Update: The workshop will be held this week. In-person attendees will meet at Nord Hall, Room 410, at CWRU.
Tutorial notebooks are available here.
Day2 Tutorials:
The SCIPE Workshop on Large Language Models brings together researchers, practitioners, and students interested in understanding and working with state-of-the-art language models. This intensive three-day program covers everything from foundational concepts to advanced research topics.
Whether you're looking to apply LLMs in your work or explore cutting-edge research directions, this workshop provides hands-on experience with modern tools, access to high-performance computing resources, and guidance from experts in the field.
Learn to deploy and use LLMs effectively with practical tools like transformers, vLLM, and LangChain. Gain hands-on experience with inference optimization, RAG systems, and API integration.
Explore advanced topics including training methodologies, fine-tuning techniques, test-time scaling, compression strategies, and the latest developments in agentic AI systems.
Foundations and Getting Started
Opening remarks and networking
Overview of LLM architecture, current capabilities, generative AI, agentic AI, and active research areas.
Includes a 15-minute Q&A sessionDemonstrations of commercial LLMs applied to language generation, reasoning tasks, and code generation.
Using open-source models, inference techniques, efficiency considerations, and the distinction between reasoning and non-reasoning LLMs.
Run reasoning and non-reasoning LLMs; literature review of recent research papers.
Tool Use and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
Review of take-home assignments and an introduction to using external tools with LLMs.
Introduction to RAG techniques and applications; collecting and preparing data for RAG systems.
Extracting text with DeepSeek OCR and storing results in vector databases.
Building a RAG pipeline to answer questions over custom documents.
Use RAG with your own documents; literature review of recent research papers.
Advanced Applications and Research
Review of take-home assignments and discussion of potential research directions in LLM research.
Review of recent research papers and brainstorming research proposals.
Participants work in teams to develop a small project or research proposal based on workshop learnings.
10-minute presentations from participants on their workshop projects and insights.
The workshop is offered in two formats to accommodate different participant needs:
To get the most out of the workshop, we recommend the following:
Registration is open from November 13 to December 25, 2025. The workshop will be held January 16–18, 2026 at Nord Hall, Case Western Reserve University — Room 410, 2095 Martin Luther King Jr. Dr., Cleveland, OH 44106.
Register Here