Events
Past Event
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Adam Kleinbaum, Dartmouth College "Language Style Similarity and Friendship Networks"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Adam Kleinbaum, Associate Professor of Business Administration, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College
Title:
Language Style Similarity and Friendship Networks
Co-Sponsor:
This week's talk is co-sponsored by The Science of Networks in Communities (SONIC) research group.
Abstract:
Why do friendship networks form? Social scientists have documented multiple forces that shape social networks, perhaps foremost of which is homophily, the tendency of friends to be similar in gender, age, nationality, personality, body weight, or social class. This paper demonstrates in two studies that similarity in linguistic style is also associated with friendship and that the causal arrow points in both directions: linguistic similarity drives network tie formation and friends exhibit linguistic convergence over time. In the first study, we analyze the linguistic styles and the emerging friendship network in a complete cohort of 285 graduate students at an East Coast university. In the second study, we analyze a large-scale dataset of online reviews from Yelp.com, an online reviewing platform with social network functionality. Across both studies, we collected data in two waves, allowing us to study changes in both friendship networks and linguistic styles over time. Using the LIWC computational linguistic framework, we analyze the full text of students’ essays and of 1.7 million reviews by 159,651 Yelp reviewers. The results of these two studies consistently show that similarity in linguistic style increases the likelihood that a friendship forms and that friendship ties, in turn, induce a convergence in linguistic style. Finally, we show that these dual engines of homophily – selection and convergence – have profound consequences: in our empirical data and in a simulation study, we show that these processes contribute to societal fragmentation.
Speaker Bio:
Adam Kleinbaum is an Associate Professor in the Strategy and Management area at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, and is co-founder of the Dartmouth Interdisciplinary Network Research (DINR) Group. He received both his D.B.A and undergraduate degree from Harvard, where he served as a post-doctoral fellow for the Harvard Business School. Since then, his work has focused on examining the antecedents and evolution of social networks in organizations to understand what structures promote both individual and organizational success. His research has been published in various management and business journals, as well as in several major news outlets.
About the Speaker Series:
Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems and data 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.
Live Stream:
Time
Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Julio M. Ottino, Northwestern University "From Clocks to Clouds: The Complexity Revolution"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Julio M. Ottino, Walter P. Murphy Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University
Title:
From Clocks to Clouds: The Complexity Revolution: How Scientific Breakthroughs Reshaped Reality and Our Place Within It
Abstract:
For three centuries, Western thought was guided by a Newtonian worldview: the universe as a vast clock, predictable and controllable. That vision has unraveled. Scientific revolutions—from relativity and quantum mechanics to evolution, game theory, and complexity science—have revealed a world of uncertainty, emergence, and creative interconnection. We now inhabit a “cloud world,” where relationships matter more than parts, and uncertainty is not ignorance but potential. This talk traces the transformation from clocks to complexity, showing how these revolutions reshape our understanding of reality and what it means to navigate knowledge, organizations, and society in turbulent times.
Speaker Bio:
Julio M. Ottino is an engineering scientist recognized for his work in fluid dynamics, chaos and nonlinear dynamics, complex systems, and especially mixing. He was born in La Plata, Argentina and grew up with twin interests in the physical sciences and visual arts. He obtained his first degree at the University of La Plata, in Argentina, before receiving a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota. He is currently at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science in Northwestern University where he holds the titles of Robert R. McCormick Institute Professor and Walter P. Murphy Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering. He is also a professor of Management and Organizations at Kellogg School of Management. He was the co-founder and director of the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO) and the author of the Kinematics of Mixing: Stretching, Chaos, and Transport (Cambridge University Press 1989) and The Nexus, Augmented Thinking for a Complex World, with Bruce Mau (MIT Press, 2022).
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/99053647199
Passcode: NICO25
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.
Time
Wednesday, November 5, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Blaise Aguera y Arcas, Google "Symbiogenesis, Computational Parallelism, and Complexity in Evolution"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Blaise Agüera y Arcas, VP/Fellow, CTO of Technology & Society, Google
Title:
Symbiogenesis, Computational Parallelism, and Complexity in Evolution
Abstract:
Symbiogenesis-- the fusion of formerly independent self-replicating entities into a larger self-replicating entity-- is proposed as the driving force behind evolution's "arrow of time" toward ever-increasing complexity. We'll explore an Artificial Life system as a minimal motivating example, then discuss the implications for biological evolution beyond the "standard" accounts of Major Evolutionary Transitions and "intelligence explosions" in brainy species. Energetic and computational implications will also be addressed.
Speaker Bio:
Blaise Agüera y Arcas is a VP and Fellow at Google, where he is the CTO of Technology & Society and founder of Paradigms of Intelligence (Pi). Pi is an organization working on fundamental research in AI and related fields, especially the foundations of neural computing, active inference, sociality, evolution, and Artificial Life.
In 2008, Blaise was awarded MIT’s TR35 prize. During his tenure at Google, Blaise has innovated on-device machine learning for Android and Pixel; invented Federated Learning, an approach to decentralized model training that avoids sharing private data; and founded the Artists + Machine Intelligence program.
An External Professor at Santa Fe Institute and a frequent public speaker, Blaise has given multiple TED talks and keynoted NeurIPS. He has also authored numerous papers, essays, op-eds, and chapters, as well as two previous books, Who Are We Now? and Ubi Sunt. His most recent book, What Is Life?, is part 1 of the larger book What Is Intelligence?, forthcoming from Antikythera and MIT Press in September 2025.
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/98741396308
Passcode: NICO25
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.
Time
Wednesday, November 12, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
Data Science Nights - November 2025 - Speaker: Feihong Xu, ESAM
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
5:30 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
NOVEMBER MEETING: Thursday, November 20, 2025 at 5:30pm (US Central)
LOCATION:
In person: Chambers Hall, Lower Level
600 Foster Steet, Evanston Campus
AGENDA:
5:30pm - Meet and greet with refreshments
6:00pm - Talk with Feihong Xu, Amaral Lab, ESAM
Talk title and abstract TBA.
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
Time
Thursday, November 20, 2025 at 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
Data Science Nights - December 2025 - Speaker: Yash Chainani, Chemical Engineering
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
5:30 PM
//
Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
DECEMBER MEETING: Thursday, December 18, 2025 at 5:30pm (US Central)
LOCATION:
In person: Chambers Hall, Lower Level
600 Foster Steet, Evanston Campus
AGENDA:
5:30pm - Meet and greet with refreshments
6:00pm - Talk with Yash Chainani, Broadbelt & Tyo Labs, Chemical Engineering
Talk title and abstract TBA.
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
Time
Thursday, December 18, 2025 at 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)