Conference on Parsimony and Learning (CPAL)

March 2025, Stanford

Program at a Glance

All times below are in Pacific Daylight Time (UTC-7).

For attendance logistics and venue information, see the logistics page.

• 08:00 AM
• 08:30 AM
• 09:00 AM
• 09:30 AM
• 10:00 AM
• 10:30 AM
• 11:00 AM
• 11:30 AM
• 12:00 PM
• 12:30 PM
• 01:00 PM
• 01:30 PM
• 02:00 PM
• 02:30 PM
• 03:00 PM
• 03:30 PM
• 04:00 PM
• 04:30 PM
• 05:00 PM
• 05:30 PM
• 06:00 PM
• 06:30 PM
• 07:00 PM
• 07:30 PM
• 08:00 PM

• Day 1 (Mar 24)
  Monday

  • Registration and Breakfast
    8:00 AM–9:00 AM
    Simonyi Conference Center
  • Tutorial Session 1
    T1: Deep Representation Learning: from Knowledge to Intelligence
    T2: Foundations on Interpretable AI
    9:15 AM–11:45 AM
    T1 - Simonyi Conference Center
    T2 - Fortinet Seminar Room, E160
  • Lunch Break
    11:45 AM–1:15 PM
  • Tutorial Session 2
    T3: Methods, Analysis, and Insights from Multimodal LLM Pre-training and Post-training
    T4: Harnessing Low Dimensionality in Diffusion Models: From Theory to Practice
    1:15 PM–3:45 PM
    T3 - Simonyi Conference Center
    T4 - Fortinet Seminar Room, E160
  • Coffee Break
    3:45 PM–4:15 PM
  • Tutorial Session 3
    T5: A Function-Space Tour of Data Science
    T6: Sparsity and Mixture-of-Experts in the Era of LLMs: A New Odyssey
    4:15 PM–6:45 PM
    T5 - Simonyi Conference Center
    T6 - Fortinet Seminar Room, E160

• Day 2 (Mar 25)
  Tuesday

  • Registration
    8:15 AM–8:40 AM
    Simonyi Conference Center
  • Opening Remarks
    8:40 AM–9:00 AM
    Simonyi Conference Center
  • Richard Baraniuk
    9:00 AM–10:00 AM
    Simonyi Conference Center
    "Parsimony in the Geometry of Deep Learning"
  • Highlight Talks 1
    10:00 AM–10:30 AM
    Simonyi Conference Center
  • Coffee Break
    10:30 AM–11:00 AM
  • Alison Gopnik
    11:00 AM–12:00 PM
    Simonyi Conference Center
    "Empowerment Gain and Causal Model Construction"
  • Highlight Talks 2
    12:00 PM–12:30 PM
    Simonyi Conference Center
  • Lunch Break
    12:30 PM–1:30 PM
  • Rising Stars Talks 1
    1:30 PM–2:30 PM
    Simonyi Conference Center
  • Coffee Break
    2:30 PM–3:00 PM
  • Jason Lee
    3:00 PM–4:00 PM
    Simonyi Conference Center
    "Emergence and Scaling Laws for SGD Learning and Learning Compositional Functions with Transformers"
  • Highlight Talks 3
    4:00 PM–5:00 PM
    Simonyi Conference Center
  • Reception + Poster Session 1
    5:00 PM–6:15 PM
    Simonyi Conference Center

• Day 3 (Mar 26)
  Wednesday

  • Registration and Breakfast
    8:15 AM–9:00 AM
    Simonyi Conference Center
  • Fredrik Kjolstad
    9:00 AM–10:00 AM
    Simonyi Conference Center
    "Domain-Specific Software for ML, Hardware, and their Composition"
  • Wellness Session
    10:00 AM–11:00 AM
    Simonyi Conference Center
  • Coffee Break
    11:00 AM–11:30 AM
  • Michael Unser
    11:30 AM–12:30 PM
    Simonyi Conference Center
    "Are the Methods of Convex Analysis Competitive with Deep Neural Networks?"
  • Lunch Break
    12:30 PM–1:30 PM
  • Rising Stars Talks 2
    1:30 PM–2:30 PM
    Simonyi Conference Center
  • Coffee Break
    2:30 PM–3:00 PM
  • Surya Ganguli
    3:00 PM–4:00 PM
    Simonyi Conference Center
    "On learning and imagination: of mice and machines"
  • Panel Discussion
    4:00 PM–4:45 PM
    Simonyi Conference Center
  • Poster Session 2
    4:45 PM–6:15 PM
    Simonyi Conference Center

• Day 4 (Mar 27)
  Thursday

  • Registration and Breakfast
    8:15 AM–9:00 AM
    Simonyi Conference Center
  • Yingyu Liang
    9:00 AM–10:00 AM
    Simonyi Conference Center
    "Towards Better Understanding of Deep Learning via Investigations of the Learning Dynamics"
  • Highlight Talks 4
    10:00 AM–11:00 AM
    Simonyi Conference Center
  • Coffee Break + Poster Session 3
    11:00 AM–12:30 PM
    Simonyi Conference Center
  • Lunch Break
    12:30 PM–1:30 PM
  • Konrad Kording
    1:30 PM–2:30 PM
    Simonyi Conference Center
    "How Can We Succeed With Parsimonious Models in a World that is Not So Parsimonious"
  • Coffee Break
    2:30 PM–3:00 PM
  • Rising Stars Talks 3
    3:00 PM–4:00 PM
    Simonyi Conference Center
  • Yuandong Tian
    4:00 PM–5:00 PM
    Simonyi Conference Center
    "Emergence of Various Structures During Transformer Training via the Lens of Training Dynamics"
  • Closing Remarks
    5:00 PM–5:20 PM
    Simonyi Conference Center