Events
Past Event
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Michelle Birkett, Northwestern Feinberg Medicine "Bias in Big Data"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details

Speaker:
Michelle Birkett - Assistant Professor, Department of Medical Social Sciences; Director, CONNECT Complex Systems and Health Disparities Research Program, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University
Title:
Bias in Big Data
Abstract:
Our society increasingly relies on data to guide all forms of decision making. This cost-effective, data-led decision making, particularly when guided by unsupervised analytical methods, is often assumed to be free of human bias. However, from hiring decisions to predictive policing, poor Black and Brown populations have been shown to be disproportionately impacted across a wide variety of domains. Less is known, however, about the impact of these systems on sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations and the intersecting identities individuals may hold.
Finding solutions to these problems is immensely complex, and requires the input of a wide range of stakeholders. However, spaces like these are rare. Therefore, the Bias in Big Data 2019 Workshop was organized by the CONNECT Complex Systems and Health Disparities Research Program and held in July 2019 at the Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing. It was organized to be a space to bring together diverse stakeholders across various sectors to discuss solutions, and amplify the good work already being done. Approximately 50 in-person and 800 online participants attended the half day meeting, representing public health, community organizations, data scientists in the private sector, and academics from over 20 universities.
This talk will articulate the six primary themes which emerged from conversations over the course of the workshop and outline a number of recommendations that we believe can be taken up by broad groups of stakeholders – especially academics. The talk will also highlight next steps for this work, including the release of White Paper and a monthly newsletter project which we hope will build important bridges between sectors and disciplines.
Speaker Bio:
Michelle Birkett is a psychologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Social Sciences at Northwestern University. She also directs the CONNECT Complex Systems and Health Disparities Research Program within the Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing and been a member of NICO’s Executive Committee since 2016. Dr. Birkett’s research uses network and quantitative methodologies to understand the social contextual influence of stigma on the health and wellbeing of marginalized populations, and in particular, sexual and gender minority youth. This work is influenced by a multilevel perspective of health that considers direct and indirect influences of multiple levels of the social and physical environment. Dr. Birkett has led multiple NIH-funded projects and has a wealth of expertise in the collection and analysis of network data. She is a principal investigator of Network Canvas, a free and open source NIH-funded software for the collection of social network data. She is also an NIH Career Awardee for her work understanding network, multilevel, and contextual influences on racial disparities in HIV. An author of more than 50 articles, Dr. Birkett is widely published and her work has been covered in popular outlets such as The Atlantic, Reuters, and Wired. In 2018 she was selected as an inaugural member of the New Voices Program of The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, an initiative to promote new and diverse scientific voices within the National Academies.
About the Speaker Series:
Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems and data 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.
Live Stream:
Time
Wednesday, February 12, 2020 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
Data Science Nights - January 2021 Meeting (Speaker: Bryan Pardo)
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
5:15 PM
Details

JANUARY MEETING: Wednesday, January 27, 2021 at 5:15pm (Central) via Zoom and Gather
DATA SCIENCE NIGHTS are monthly hack nights on popular data science topics, organized by Northwestern University graduate students and scholars. Aspiring, beginning, and advanced data scientists are welcome!
AGENDA:
5:15: Welcome to Data Science Nights via Zoom
* Zoom Link: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/96207323991
* Passcode: DSN2021
5:30: Presentation by Bryan Pardo, Northwestern University
6:00: Hacking session via Gather
* Gather link: https://gather.town/app/UCTJAHOgQi2FLx4O/DSN
SPEAKER: Bryan Pardo, Associate Professor, McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University
TOPIC: New directions in deep audio source separation: training without ground truth and automatic model selection
Audio source separation is the task of separating an audio scene containing multiple concurrent sound sources into individual streams/tracks, each containing a source (or group of sources) of interest to the user. Source separation is an enabling technology for a variety of tasks, including speech recognition, music transcription, sound object ID, and hearing assistance. Deep learning models are the state-of-the-art in source separation, but they are typically trained on synthetic audio mixtures made from isolated sound source recordings so that ground-truth for the separation is known. However, the vast majority of available audio is not isolated, limiting the range of scenes where deep models trained on isolated data are effective. Furthermore, a deep model is typically only successful in separating audio mixtures similar to the mixtures it was trained on. This requires the end user to know enough about each model’s training to select the correct model for a given audio mixture. In this talk, Prof. Pardo will outline proposed solutions to both problems. First, he will present a method to train a deep source separation model in an unsupervised way by bootstrapping using multiple primitive cues, without the need for ground truth isolated sources or artificial training mixtures. He will then outline a proposed confidence measure that can be broadly applied to any clustering-based source separation model. The proposed confidence measure does not require ground truth to estimate the quality of a separated source. This allows automatic selection of the appropriate deep clustering model for an audio mixture.
SPEAKER BIO: Bryan Pardo is head of Northwestern University’s Interactive Audio Lab and co-director of the Northwestern University HCI+Design institute. Prof. Pardo has appointments in in the Department of Computer Science and Department of Radio, Television and Film. He received a M. Mus. in Jazz Studies in 2001 and a Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2005, both from the University of Michigan. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications. He has developed speech analysis software for the Speech and Hearing department of the Ohio State University, statistical software for SPSS and worked as a machine learning researcher for General Dynamics. He has collaborated on and developed technologies acquired and patented by companies like Bose, Adobe and Ear Machine. While finishing his doctorate, he taught in the Music Department of Madonna University. When he is not teaching or researching, he performs on saxophone and clarinet with the bands Son Monarcas and The East Loop.
For more info: data-science-nights.org
Supporting Groups:
This event is supported by the Northwestern Institute for Complex Systems and the Northwestern Data Science Initiative.
Time
Monday, January 25, 2021 at 5:15 PM - 7:30 PM
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO WEBINAR: Irena Vodenska, Boston University
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
Details

Speaker:
Irena Vodenska, Associate Professor in Finance, Director, Finance Programs, Metropolitan College, Boston University
Title:
A bird’s-eye view into the origin of systemic risk: Financial Institutions, Sovereign Debt, and Public Health and Policy
Abstract:
As economic entities become increasingly interconnected, shocks in financial and economic networks can provoke significant cascading failures throughout the system. To study systemic risk, we model financial institutions' relationships, economic dependencies, and production flows to propose a cascading failure model describing the risk propagation process during crises. We find that our model efficiently identifies a significant portion of the failed banks reported by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation during the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. We also study the European sovereign debt crisis of 2009-2012 and observe that the results closely match real-world events (e.g., the high risk of Greek sovereign bonds and Greek banks' distress). We propose an institutional, systemic importance ranking, BankRank, for the financial institutions analyzed in the European bank study to assess individual banks' contribution to the overall systemic risk. Finally, we propose a dynamic cascade model to investigate the systemic risk posed by sector level industries within the U.S. inter-industry network. We then use this model to study the effect of the disruption presented by COVID-19 during 2020 on the U.S. economy. We impose an initial shock that disrupts one or more industries' production capacity and calculates the propagation of production shortage with a modified Cobb-Douglas production function. In the case of COVID-19, the initial shock reflects the loss of labor between March and April 2020, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. These studies suggest that the cascading failure models could be useful for systemic risk stress testing for financial and economic systems. The models could become complementary to existing stress tests and scenario analysis, incorporating the contribution of the interconnectivity of the banks, governments, and industries to systemic risk in time-dependent networks.
Speaker Bio:
Irena Vodenska is an associate professor of finance and director of finance programs at Boston University’s Metropolitan College. Her research focuses on network theory and complexity science in macroeconomics. She conducts a theoretical and applied interdisciplinary research using quantitative approaches for modeling interdependencies of financial networks, banking system dynamics, and global financial crises. More specifically, Vodenska’s research focuses on modeling of early warning indicators and systemic risk propagation throughout interconnected financial and economic networks. She also studies the effects of news announcement on financial markets, corporations, financial institutions, and related global economic systems. She uses neural networks and deep learning methodologies for natural language processing to text mine important factors affecting corporate performance and global economic trends. Prof. Vodenska teaches Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management, International Finance and Trade, Financial Regulation and Ethics, and Derivatives Securities and Markets at Boston University. Vodenska holds a Ph.D. in Econophysics (Statistical Finance) from Boston University, MBA from Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University and BS in Computer Information Systems from the University of Belgrade. She is also a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charter holder. As a principal investigator (PI) for Boston University, she has won interdisciplinary research grants awarded by the European Commission (EU), Network Science Division of the US Army Research Office, and the National Science Foundation (US).
Webinar:
Webinar link: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/94202105939
Passcode: nico
ID: 942 0210 5939
About the Speaker Series:
Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems and data 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, January 27, 2021 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO WEBINAR: Tina Eliassi-Rad, Northeastern University
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
Details

Speaker:
Tina Eliassi-Rad, Professor, Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Northeastern University
Title:
TBA
Abstract:
TBA
Speaker Bio:
Tina Eliassi-Rad is a Professor of Computer Science at Northeastern University in Boston, MA. She is also a core faculty member at Northeastern's Network Science Institute. Prior to joining Northeastern, Tina was an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Rutgers University; and before that she was a Member of Technical Staff and Principal Investigator at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Tina earned her Ph.D. in Computer Sciences (with a minor in Mathematical Statistics) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research is at the intersection data mining, machine learning, and network science. She has over 100 peer-reviewed publications (including a few best paper and best paper runner-up awardees); and has given over 200 invited talks and 14 tutorials. Tina's work has been applied to personalized search on the World-Wide Web, statistical indices of large-scale scientific simulation data, fraud detection, mobile ad targeting, cyber situational awareness, and ethics in machine learning. Her algorithms have been incorporated into systems used by the government and industry (e.g., IBM System G Graph Analytics) as well as open-source software (e.g., Stanford Network Analysis Project).
Webinar:
Webinar link: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/95878198317
Passcode: nico
ID: 958 7819 8317
About the Speaker Series:
Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems and data 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, February 3, 2021 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO WEBINAR: Noah Askin, INSEAD
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
Details

Speaker:
Noah Askin, Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour, INSEAD
Title:
TBA
Abstract:
TBA
Speaker Bio:
Noah Askin is an Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD in Fontainebleau. His research interests include social and cultural networks, the drivers and consequences of creativity and innovation (particularly in the music industry), the production and consumption of culture, and the dynamics of organisational and individual status. His work, which has garnered recognition on the Thinkers 50 Radar list, has appeared in Administrative Science Quarterly, American Sociological Review, computational social science publications, and been covered in the press by Rolling Stone, Forbes, Business Insider, Quartz.com, The Times of London, M Magazine, the New York Post, and music industry blogs.
Webinar:
Webinar link: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/96945660289
Passcode: nico
ID: 969 4566 0289
About the Speaker Series:
Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems and data 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, February 10, 2021 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO WEBINAR: Susanna Manrubia, Spanish National Centre for Biotechnology (CSIC)
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
Details

Speaker:
Susanna Manrubia, Associate Professor, Spanish National Centre for Biotechnology (CSIC)
Title:
TBA
Abstract:
TBA
Speaker Bio:
Susanna Manrubia is an Associate Professor at the Spanish National Centre for Biotechnology (CSIC), in Madrid. She belongs to the Systems Biology Program, where she leads the Group of Evolutionary Systems. Her group maintains close collaborations with experimentalists and focuses on developing theoretical and computational descriptions of biological, mainly evolutionary phenomena. Professor Manrubia is also interested in cultural patterns and collective social behaviour.
Webinar:
Webinar link: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/96887739805
Passcode: nico
ID: 968 8773 9805
About the Speaker Series:
Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems and data 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, February 17, 2021 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
Data Science Nights - February 2021 Meeting
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
5:15 PM
Details

NOVEMBER MEETING: Monday, February 23, 2021 at 5:30pm (Central) via Zoom and Gather
DATA SCIENCE NIGHTS are monthly hack nights on popular data science topics, organized by Northwestern University graduate students and scholars. Aspiring, beginning, and advanced data scientists are welcome!
AGENDA:
TBA
SPEAKER: Aviv Landau, Postdoctoral research scientist, Data Science Institute, Columbia University
TOPIC: TBA
For more info: data-science-nights.org
Supporting Groups:
This event is supported by the Northwestern Institute for Complex Systems and the Northwestern Data Science Initiative.
Time
Tuesday, February 23, 2021 at 5:15 PM - 7:30 PM
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO WEBINAR: Lorien Jasny, University of Exeter
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
Details

Speaker:
Lorien Jasny, Lecturer in Political and Environmental Network Analysis, University of Exeter
Title:
TBA
Abstract:
TBA
Speaker Bio:
Lorien Jasny is a computational social scientist focusing on questions of public involvement in environmental decision making. Her research agenda focuses on two related themes – how the structure and dynamics of inter-organizational networks affect policy change, and how the structure and dynamics of belief networks affect behavioral change. Substantively, I study how people try to bring about societal change in response to political and environmental concerns. Methodologically, the need to grapple with these often complex phenomena requires the use and development of techniques for handling large, dynamic, and relational data sets.
Webinar:
Webinar link: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/93434519191
Passcode: nico
ID: 934 3451 9191
About the Speaker Series:
Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems and data 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, February 24, 2021 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO WEBINAR: Lightning Talks with Northwestern Fellows and Scholars!
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
Details
Description:
NICO is hosting a lightning talk seminar each term as a part of our Wednesdays@NICO seminar series. Northwestern graduate students and postdoctoral fellows are invited to participate. To sign up for future lightning talks, please visit: https://bit.ly/2lRqSXK
Webinar:
Webinar link: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/96018513447
Passcode: nico
ID: 960 1851 3447
Speakers:
TBA
About the Speaker Series:
Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems and data 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, March 3, 2021 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
Data Science Nights - March 2021 Meeting
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
5:15 PM
Details

NOVEMBER MEETING: Monday, March 22, 2021 at 5:30pm (Central) via Zoom and Gather
DATA SCIENCE NIGHTS are monthly hack nights on popular data science topics, organized by Northwestern University graduate students and scholars. Aspiring, beginning, and advanced data scientists are welcome!
AGENDA:
TBA
SPEAKER: Matt Satusky, Postdoctoral Fellow, Renaissance Computing Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
TOPIC: TBA
For more info: data-science-nights.org
Supporting Groups:
This event is supported by the Northwestern Institute for Complex Systems and the Northwestern Data Science Initiative.
Time
Monday, March 22, 2021 at 5:15 PM - 7:30 PM
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)