Events
Past Event
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Youyou Wu, Northwestern Institute for Complex Systems (NICO) "Inferring Personality from Digital Footprints"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level Chambers Hall
Details
Inferring Personality from Digital Footprints
Speaker:
Youyou Wu - Postdoctoral Fellow, Kellogg School of Management and the Northwestern Institute for Complex Systems (NICO)
Talk Abstract:
Personality is a key driver behind people's behavior, cognitions, motivations and emotions. The judgments people make of each other's personalities are the basis of common and important decisions in personal and professional lives, such as whom to befriend, marry, trust, avoid, hire, or elect as president. Like many other psychological traits, personality is latent and cannot be measured directly. Traditional personality assessment methods rely on human judgements, asking individuals themselves, peers, or clinicians to rate personality using a list of statements on a questionnaire. Despite their reliability and validity in most applications, these methods have several limitations: expensive, slow to administer, and sometimes biased.
In this talk, I will present the latest personality assessment technique free of human judgments—inferring personality from digital footprints. Based on a large sample of participants, I show that machine learning models built using one type of digital footprint—Facebook Likes—can be accurate in assessing personality. I also explore the minimal conditions needed to build models with satisfactory accuracy, including using small training samples or a short personality questionnaire. This method can be potentially generalized to the assessment of other psychological traits besides personality.
Live Stream:
To join the Meeting: bluejeans.com/8474912527
To join via Browser: bluejeans.com/8474912527/browser
Time
Wednesday, February 15, 2017 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
Fall 2026 Classes Begin
University Academic Calendar
All Day
Details
Fall 2026 Classes Begin
Time
Wednesday, September 23, 2026
Contact
Calendar
University Academic Calendar
NICO Reading Group - Fall 2026 First Meeting
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
6:00 PM
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Chambers Hall
Details
The NICO Reading Group meets for the first this fall on Wednesday, September 23, 2026. Please contact Jaeseon Ha if you are interested in joining our group.
About:
The NICO Reading Group brings together people across disciplines to read and discuss important ideas in modern AI. We focus on topics such as AI agents, tuning, harnesses, evaluation, AI for scientific discovery, and applications of AI across different fields. The goal is to understand important ideas in AI more deeply by learning and thinking across disciplines.
Leadership:
Jaeseon Ha, a Kellogg MBA + AI student, will lead the reading group during the Fall 2026 term. Please contact Jaeseon with any questions or reach out to us at nico@northwestern.edu.
Meeting Times:
Date: Biweekly on Wednesday evening, starting on September 23, 2026
Time: 6-7pm
Location: NICO main office, Chambers Hall,
600 Foster St, Evanston, IL 60208
Time
Wednesday, September 23, 2026 at 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Location
Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO Seminar Series returns on September 30, 2026
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
The Wednesdays@NICO seminar series returns September 30, 2026, running through November 11, 2026, with the following speakers.
9/30/2026 - Luis Amaral, Northwestern University
10/7/2026 - Kristina Lerman, Indiana University
10/14/2026 - Tim Tangherlini, University of California, Berkeley
10/21/2026 - Andreia Sofia Teixeira, Northeastern University London
10/28/2026 - Rafael Prieto-Curiel, Complexity Science Hub, Vienna
11/4/2026 - Hamsa Bastani, University of Pennsylvania
11/11/2026 - Mayank Agrawal, Proof of Human
We will share detailed speaker information, talk titles and abstracts, in the coming weeks.
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option TBA
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, September 30, 2026 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)