Speaker:

Luis Amaral, Erastus Otis Haven Professor, Professor of Engineering Sciences and Applied, McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University

Title:

The World is on Fire. Is it Time to Follow the Science Yet?

Abstract:

TBA

Speaker Bio:

Luis Amaral, a native of Portugal, conducts and directs research that provides insight into the emergence, evolution, and stability of complex social and biological systems. Amaral received a K-25 Career award from NIGMS, was named to the 2006 class of Distinguished Young Scholars in Medical Research by the W. M. Keck Foundation and appointed an Early Career Scientist by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute from 2009 to 2015. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers, and the Network Science Society.

Amaral has mentored 25+ graduate students and 20+ postdoctoral fellows. He has also held significant mentoring responsibilities for dozens of undergraduate and high-school students who completed internships in his lab. Amaral’s research has been published in leading scientific journals, including Nature, Science, Cell, PNAS, Nature Physics, Nature Human Behaviour, Nature Machine Intelligence, Physical Review Letters, Physical Review X, PLOS Biology, and eLife. These results reported in the publications have been featured in numerous media sources, both in the US and abroad.

Location:

In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/94166965463

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.

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Speaker:

Kristina Lerman, Professor of Informatics, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering, Indiana University

Title:

Social Dynamics of Human-Algorithm Interactions Amplify Social Dysfunction

Abstract:

Social media platforms have achieved remarkable success by predicting what users will click, watch, share, and engage with. Yet algorithmic feeds have also been implicated in rising polarization, growing psychological distress, and the erosion of social trust. How can systems so effective at predicting human behavior produce outcomes poorly aligned with human welfare? I introduce algorithmic misalignment as a framework for understanding this puzzle. Recommendation algorithms are optimized to predict observable behavior, but behavioral signals are imperfect proxies for what people actually want or value. Moreover, optimization favors behaviors that are easiest to predict—often fast, reactive, and emotionally driven responses. Feedback loops reinforce these tendencies as algorithmic recommendations shape behavior that subsequently becomes algorithmic training data, allowing subtle human biases to scale into collective outcomes. I illustrate this framework through two case studies. In political discourse, algorithms amplify anger, outrage, and out-group hostility, contributing to affective polarization. Interactions between groups then transform animosity into durable partisan disagreements. In mental health, algorithmic feeds amplify social comparison, envy, and status anxiety, with consequences for body image and eating disorders. Although typically studied separately, these outcomes may share a common structural origin in the interaction between human psychology and algorithmic optimization, suggesting new directions for designing healthier human–algorithm ecosystems.

Speaker Bio:

Kristina Lerman is a Professor of Informatics at Indiana University’s Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering. Trained as a physicist, she uses AI, machine learning and network science to answer questions in computational social science, including how algorithms and online platforms shape social behavior and human psychology, access to information, attention, and social-emotional support. Her work has been covered by the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic. She is a fellow of AAAI.

Location:

In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/93389536671

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.

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Speaker:

Timothy Tangherlini, Elizabeth H. and Eugene A. Shurtleff Chair in Undergraduate Education, Distinguished Professor in the Dept. of Scandinavian and the School of Information, University of California, Berkeley

Title:

Chat Agents, Conspiracy Theory & Threat Narratives: Cultural Analytics and Narrative at Scale

Abstract:

In this talk, I present current work on the intersection of conspiracy theory and narratives of threat, with the shifting terrain of chat bots increasingly influencing the social media ecosystem. I present a generative model of narratives of threat, explore aspects of stance detection and the narrative sorting of actants and institutions into "insiders" and "outsiders." I then explore the topology of conspiracy theory as a narrative predilection for a comprehensive explanation of allegedly witnessed or experienced phenomena along with inferences about connections based on a monologic world view. Using examples from earlier political social media discussions, and updating these observations in the context of contemporaneous debates about the role of AI in society allow for insight into the thicket of connections that characterize the ongoing negotiation of belief through narrative

Speaker Bio:

Timothy R. Tangherlini, Elizabeth H. and Eugene A. Shurtleff Chair of Undergraduate Education, is a Distinguished Professor in the Dept. of Scandinavian and the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also associate director of the Berkeley Institute for Data Science and the Faculty Director of the Berkeley Folklore Archive. He has worked on computational approaches to folklore, with an emphasis on stories and storytelling over the past three decades. Under the auspices of the NSF's Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics, he co-directed a program on Culture Analytics, as well as an NEH Institute on Network Analysis for the Humanities. He is the author of several books, and various articles. He has done extensive fieldwork on storytelling among paramedics, and shamanism in South Korea, as well as archival work on rural 19th century Denmark. His current work focuses on generative models of common story genres such as legend, rumor, personal experience narratives, and conspiracy theories, as well as understanding cultural phenomena such as dance and cuisine across many scales of analysis.

Location:

In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/95645191725

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.

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Speaker:

Andreia Sofia Teixeira, Associate Professor, Network Science Institute, Northeastern University London

Title:

Human Relational Ecology and Conversational AI: From Social Actor to Asymmetric Co-Regulation

Abstract:

Human cognition, mental health and relationships unfold within interconnected social systems that change over time. Drawing on work on cognitive-affective structure, the evolution of supportive and conflictual ties in adolescent social networks, and distinct social envirotypes associated with mental health and context-dependent patterns of brain connectivity, I will discuss what these different perspectives tell us about the human relational ecology in which wellbeing is embedded, including the role of co-regulation in shaping emotion, cognition and behaviour.

Understanding this ecology is especially important as conversational AI emerges as a new kind of social actor. These systems can simulate some of the interactional signals associated with co-regulation, including responsiveness, validation, emotional language and apparent empathy, but without reciprocal lived experience, vulnerability, embodiment or shared accountability. I will introduce the concept of asymmetric co-regulation to frame this distinction.

Building on emerging work at the intersection of AI use, social networks and real-world human–AI conversations, I will ask what happens when conversational AI moves beyond instrumental use and starts to occupy more relational roles: when it may scaffold or substitute for existing human capacities and forms of support, how repeated interactions may shape regulation and sense of agency over time, and how these dynamics may become embedded within wider social relationships.

Speaker Bio:

Andreia Sofia Teixeira is an Associate Professor at the Network Science Institute, Northeastern University London, where she leads the BRAN Lab (Behavioral Research and Adaptive Networks). Her research sits at the intersection of network science and machine learning, developing measures, computational models and simulation frameworks to understand the structure and dynamics of complex systems, and how local behaviour can spill over to collective scales. Her work spans human–AI interaction, collective behaviour, cognitive and affective networks, signed and temporal social networks, mental health and neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders. Across these areas, she is particularly interested in how individual states, relationships and broader social environments shape one another over time.

Location:

In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/98367624907

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.

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Speaker:

Rafael Prieto-Curiel, Faculty Member, Complexity Science Hub Vienna

Title:

Why Incarcerating Cartel Members has not Worked to Reduce their Violence

Abstract:

Organised crime cartels must largely be analysed as black boxes because direct observation is rarely possible, and available evidence consists mostly of imperfect proxies and very limited data. I will present complex systems models to quantify recruitment and incarceration to analyse the effect of organised criminals in Mexico. The results suggest that incarcerating cartel members has minor effects on reducing cartel violence, even with harsher punishment or longer sentences.

Speaker Bio:

Rafael Prieto-Curiel is a Faculty Member at the Complexity Science Hub, working on violence, mobility, migration and urban dynamics. He works for the OECD and the World Bank, where he does a spatial and demographic analysis of cities. He is the Scientific Advisor of Aleph.

He was awarded the “Science Breakthrough” award by the Falling Walls Foundation in 2024.

Before, he was at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford / UCL CASA, working on urban dynamics at the Peak Urban project. He earned an MSc in Statistics and a PhD in Maths and Security and Crime at University College London (UCL).

He worked in the Emergency Attention Centre from Mexico City (C5) as Director of Strategic Analysis. His work consisted basically of crime forecasting and police and resource allocation.

Rafael is very interested in science communication. When he was an undergraduate student, he directed Laberintos e Infinitos, a maths magazine. When he started his PhD at UCL, he founded Chalkdust, a mathematics magazine. He also founded Punto Decimal MX, a science communication website. In total, he has published 11 editions of a maths magazine, with nearly 30,000 printed copies and edited nearly 500 articles by more than 200 authors.

Location:

In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/94858847147

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.

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Speaker:

Hamsa Bastani, Associate Professor of Operations, Information, and Decisions, and Statistics and Data Science, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Title:

Challenges in Achieving Human-AI Collaboration

Abstract:

TBA

Speaker Bio:

Hamsa Sridhar Bastani is an Associate Professor of Operations, Information, and Decisions (OID) and Statistics and Data Science at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where she co-direct the Wharton Healthcare Analytics Lab. Her research sits at the intersection of machine learning, operations research, and economics. She studies how to design, deploy, and evaluate AI systems that empower human decision-makers and improve societal outcomes.

Professor Bastani aims to combine methodological depth with implementation in consequential environments. She has worked with national governments to deploy algorithms at the country scale for targeted border COVID-19 screening and essential medicine access, and has co-led one of the first large field studies of generative AI tutors in high school mathematics. She studies both the mathematical properties of algorithms and the way people respond to them.

Her research has been published in leading outlets including Nature, Management Science, Operations Research, and PNAS, and has garnered numerous recognitions, including the Wagner Prize for Excellence in Operations Research, the INFORMS Pierskalla Award for best healthcare paper, and the George Nicholson Prize. Previously, she graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 2012 with an A.M. in physics and an A.B. in physics and mathematics, completed her PhD in Stanford's Electrical Engineering department under the supervision of Mohsen Bayati, and spent a year as a Herman Goldstine postdoctoral fellow at IBM Research.

Location:

In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/91360427929

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.

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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.

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