2019-2020 Networking Groups
During 2019-2020, several interdisciplinary research networking groups met around the topics described below.
Data Science
Addressing Climate Change
The impacts of climate change are being felt and will continue to grow during the coming decade. This group addressed climate change mitigation, adaptation, and communication from the perspectives of predicted impacts on people and systems, technology development, social equity, and fiscal and public policy.
This group included faculty from Kellogg, McCormick, Medill, Pritzker, the School of Communication, and Weinberg and was led by Niall Mangan from Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics and Linsey Seitz and Bill Miller from Chemical and Biological Engineering, in McCormick.
Food-Energy-Water
Per the United Nations, “the water-food-energy nexus is central to sustainable development. Demand for all three is increasing, driven by a rising global population, rapid urbanization, changing diets, and economic growth. Agriculture is the largest consumer of the world’s freshwater resources, and more than one-quarter of the energy used globally is expended on food production and supply. The inextricable linkages between these critical domains require a suitably integrated approach to ensuring water and food security and sustainable agriculture and energy production worldwide.” Including faculty across the disciplines of engineering, social science, humanities, and basic science, this group was dedicated to understanding relationships between food, water, and energy and to innovating to develop sustainable and resilient practices in these sectors. The group included faculty from Argonne, Kellogg, McCormick, Medill, Pritzker, and Weinberg and was led by Jennifer Dunn from Argonne and Chemical and Biological Engineering and Ludmilla Aristilde from Civil and Environmental Engineering, both in McCormick.
Resilient Chicago
Modern cities like Chicago are grappling with a myriad of challenges and stressors impacted by social issues, economics, health inequities, crime, environmental design, policies and political decision-making, etc. Building upon the energy of the 2018-2019 Chicago group faculty and in collaboration with community partners, the new “Resilient Chicago” luncheon group used evidence-based problem-solving from across disciplines to address and assist in solving the many challenges and stressors that Chicago is currently facing.
The group included faculty from Feinberg, Kellogg, McCormick, Medill, Pritzker, SESP, and Weinberg and was led by Katherine Amato from Anthropology in Weinberg and Michelle Birkett from Medical Social Sciences in Feinberg.
CS+X
Computation and Creativity
Computational creativity is a multidisciplinary field that lies at the intersection of artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, philosophy, and the arts; the field is concerned with the theoretical and practical issues in the study of creativity. Exploration areas during the luncheon series included tools to assist in the creative process, machine-generated creativity, and analytics for the arts, among others.
The Computation and Creativity group met from November 2019 to March 2020 and included faculty from Bienen, Feinberg, Kellogg, McCormick, SESP, School of Communication, and Weinberg. The group was led by Bryan Pardo from Computer Science in McCormick and Radio/TV/Film in the School of Communication, and Ian Horswill from Computer Science in McCormick.
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