2017-2018 Networking Groups
During 2017-2018, five interdisciplinary research networking groups met around the topics described below.
Finite Earth
Planet Earth is our only home. While Earth may have once seemed like an infinite paradise, humanity is increasingly facing the consequences of Earth’s finite dimensions and resources. The Finite Earth group mingled diverse intelligence at the intersection of active finite earth research and expertise in data science. Topics of discussion included sustainability, global climate change, water and food security, energy storage, non-equilibrium systems, environmental impact of society’s metals, sensor networks, cross-disciplinary data analyses, conservation, power grids, networks, geo-engineering, economics, and more. The scholars in the Finite Earth network emerging from this luncheon advised, enlightened, supported, and stimulated each other, formed new collaborations, wrote proposals together, and served on each other’s faculty search committees.
The Finite Earth group included faculty members from McCormick and Weinberg and was led by Suzan Van der Lee from Earth and Planetary Sciences in Weinberg and Eric Masanet from Mechanical Engineering and Chemical and Biological Engineering in McCormick.
See a video from the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems featuring Suzan van der Lee, Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and Bill Miller, Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering.
Computational Social Sciences (Law, Crime, and Conflict Group)
This interdisciplinary group examined how computational social science impacts crime, law, and conflict. As technology is increasingly utilized to aid human decision-making, substantial opportunities exist to improve the efficiency and precision of decisions we make as individuals and as a society. However, new reliance on computational systems also entails novel challenges, such as ensuring that the systems are accurate, just, and fair, so there is much work to be done. Additionally, the group explored tactics for resolving the structural barriers to interdisciplinary work and training in academia.
This group included faculty members from McCormick, Feinberg, Weinberg, Kellogg, SESP, and Pritzker and was led by Michelle Birkett from Medical Social Sciences in Feinberg and Doug Downey from Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in McCormick.
Computational Social Sciences (Group Two)
The second Computational Social Science networking group brought together researchers from a diverse set of disciplines and departments, engaged in rigorous empirical research utilizing cutting-edge computational techniques with application to social science questions. Group members shared works in progress and solicited feedback via short presentations and discussions. Presentations emphasized the computational and machine learning methods used in these ongoing research programs, with approaches varying from network analysis to natural language processing to Bayesian models. Participants applied these methods to topics as varied as how to design effective matchmaking algorithms and apps, how politicians assess constituent beliefs, how consumers engage with news programming, how to assess effects of environmental marketing on brand perceptions via text analysis, and how to generate accurate early detection methods for psychosis risk.
This group included faculty members from Weinberg, Kellogg, Feinberg, McCormick, SESP, School of Communication, and Medill and was co-led by Sirus Bouchat from Political Science in Weinberg and Brian Uzzi from Management and Organizations in Kellogg.
Quantitative Biology (Groups One and Two)
The Quantitative Biology-focused faculty were organized into two groups with faculty members from Feinberg, Weinberg, McCormick, and Pritzker. One group was led by Rosemary Braun from Preventive Medicine in Feinberg and Julius Lucks from Chemical and Biological Engineering in McCormick, and the other group was led by Deborah Winter from Medicine in Feinberg and Richard Carthew from Molecular Biosciences in Weinberg.
In May 2018, several members of the group received a highly competitive grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Simons Foundation to establish the NSF-Simons Center for Quantitative Biology at Northwestern. Back to top