JANUARY MEETING: Thursday, January 29, 2026 at 5:30pm (US Central)

NEW LOCATION:
ESAM Conference Room, Tech M416
2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208

AGENDA:
5:30pm - Meet and greet with refreshments
6:00pm - Talk with Moh Hosseinioun, PhD, Alfred Sloan Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, Kellogg School of Management and Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems

TALK TITLE:
AI Reshapes the Practice of Science: Evidence from Two Decades of Research Proposals

ABSTRACT:
This project draws on a proprietary corpus of full-text and budgetary data from all (accepted and rejected) grant proposals submitted over the past two decades to a major research funding agency, offering a rare empirical lens for assessing the economic and scientific returns on investment (ROI) in Artificial Intelligence (AI). Using large language models (LLMs), we systematically classify proposals by AI engagement, distinguishing algorithmic types (e.g., simple nearest neighbor classifier vs. deep neural networks) and depth of integration (e.g., mentioning an algorithm as a benchmark vs. applying AI for inference). We link these classifications to highly granular budget data to examine how AI reshapes scientific production, reallocating funding across human capital costs, equipment and operational expenses, and overhead. Beyond resource allocation, we analyze project design, team size, duration, and applicant profiles, to study how AI alters the organization and execution of research. Leveraging both funded and unfunded proposals, we estimate the impact of AI use on proposal success, research output, and downstream career outcomes. This allows us to quantify not just the direct benefits of AI for scientific discovery, but also the opportunity costs and career implications for researchers adopting AI. Beyond offering unique insights into how AI reshapes the practice of science, our results contribute to emerging frameworks in the economics of science and innovation policy. In doing so, we offer practical insights into which types of AI investment yield sustained returns at the institutional and individual level, and where investments may be driven more by hype than value.

DATA SCIENCE NIGHTS are monthly meetings featuring presentations and discussions about data-driven science and complex systems, organized by Northwestern University graduate students and scholars. Students and researchers of all levels are welcome! For more information: http://bit.ly/nico-dsn

FUTURE DATES:
Data Science Nights will be held on Thursday evenings in the winter and spring terms, on February 26, March 19, April 30, and May 28, 2026.

Related Info

Speaker:

Brandon Ogbunu, Associate Professor, Yale School of Medicine

Title:

Soft Rules for Biological Engineering: Context and Complexity in Evolutionary Genetics and Beyond

Abstract:

In this seminar, I will discuss contemporary approaches to engineering of complex biological systems through the lens of cutting-edge ideas in evolutionary theory and population genetics.

Speaker Bio:

C. Brandon Ogbunu is an Associate Professor (Tenure) in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University. He is a computational biologist whose research investigates complex problems in epidemiology, evolutionary & population genetics, and evolution. His work utilizes a range of methods, from experimental evolution, to biochemistry, applied mathematics, and evolutionary computation.

Location:

In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/97538907404
PW: NICO26

About the Speaker Series:

Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems, data science and network science. It brings together attendees ranging from graduate students to senior faculty who span all of the schools across Northwestern, from applied math to sociology to biology and every discipline in-between. Please visit: https://bit.ly/WedatNICO for information on future speakers.

Speaker:

Chenhao Tan, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and Data Science, University of Chicago

Title:

Science in the Age of AI

Abstract:

As AI becomes increasingly capable of following instructions and conducting analyses, I believe that scientists will increasingly play the role of selector and evaluator. In this talk, I will share our recent advances in AI-enabled hypothesis generation and research evaluation. Rather than treating AI hallucinations as obstacles to eliminate, we leverage data and literature to steer AI creativity toward generating effective hypotheses. I will also introduce HypoBench, a dedicated benchmark for evaluating hypothesis generation, which reveals significant room for potential improvement of current AI models. Finally, I will present ongoing work that formalizes the evaluation of research outcomes beyond the paper itself and use AI to conduct robust evaluation of research evaluation, with a case study on mechanistic interpretability.

Speaker Bio:

Chenhao Tan is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and Data Science at the University of Chicago, and directs the Chicago Human+AI Lab. He earned his PhD in Computer Science from Cornell University and dual bachelor's degrees in computer science and economics from Tsinghua University. His research focuses on human-centered AI, communication & intelligence, AI & Scientific Discovery, and AI alignment. His work has been covered by major news media outlets, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. He also won a Sloan research fellowship, an NSF CAREER award, an NSF CRII award, a Google research scholar award, research awards from Amazon, IBM, JP Morgan, and Salesforce, a Facebook fellowship, and a Yahoo! Key Scientific Challenges award.

Location:

In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/92797125283
PW: NICO26

About the Speaker Series:

Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems, data science and network science. It brings together attendees ranging from graduate students to senior faculty who span all of the schools across Northwestern, from applied math to sociology to biology and every discipline in-between. Please visit: https://bit.ly/WedatNICO for information on future speakers.

Speaker:

Alex Imas, Roger L. and Rachel M. Goetz Professor of Behavioral Science, Economics, and Applied AI, University of Chicago, Booth School of Business

Title:

Agentic Interactions

Abstract:

Do human differences persist and scale when decisions are delegated to AI agents? In this talk we will explore an experimental marketplace in which individuals author instructions for buyer-and seller-side agents that negotiate on their behalf. We compare these AI agentic interactions to standard human-to-human negotiations in the same setting. First, contrary to predictions of more homogenous outcomes, agentic interactions lead to, if anything, greater dispersion in outcomes compared to human-mediated interactions. Second, crossing agents across counterparties reveals systematic dispersion in outcomes that tracks the identity and characteristics of the human creators; who designs the agent matters as much as, and often more than, shared information or code. Canonical behavioral frictions reappear in agentic form: personality traits shape agent behavior and selection on principal characteristics yields sorting. Despite AI agents not having access to the human principal's characteristics, demographics such as gender and personality variables have substantial explanatory power for outcomes, in ways that are sometimes reversed from human-to-human interactions. Moreover, we uncover significant variation in "machine fluency"-the ability to instruct an AI agent to effectively align with one's objective function-that is predicted by principals' individual types, suggesting a new source of heterogeneity and inequality in economic outcomes. These results indicate that the agentic economy inherits, transforms, and may even amplify, human heterogeneity. Finally, we highlight a new type of information asymmetry in principal-agent relationships and the potential for specification hazard, and discuss broader implications for welfare, inequality, and market power in economies increasingly transacted through machines shaped by human intent.

Speaker Bio:

Alex Imas studies behavioral economics with a focus on how people understand and mentally represent the choices they are facing. His research explores topics related to how people learn and make choices in settings with risk and uncertainty. He also studies the economics of artificial intelligence and discrimination. Alex’s work utilizes a variety of methods, including controlled laboratory experiments, field experiments, analysis of observational data and theoretical modeling.

Alex is the recipient of the 2023 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, the Review of Financial Studies Rising Scholar Award, the New Investigator Award from the Behavioral Science and Policy Association, the Hillel Einhorn New Investigator Award from the Society of Judgment and Decision Making, the Distinguished CESifo Affiliate Award, and the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. He is the co-author, with Richard Thaler, of The Winner’s Curse: Behavioral Economics Anomalies, Then and Now. He is an Associate Editor at the Journal of the European Economic Association and on the editorial board of Psychological Science.

Location:

In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/91389366431
PW: NICO26

About the Speaker Series:

Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems, data science and network science. It brings together attendees ranging from graduate students to senior faculty who span all of the schools across Northwestern, from applied math to sociology to biology and every discipline in-between. Please visit: https://bit.ly/WedatNICO for information on future speakers.

Speakers:

Todd Florin, MD, MSCE, Associate Division Head for Academic Affairs & Research, Division of Emergency Medicine, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago; Professor of Pediatrics (Emergency Medicine), Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

L. Nelson Sanchez-Pinto, MD, MBI, Attending Physician, Critical Care, Ann & Robert Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago; Associate Professor of Pediatrics (Critical Care) and Preventive Medicine (Health and Biomedical Informatics), Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Title:

Center for Pediatric Acute & Critical Care Research & Innovation (PACCRI)

Abstract:

TBA

Speaker Bios:

Dr. Todd Florin is a founding co-director of PACCRI. He is a pediatric emergency medicine physician-scientist with interests in pediatric respiratory infections and expertise in clinical and molecular epidemiology, predictive analytics, and large-scale, multicenter clinical trials in the acute care setting. He is committed to generating and implementing the best evidence to allow for precision care tailored to each patient.

Dr. Nelson Sanchez-Pinto is a founding co-director of PACCRI. He is a pediatric critical care medicine physician-scientist with interests in sepsis and expertise in data science and clinical informatics. His goal is to develop, test, and operationalize AI-enabled predictive and prognostic enrichment strategies that can help clinicians provide more personalized and targeted care to critically ill children.

Location:

In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/92586384543
PW: NICO26

About the Speaker Series:

Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems, data science and network science. It brings together attendees ranging from graduate students to senior faculty who span all of the schools across Northwestern, from applied math to sociology to biology and every discipline in-between. Please visit: https://bit.ly/WedatNICO for information on future speakers.

Speaker:

Ágnes Horvát, Associate Professor, Department of Communication Studies, Northwestern School of Communication

Title:

TBA

Abstract:

TBA

Speaker Bio:

Ágnes Horvát is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies, (by courtesy) the Computer Science Department of the McCormick School of Engineering, and (also by courtesy) the Department of Management and Organizations of the Kellogg School of Management.

Her research seeks to measure, understand, and forecast the collective behaviour of networked crowds in large-scale socio-technical systems. On the one hand, her current projects investigate the impact of network embeddedness and diversity on scholarly communication. On the other hand, she works on identifying expressions of collective intelligence and opportunities for innovation in crowdsourcing communities. Her research group also develops empirical and theoretical methods to support creativity and predict success in culture industries. This work lies at the intersection of computational social science and social computing. It uses an interdisciplinary data-driven approach that builds on techniques from network science, machine learning, and statistics.

Location:

In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/96701776160
PW: NICO26

About the Speaker Series:

Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems, data science and network science. It brings together attendees ranging from graduate students to senior faculty who span all of the schools across Northwestern, from applied math to sociology to biology and every discipline in-between. Please visit: https://bit.ly/WedatNICO for information on future speakers.