Events
Past Event
NICO SUMMER SEMINAR: Christopher Donohue, National Institutes of Health "Tacit Knowledge and the Limits of Our Tools"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
11:00 AM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Christopher Donohue Ph.D., Historian of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) at the National Institutes of Health
Title:
Tacit Knowledge and the Limits of Our Tools: Lessons from a Fully Digital Archive
Talk Abstract:
The History of Genomics Program, founded by Eric Green, Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute in 2012, and managed by Christopher Donohue and Kris Wetterstrand, seeks to preserve the history of genomics and the Human Genome Project and promote scholarly research in the history, philosophy and sociology of genomic science. The archive (as of 2019) is close to twenty million pages of saved material and is totally digital, enabling remote access and efficient searches but posing unique problems: How to such a huge amount of data which is homogeneous and has a great deal of conceptual repetition and overlap? How do you interpret nearly identical search results for researchers? How is research in the archive done when the resource is almost nearly always available because it is online? The key to all of these questions is "tacit knowledge" or a "feeling for the digital organism." Like research generally, archival queries and archival questions, rather than simply exploratory fieldwork, need to be defined by ever-more precise questioning which is defined by intimate knowledge of the dataset on the part of researchers, as well as archivists working in dynamic to address those questions.
Speaker Bio:
Christopher Donohue Ph.D. is Historian of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda Maryland. He is also the founder of their institutional archive (which now contains over 25 million pages of documents) and also serves as co-manager of the History of Genomics Program. The goal of this program is to promote the history and philosophy of contemporary biology and genomics at the National Human Genome Research Institute. In this capacity, he has conducted over sixty oral history interviews of leading biologists, while also leading the planning for two international conferences per year (since 2015) on the history and philosophy of contemporary science. He also directs a three times yearly seminar series. He is the editor most recently of a special issue in "History of Genomics and the Human Genome Project" published by the Journal of the History of Biology in 2018. He is also the editor of a special issue on the uses and appropriations of biological and genetic evidence by the social sciences, in press, from Studies in the History and Philosophy of Biology and the Biomedical Sciences. He has given, since 2012, over forty conference presentations and lectures, having been frequently invited by the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, as well as universities in England, France, Scotland, Greece, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Israel, Hungary, Belgium, Poland and the United States. He is the associate editor of the Ideology and Politics Journal which focuses on the political philosophy of post-Soviet and post-communist states. He serves on the editorial board of Carnet Zilsel , one of the leading (if relatively new) French journals in the history and sociology of science. He also has served as a referee of several journals (including history and anthropology) as well as a few popular presses. He is currently at work on a history of the Human Genome Reference Consortium and is finishing his monograph on the history of human variation programs funded by the NHGRI, from the HapMap to 1000 Genomes.
Time
Tuesday, June 11, 2019 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
Data Science Nights - October 2025 - Speaker: Buduka Ogonor, Physics and Astronomy
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
5:30 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
OCTOBER MEETING: Thursday, October 30, 2025 at 5:30pm (US Central)
LOCATION:
In person: Chambers Hall, Lower Level
600 Foster Steet, Evanston Campus
AGENDA:
5:30pm - Meet and greet with refreshments
6:00pm - Talk with Buduka Ogonor, Motter Group, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Center for Network Dynamics
TALK TITLE:
Finding gene sets underlying complex phenotypes via generative modeling
ABSTRACT:
Most human traits are complex, that is, they emerge from the interactions among multiple genes. The sheer number of possible gene set-to-phenotype mappings makes it challenging to identify the gene sets underlying complex traits using statistical approaches like genome and transcriptome-wide association studies. Furthermore, these existing approaches assume that molecular-level changes are independent, which is at odds with the existence of intracellular networks that govern cell behavior.
Here, we present an approach that identifies gene set-to-phenotype relationships that leverages generative modeling trained on publicly available transcriptional data. We use a generative model—dubbed TWAVE for Transcription-Wide Variational Auto-Encoder—to emulate diseased and healthy transcriptional states. Then, we use existing transcriptional measurements of responses to turning genes on and off as inputs to an optimization framework, which identifies the gene perturbations that minimize the transcriptional difference between the diseased and healthy states. Using nine disease traits as examples, we show that the approach identifies causal genes that cannot be detected by the primary existing techniques. We suggest that the approach be used to design tailored experiments to identify multi-genic targets to address complex diseases.
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
Time
Thursday, October 30, 2025 at 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Julio M. Ottino, Northwestern University "From Clocks to Clouds: The Complexity Revolution"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Julio M. Ottino, Walter P. Murphy Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University
Title:
From Clocks to Clouds: The Complexity Revolution: How Scientific Breakthroughs Reshaped Reality and Our Place Within It
Abstract:
For three centuries, Western thought was guided by a Newtonian worldview: the universe as a vast clock, predictable and controllable. That vision has unraveled. Scientific revolutions—from relativity and quantum mechanics to evolution, game theory, and complexity science—have revealed a world of uncertainty, emergence, and creative interconnection. We now inhabit a “cloud world,” where relationships matter more than parts, and uncertainty is not ignorance but potential. This talk traces the transformation from clocks to complexity, showing how these revolutions reshape our understanding of reality and what it means to navigate knowledge, organizations, and society in turbulent times.
Speaker Bio:
Julio M. Ottino is an engineering scientist recognized for his work in fluid dynamics, chaos and nonlinear dynamics, complex systems, and especially mixing. He was born in La Plata, Argentina and grew up with twin interests in the physical sciences and visual arts. He obtained his first degree at the University of La Plata, in Argentina, before receiving a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota. He is currently at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science in Northwestern University where he holds the titles of Robert R. McCormick Institute Professor and Walter P. Murphy Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering. He is also a professor of Management and Organizations at Kellogg School of Management. He was the co-founder and director of the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO) and the author of the Kinematics of Mixing: Stretching, Chaos, and Transport (Cambridge University Press 1989) and The Nexus, Augmented Thinking for a Complex World, with Bruce Mau (MIT Press, 2022).
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/99053647199
Passcode: NICO25
About the Speaker Series:
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. Please visit: https://bit.ly/WedatNICO for information on future speakers.
Time
Wednesday, November 5, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Blaise Aguera y Arcas, Google "Symbiogenesis, Computational Parallelism, and Complexity in Evolution"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Blaise Agüera y Arcas, VP/Fellow, CTO of Technology & Society, Google
Title:
Symbiogenesis, Computational Parallelism, and Complexity in Evolution
Abstract:
Symbiogenesis-- the fusion of formerly independent self-replicating entities into a larger self-replicating entity-- is proposed as the driving force behind evolution's "arrow of time" toward ever-increasing complexity. We'll explore an Artificial Life system as a minimal motivating example, then discuss the implications for biological evolution beyond the "standard" accounts of Major Evolutionary Transitions and "intelligence explosions" in brainy species. Energetic and computational implications will also be addressed.
Speaker Bio:
Blaise Agüera y Arcas is a VP and Fellow at Google, where he is the CTO of Technology & Society and founder of Paradigms of Intelligence (Pi). Pi is an organization working on fundamental research in AI and related fields, especially the foundations of neural computing, active inference, sociality, evolution, and Artificial Life.
In 2008, Blaise was awarded MIT’s TR35 prize. During his tenure at Google, Blaise has innovated on-device machine learning for Android and Pixel; invented Federated Learning, an approach to decentralized model training that avoids sharing private data; and founded the Artists + Machine Intelligence program.
An External Professor at Santa Fe Institute and a frequent public speaker, Blaise has given multiple TED talks and keynoted NeurIPS. He has also authored numerous papers, essays, op-eds, and chapters, as well as two previous books, Who Are We Now? and Ubi Sunt. His most recent book, What Is Life?, is part 1 of the larger book What Is Intelligence?, forthcoming from Antikythera and MIT Press in September 2025.
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/98741396308
Passcode: NICO25
About the Speaker Series:
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. Please visit: https://bit.ly/WedatNICO for information on future speakers.
Time
Wednesday, November 12, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
Data Science Nights - November 2025 - Speaker: Feihong Xu, ESAM
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
5:30 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
NOVEMBER MEETING: Thursday, November 20, 2025 at 5:30pm (US Central)
LOCATION:
In person: Chambers Hall, Lower Level
600 Foster Steet, Evanston Campus
AGENDA:
5:30pm - Meet and greet with refreshments
6:00pm - Talk with Feihong Xu, Amaral Lab, ESAM
Talk title and abstract TBA.
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
Time
Thursday, November 20, 2025 at 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
Data Science Nights - December 2025 - Speaker: Yash Chainani, Chemical Engineering
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
5:30 PM
//
Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
DECEMBER MEETING: Thursday, December 18, 2025 at 5:30pm (US Central)
LOCATION:
In person: Chambers Hall, Lower Level
600 Foster Steet, Evanston Campus
AGENDA:
5:30pm - Meet and greet with refreshments
6:00pm - Talk with Yash Chainani, Broadbelt & Tyo Labs, Chemical Engineering
Talk title and abstract TBA.
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
Time
Thursday, December 18, 2025 at 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)