Events
Past Event
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Malcolm MacIver, Northwestern University "Evolution and mechanisms of planning through the lens of predator-prey dynamics, robotics, and artificial intelligence"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Malcolm MacIver, Professor of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University
Title:
Evolution and mechanisms of planning through the lens of predator-prey dynamics, robotics, and artificial intelligence
Abstract:
The water-to-land transition around 350 million years ago had several notable consequences. One is a 10-fold increase in relative brain size over ancestral water-dwelling vertebrates in prominent lineages. Another, which our own group has shown, is that the amount of space available to vision increases by a factor of one million, mostly due to the higher transparency of air to light compared to water. In this talk, we describe how these factors may be related to the emergence of advanced cognition, specifically the ability to consider actions and their sequential interdependence in relation to the value of an outcome, or “planning.” Through methods of computational ethology and AI, we show that planning garners higher survival rates, but only in select land-based environments (suggesting aquatic animals will rarely if ever evolve planning). We discuss results using autonomous robots and live animals interacting in a mock predator-prey scenario to test computational hypotheses, and initial progress in neural recordings to examine neural implementation details.
Speaker Bio:
Malcolm A. MacIver is a group leader of the Center for Robotics and Biosystems at Northwestern University, where he is Professor with joint appointments between Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering, and an additional appointment in the Department of Neurobiology (courtesy). His work focuses on extracting principles underlying animal behavior, focusing on interactions between biomechanics, neuronal processing, evolution and sensory system properties. He then incorporates these principles into advanced biorobotic systems, or large scale simulations on computing clusters, for synergy between technological and scientific advances. For this work he received the 2009 Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering from President Obama at the White House. MacIver has also developed interactive science-inspired art installations that have exhibited internationally, and frequently consults for science fiction film and TV series makers.
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/97462977152
Passcode: NICO2023
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, November 1, 2023 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
CANCELLED - WED@NICO SEMINAR: Eleni Katifori, University of Pennsylvania (Postponed)
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Due to an unexpected conflict this talk is regrettably postponed. Please join us for our next talk on 5/22.
Speaker:
Eleni Katifori, Associate Professor, Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania
Speaker Bio:
Eleni Katifori is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania. Prof Katifori’s research group are interested in understanding the physics behind the morphological and functional attributes of living organisms. They primarily focus on questions inspired by and related to biological transport networks and the elasticity and geometry of thin sheets. Professor Katifori received her Ph.D from Harvard University in 2008 and a B.S. from the University of Athens, Greece in 2002.
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
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, May 15, 2024 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Serguei Saavedra, MIT "How Do Ecological Systems Become (re)Assembled?"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Serguei Saavedra, Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, MIT
Title:
How Do Ecological Systems Become (re)Assembled?
Abstract:
One of the most iconic thought experiments in biology is what would happen if we could rewind the tape of life on Earth and play it again. Would the tape have a different story in every replay? Or is there a general order of events? The relevance of this thought experiment is not just philosophical or counterfactual, because (re)assembly processes undergone by ecological systems, from microbes to mega-fauna, are continuously replicating the experiment. By integrating theoretical and empirical work, in this talk I will provide a guideline to increase our understanding about the (re)assembly possibilities of ecological systems. Explaining and predicting the (re)assembly of ecological systems underpins our ability to develop successful interventions in bio-restoration, bio-technologies, and bio-medicine.
Speaker Bio:
Serguei Saavedra is an Associate Professor at MIT in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He is also an external faculty at Santa Fe Institute. Serguei is a theoretical ecologist focused on understanding the feasibility of observing the emergence, transformations, and regeneration of ecological systems under environmental changes. Before joining MIT in 2016, Serguei studied systems engineering in Mexico; specialized in mathematical modeling at Genoa University; completed his PhD in engineering science at Oxford University; and did his postdoctoral work at the NICO (under the mentorship of Brian Uzzi), Doñana Biological Station, and in the department of environmental systems at ETH.
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/91082510906
Passcode: NICO2024
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, May 22, 2024 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Joseph Paulsen, Syracuse University "TBA"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
//
Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Joseph Paulsen, Associate Professor, Department of Physics, Syracuse University
Title:
TBA
Abstract:
TBA
Speaker Bio:
Joseph Paulsen earned a bachelor's degrees in Mathematics and Physics from St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN, and he completed his PhD in Physics at the University of Chicago with Sidney Nagel. He won a National Science Foundation CAREER Award for his work that studies connections between geometry and mechanics in thin materials. Outside of science, one of his passions is trying to squirrel away as much time as possible to ski with his 7-year-old daughter (his son and his wife are not skiers... yet).
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/94291553667
Passcode: NICO2024
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, May 29, 2024 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)