Events
Past Event
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Erik Andersen, Northwestern Dept of Molecular Biosciences "Complexity in evolutionary and molecular genetics"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
//
Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Erik Andersen, Assistant Professor, Department of Molecular Biosciences, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Northwestern University
Title:
Complexity in evolutionary and molecular genetics
Abstract:
My laboratory studies the genetics and genomics of complex traits using Caenorhabditis nematodes, including the keystone model organism C. elegans. I will discuss our recent progress on the characterization of genetic variation across the C. elegans species with some new collections from the Hawaiian Islands. We see that population diversity is high in this location as compared to the rest of the world. This genetic variation resource can be leveraged for genome-wide association mappings. I will present out high-throughput fitness assays that measure growth and offspring production after exposures to diverse chemicals and toxins, including how we identified the genetic variant that underlies differences in response to arsenic. Lastly, I will present unpublished data about how C. elegans disperses in the wild and natural variation in dispersal strategies with implications for niche preferences.
Speaker Bio:
The Andersen laboratory uses quantitative and molecular genetics to understand the polymorphisms that underlie multigenic traits of medical, ecological, and evolutionary importance. In addition to genetics, we use new sequencing technologies, high-throughput phenotyping assays, and other genomic tools to determine the molecular mechanisms for how genetic variation causes phenotypic differences. We have broad research interests, including responses to microbial and chemical stresses, drug sensitivities, and aging-related processes.
Live Stream:
Time
Wednesday, May 1, 2019 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
Data Science Nights - MAY 2026 - Speaker: Xudong Tang, Computer Science and NICO
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
5:30 PM
//
M416, Technological Institute
Details
MAY MEETING: Thursday, May 28, 2026 at 5:30pm (US Central)
LOCATION:
ESAM Conference Room, Tech M416
2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208
AGENDA:
5:30pm - Meet and greet with refreshments
6:00pm - Talk with Xudong Tang, PhD Student, Computer Science, NICO, and the Human-AI Collaboration Lab, Northwestern University
TALK TITLE:
Human and Machine Perception of Voice Similarity
ABSTRACT:
Modern voice cloning systems generate synthetic speech that listeners frequently cannot identify as being synthetic. But a voice can sound natural without sounding like the intended person, and what determines whether a clone is heard as a particular person is an open question. Here we report a large-scale preregistered experiment in which we collected 92,239 responses from 175 participants on their perception of pairs of real recordings, voice clones, and continuously morphed voices drawn from 100 contemporary celebrities across 20 speaker groups. We find that voice clones do not reliably preserve perceived speaker identity, reducing same-speaker judgments by 12.7 percentage points even though the clones are produced by a state-of-the-art text-to-speech model, while leaving different-speaker judgments unchanged. Using continuously morphed stimuli, we find that speakers vary substantially in how much variation their perceived identity tolerates, and that this variation is not predicted by speaker demographics. Speaker embeddings account for 58.9\% (95\% CI = [55.7, 61.9]) of variance in identity judgments, which is more than acoustic features, social attributes, and clone status combined. Once all these observed features are accounted for, clone status adds no additional predictive power. These results shows that the perceptual impact of voice cloning is positional rather than categorical: we can model how listeners judge a voice by how close it falls to the perceptual boundary that defines each speaker's recognizable voice, applying the same criterion to real and synthetic speech alike.
DATA SCIENCE NIGHTS are monthly meetings featuring presentations and discussions about data-driven science and complex systems, organized by Northwestern University graduate students and scholars. Students and researchers of all levels are welcome! For more information: http://bit.ly/nico-dsn
FUTURE DATES:
Data Science Nights will return in September!
Time
Thursday, May 28, 2026 at 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM
Location
M416, Technological Institute Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
Spring 2026 Commencement
University Academic Calendar
All Day
Details
Spring 2026 Commencement
Time
Sunday, June 14, 2026
Contact
Calendar
University Academic Calendar
Juneteenth - University Closed
University Academic Calendar
All Day
Details
Juneteenth - University Closed
Time
Friday, June 19, 2026
Contact
Calendar
University Academic Calendar
Independence Day (observed) - University Closed
University Academic Calendar
All Day
Details
Independence Day (observed) - University Closed
Time
Friday, July 3, 2026
Contact
Calendar
University Academic Calendar
Fall 2026 Classes Begin
University Academic Calendar
All Day
Details
Fall 2026 Classes Begin
Time
Wednesday, September 23, 2026
Contact
Calendar
University Academic Calendar