Events
Past Event
Data Science Nights - October 2023 Meeting (w/ Yingdan Lu, NU School of Communication)
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
5:15 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
OCTOBER MEETING: Tuesday, Oct 31, 2023 at 5:20pm (US Central)
LOCATION: In person, Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level, Evanston
Online via Zoom: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/99826882859
DATA SCIENCE NIGHTS are monthly talks on data science techniques or applications, organized by Northwestern University graduate students and scholars. Aspiring, beginning, and advanced data scientists are welcome!
AGENDA:
5:20pm - Meet and Greet
5:30pm - Talk by Yingdan Lu, Assistant Professor at the School of Communication, Northwestern University "Understanding the Evolution of Digital Propaganda Through Video-as-Data Methods"
6:20pm - Q&A
ABSTRACT:
Understanding the Evolution of Digital Propaganda Through Video-as-Data Methods
The increasing accessibility of digital video data and the proliferation of video-based social media have motivated scholars to develop new methods for analyzing large-scale videos in order to examine important communication concepts. Recent advances in computer vision and deep learning have provided researchers with powerful tools for scalable video analysis. This talk showcases the video-as-data approach and presents two studies aimed at comprehending the evolution of propaganda in the digital media era. The first study unravels two different tactics designed to maximize attention by employing a multimodal approach that combines video, text, and metadata to examine a novel dataset of Douyin trending videos. The second study further theorizes how the Chinese government has adopted a decentralized propaganda model to compete for attention, drawing insights from the analysis of over five million Douyin videos. Both studies contribute to our understanding of how digital media and technologies have reshaped information control and show how social media videos can be analyzed computationally to shed light on political processes and outcomes.
Time
Tuesday, October 31, 2023 at 5:15 PM - 7:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Hamsa Bastani, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania "Challenges in Achieving Human-AI Collaboration"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
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/99847338986
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, May 13, 2026 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Lightning Talks with NU Scholars!
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
NICO is looking for participants to share 12-15 minute lightning talks on their current research. To sign up, please fill out this short survey. These are open to Northwestern graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and visiting scholars!
All talks will be given in person at Chambers Hall and this event will also be livestreamed via Zoom.
Speakers will be balanced based on their topics/disciplines in order to provide a broad representation of the research activities at NICO
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/98031689779
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, May 20, 2026 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)