Frontier Talks

Researchers pushing the boundaries of their field with AI share their ideas and workflows. Wednesdays at GW.

How Frontier Talks work

Riley informally interviews speakers, and we invite audience members to ask their own questions as we go. These are given in a casual setting, and speakers are invited to share some visuals without dressing it up as much as a fancy talk. These are intended for a smart, curious general audience and shouldn't require domain expertise to follow along.

Every speaker gets the same questions:

1. What's the broadest field you'd be comfortable calling yourself an expert in?
2. Why does your field exist?
3. What is your field responsible for delivering to the world?
4. What do you love about it?
5. What would it mean for your field to be solved?
6. How did your field get to where it is now?
7. Why isn't it solved yet? What are the bottlenecks?
8. How is AI changing it? What would still block you after AGI?
9. How do you feel about it, honestly?
10. What are you building or working on now?

Upcoming

• Joe Hanly On The Frontier: Evolutionary Genomics. Frontier Talk, Wednesday, October 28, 2026, 5:00–6:00 PM, Room TBA, Foggy Bottom campus. Welcome to Frontier Talks! We have Joe Hanly on where evolutionary genomics is headed, and how AI is changing his work.
• Frontier Talk 2: TBA. Frontier Talk, Wednesday, November 11, 2026, 5:00–6:00 PM, Room TBA, Foggy Bottom campus. Speaker TBA.
• Frontier Talk 3: TBA. Frontier Talk, Wednesday, December 2, 2026, 5:00–6:00 PM, Room TBA, Foggy Bottom campus. Speaker TBA.
• Frontier Talk 4: TBA. Frontier Talk, Wednesday, January 20, 2027, 5:00–6:00 PM, Room TBA, Foggy Bottom campus. Speaker TBA.
• Frontier Talk 5: TBA. Frontier Talk, Wednesday, February 3, 2027, 5:00–6:00 PM, Room TBA, Foggy Bottom campus. Speaker TBA.