Events
Past Event
WED@NICO WEBINAR: Mercedes Pascual, University of Chicago "From eco-evolutionary assembly to network structure in a hyper-diverse host-pathogen system"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
Details
Speaker:
Mercedes Pascual, Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago
Title:
From eco-evolutionary assembly to network structure in a hyper-diverse host-pathogen system
Abstract:
How important are specific ecological interactions to the assembly of a diverse community of species? Can coexistence reflect instead neutral assembly, simply resulting from stochastic birth-death processes? What signatures of diversity patterns can help us distinguish among these two explanations? These long-standing questions from Ecology and its interplay with Evolution, can be similarly asked at a different level of organization for strain diversity within a pathogen population. I do so here for the malaria parasite P. falciparum in high-transmission regions. Strains compete for hosts in a frequency-dependent manner as hosts acquire specific immune memory against their variable surface antigens. Such competitive interactions result in negative frequency-dependent selection. I show that networks describing patterns of limiting similarity can help us identify the importance of this non-neutral process to coexistence. Implications for pathogen persistence and responses to perturbations are discussed, as well as similar questions in another eco-evolutionary system.
Speaker Bio:
Mercedes Pascual is a Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, and an external faculty of the Santa Fe Institute. Dr. Pascual is a theoretical ecologist interested in the population dynamics of infectious diseases, their response to changing environments and their interplay with pathogen diversity. She is also interested in the structure and dynamics of large interaction networks in ecology and epidemiology. Dr. Pascual received her Ph.D. degree from the joint program of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was awarded a U.S. Department of Energy Alexander Hollaender Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship for studies at Princeton University, and a Centennial Fellowship in the area of Global and Complex Systems by the James S. McDonnell Foundation for her research at the University of Michigan. She received the Robert H. MacArthur award from the Ecological Society of America. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Webinar:
https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/95743710812
Passcode: NICO2022
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. Please visit: https://bit.ly/WedatNICO for information on future speakers.
Time
Wednesday, February 16, 2022 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Mayank Agrawal, Proof of Human "The Invisible Turing Test for the Internet"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Mayank Agrawal, Co-founder and CEO, Proof of Human
Title:
Proof of Human: the Invisible Turing Test for the Internet
Abstract:
This presentation introduces the Process Turing Test, a new framework for distinguishing humans from AI that goes beyond linguistic output to analyze behavioral dynamics. As LLMs routinely pass text-based Turing Tests, we need methods that probe the underlying architecture of intelligence through perception, control, and decision-making patterns. Using process tracing data from canonical cognitive tasks, we demonstrate how behavioral embeddings capture computational signatures unique to human cognition. This provides robust proof-of-personhood that resists adversarial attacks while revealing fundamental principles about how humans and machines process information differently.
Speaker Bio:
Mayank Agrawal is the co-founder and CEO of Proof of Human, a research and deployment company building the proof-of-human layer in digital identity. The company develops high-impact research and translates that work into systems for bot detection, fraud prevention, and continuous authentication. Mayank’s work focuses on new approaches to distinguishing humans from AI through behavioral and cognitive signals. He earned his PhD in Psychology and Neuroscience from Princeton University, where he studied computational models of human decision-making with Jonathan Cohen, Tom Griffiths, and Nathaniel Daw. His research spans cognitive science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, with work published in Science, PNAS, and Psychological Review. He previously studied Computer Science and Philosophy at Swarthmore College.
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/96392420891
About the Speaker Series:
Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems, networks, and artificial intelligence. 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 11, 2026 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)