Wednesdays@NICO
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. This seminar series not only brings some of the top researchers in complex systems from around the country to NICO, but also stimulates interdisciplinary discussion and collaborations. Please join us on Wednesdays at 12 PM US Central in person in Chambers Hall or via Zoom.
Fall 2024 Seminar Speakers
Biological Coupled Oscillators in the Real World
Guy Amichay, Research Associate, Engineering Sciences & Applied Mathematics, McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University
October 2, 2024, 12:00pm Central
Model Interpretability: from Illusions to Opportunities
Asma Ghandeharioun, Senior Research Scientist, People + AI Research Team, Google DeepMind
October 9, 2024, 12:00pm Central
Studying Textual Representations of Social Structures
Oscar Stuhler, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Northwestern University
October 16, 2024, 12:00pm Central
Neuroethology of Bat Communication and Social Behavior
Angeles Salles, Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Illinois Chicago
October 23, 2024, 12:00pm Central
Extraordinary Life of Microswimmers: How Does a Microorganism Swim and Navigate in Complex Environments
Xiang Cheng, Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota
October 30, 2024, 12:00pm Central
The Evolution of Authoritarian Propaganda in the Digital Age
Yingdan Lu, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Studies, Northwestern University
November 6, 2024, 12:00pm Central
The Value of Belief Data in Online Recommendation Systems
Guy Aridor, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
November 13, 2024, 12:00pm Central
Lightning Talks w/ Northwestern Scholars
November 20, 2024, 12:00pm Central
Speakers:
Albert Kabanda, PhD Candidate, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Northwestern University
Neelam Modi, PhD Candidate, Industrial Engineering & Management Sciences, Northwestern University
Maria Warns, PhD Candidate, Engineering Sciences & Applied Mathematics, Northwestern University
Spring 2024 Seminar Speakers
Organizational AI: How an Organization’s Structure and Leaders Influence the Development and Deployment of AI and How AI Impacts Organizational Efficiency and Effectiveness
Jarrett Spiro, Cognitive/Machine Learning Lead in Applied AI Research, Humana
April 10, 2024, 12:00pm Central
Disease Frames and their Consequences for Stigma, Advocacy, and Research Funds
Alina Arseniev-Koehler, Postdoctoral Fellow, UC San Diego in the Division of Biomedical Informatics, and Assistant Professor of Sociology, Purdue University
April 17, 2024, 12:00pm Central
Exploring the Emergence of Complex Dynamics in Network of Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) Oscillators
Simbarashe Nkomo, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Oxford College of Emory University
April 24, 2024, 12:00pm Central
Bridging Divides with Generative AI
Chris Bail, Professor of Sociology, Political Science, and Public Policy, Duke University
May 1, 2024, 12:00pm Central
At the Interface: Physical Analogy with Interfacial Fluid Mechanics
Daniel Harris, Assistant Professor of Engineering, Brown University
May 8, 2024, 12:00pm Central
Abstract and Bio | Video available upon request
How Do Ecological Systems Become (re)Assembled?"
Serguei Saavedra, Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, MIT
May 22, 2024, 12:00pm Central
Computing with a Pile of Sand: Understanding Amorphous Solids that “Count” Modulo N
Joseph Paulsen, Associate Professor, Department of Physics, Syracuse University
May 29, 2024, 12:00pm Central
Abstract and Bio | Video available upon request
Winter 2024 Seminar Speakers
Sensitive Intervention Points for Accelerating the Post-Carbon Transition
Matthew Ives, Research Associate, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, Oxford University
January 24, 2024, 12:00pm Central
Necessity and Strategy for Facilitating Idea Adoption in Science
Hao Peng, Postdoctoral Fellow, Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems, Northwestern University
January 31, 2024, 12:00pm Central
Lightning Talks with NU Scholars and Fellows!
February 7, 2024, 12:00pm Central
Speakers:
- Taekyun Kim - Postdoctoral Fellow, Kellogg School of Management, and NICO
- Feihong Xu – PhD Candidate, Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences Graduate Program, and the Amaral Lab
- Kumar Utkarsh – PhD Candidate, Engineering Sciences & Applied Mathematics, and the MMCS Lab
Identifying Models from Data: Traditional and Sparse-Selection Based Approaches
Niall Mangan, Assistant Professor of Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics, Northwestern University
February 14, 2024, 12:00pm Central
On the Right Track? Extracting Climate Change Mitigation Pathways from Patent Data
Frank Neffke, Team Leader, Complexity Science Hub Vienna
February 21, 2024, 12:00pm Central
Self-Presentation in Sociotechnical Life: How We Present Ourselves to Each Other in a World of Digital Platforms
Jeremy Birnholtz, Professor, School of Communication, Northwestern University
February 28, 2024, 12:00pm Central
Designing and Evaluating Human-AI Collaboration
Matt Groh, Assistant Professor, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
March 6, 2024, 12:00pm Central
Nested Skills in Labor Ecosystems: A Hidden Dimension of Human Capital
Hyejin Youn, Associate Professor, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
March 13, 2024, 12:00pm Central