative value of each of the decision options and decide when sufficient evaluation has taken place. In this talk, I will discuss my work using machine learning models to understand how neural population dynamics encode the decision-making process. I will cover my work using linear dynamical systems models and interpretable temporal convolutional networks to identify the neural dynamics underpinning choice evaluation and the time of decision making.
Mr. Peters is a PhD candidate at the University of California, Davis, and is a candidate for a faculty position in the Computer Science department.
January 15 — Charlotte Kiesel
Ms. Kiesel is a PhD candidate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and is a candidate for a faculty position in the Computer Science department.
January 22 — Summer opportunities
The Computer Science faculty will present the research and software development opportunities you can take part in during the summer of 2026.
February 5 — Herb Dershem
Dr. Dershem is one of the founders of the Hope CS department.
February 19 — Andrew Van Pernis
Dr. Van Pernis is a project manager at DreamWorks Animation.
March 5 — discussion groups on AI use in CS (Schaap 1118)
Several years ago a group of computer science students and faculty collaborated to draft a policy on AI use in computer science classes. At this combination seminar/lunch, you'll have a chance to help refine this policy through your feedback.
April 2 — TBD
April 16 — TBD
April 30 — Senior Capstone showcase (4-6PM, VZN 142)
The students in the Senior Capstone course will demonstrate the applications they have built during the 2025-26 academic year. You can come anytime during the session and interact with the students to hear about what they've built.
Interested in giving a Seminar?If you have an idea for a seminar that you would like to present, send an email to the department chair person (cschair@hope.edu)
workP. 616.395.7530
cschair@hope.edu