Events
Past Event
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Lightning Talks with Northwestern Fellows and Scholars!
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
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
Lightning Talk Speakers:
○ Sugat Dabholkar - PhD Candidate in the Learning Sciences program at the School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University.
Title: Emergent Systems Microworlds to teach and learn about complex emergent phenomena
Abstract: Learning and reasoning about complex systems is not simple. Both novices and experts often fall into the trap of level-slippage while reasoning about complex natural phenomena. Level-slippage is the confusion that arises when one expects emergent macro-level patterns to be similar to local micro-level patterns. Such confusion is people’s source of a deep misunderstanding of several patterns and phenomena in the world.
In my work, I seek to address this issue for high school science students by combining two powerful design approaches in Learning Sciences, namely, agent-based modeling of emergent systems and constructionism. We call this design approach Emergent Systems Microworlds (ESM). This approach is based on Wilensky and Papert’s restructuration theory (2010), which argues for the importance of representational infrastructure for changing fundamental aspects of knowledge encodings in a disciplinary domain. In this talk, I will discuss how agent-based restructurations in an ESM allow learners to develop fundamentally deeper insights into complex phenomena.
In an ESM-based curriculum, students explore and learn about emergent phenomena, using agent-based computational models that are designed in NetLogo (Wilensky, 1999) in the form of a microworld. In such models, an agent is a computational object with particular properties and actions. An ‘emergent’ phenomenon is modeled in terms of agents and their interactions. Microworlds are encapsulated open-ended computational exploratory environments in which a set of concepts can be explored, through interactions that lead to knowledge construction. In this talk, I will present some examples of ESM-based curricula that I designed for high school students to learn about genetics and evolution, two fundamental ideas in biology. I will discuss how the agent-based representational architecture in the ESMs allowed the students to engage in reasoning about complex systems principles in the context of the phenomena they were studying.
Bio: Sugat Dabholkar is a doctoral candidate in the Learning Sciences program at the School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University. His work involves designing technology-enhanced learning environments for learning scientific thinking, computational thinking, and complex systems thinking. Over the past four years, Sugat has developed several computational agent-based models, many of which have been incorporated into curricular units for high school students. He has conducted Professional Development programs for teachers focusing on designing Computational Thinking integrated STEM curricular units. These curricular units have been used in school settings in the US as well as in India.
○ Xuan Ma - Postdoctoral Fellow at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University
Title: Probing motor control during naturalistic movements for extending BCI use
Abstract: Most existing sensorimotor and brain computer interface (BCI) studies have investigated the mapping from motor cortex (M1) to muscles by training monkeys to perform a few instructed movements in highly restricted conditions. Motivated by the demand of extending those in-lab studies to a wider realm, we propose to explore motor control during more natural movements of unrestrained monkeys. We simultaneously recorded M1 neural activity and electromyograph (EMG) wirelessly while the monkey was in a plastic telemetry cage in which it could perform various free-form movements. We then investigated the features of these signals and the consistency of the relationship between them. In this talk, I will describe progress we have made and challenges we are facing to extend BCI use in more naturalistic contexts, and will also introduce our efforts with deep learning methods to address those challenges.
Bio: Xuan Ma is currently a postdoctoral fellow in Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University. He received the Ph.D. degree in control science and engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, in 2017. His research interests include cortically-controlled functional electric stimulation, neural motor control system modeling, and biomedical signal processing.
○ Suman Kalyan Maity - Postdoctoral Fellow at the Kellogg School of Management, CSSI and NICO
Title: Winners, Losers, and Future Achievement
Abstract: One of the most robust findings on human performance is that past achievement predicts future achievements. Indeed, prior achievements may reflect underlying, differentiating characteristics rendering past winners more predictably outperforming their non-winning counterparts in future competitions. Further, the Matthew effect posits that past victories bring reputation and recognition that can translate into tangible assets, which increase the chance for future victories. Hence even if the deck was not stacked against some in favor of others, positive feedback operating on arbitrary initial advantage can increasingly set apart winners from losers. These mechanisms lead to one fundamental principle with crucial implications: Between past winners and losers, it is the former that are more likely to win in the future. Indeed, partly due to the robustness of this principle, the idea of selecting on winners has become one of the most commonly used heuristics in identifying and nurturing talents across a remarkably wide range of domains. In this talk, we systematically test against the principle of selecting between winners and losers across various settings. We observe that whenever there existed a reward based milestone (being on the podium, entering the main draw of a Tennis tournament etc.), the athletes who had just missed it ended up outperforming the athletes who narrowly achieved the milestone in future endeavors.
Bio: Suman Kalyan Maity is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Kellogg School of Management, The Center for Science of Science & Innovation (CSSI), and NICO.
○ Rebeka O. Szabo - Pre-Doctoral Fellow at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
Title: The Micro-Dynamic Nature of Team Interaction
Abstract: Teams have become a popular organization form since well-functioning task-focused groups are basic pillars of successful organizations. While there is much interest in contemporary social science in understanding team processes that lead to efficiency, most of these researches rely heavily on self-reported data yielding static and potentially biased information and tends to overlook actual interaction processes. We propose a novel approach that allows portraying a nuanced, complex picture of problem-solving group behavior by measuring performance dynamics as it evolves in real-time, in a controlled environment. The research aims to explore how collaboration networks of small project teams evolve across time and team members, and how it relates to successful task performance. We investigate interaction patterns in escape rooms, where all teams are video recorded during the task-solving process in the same experimental environment. We expected that homogeneous distribution of interaction ties across time and team members fosters successful problem-solving. Concerning the impact of the initial social roles on the dynamics of the interaction pattern, we hypothesized that flexible, less hierarchical team structures favor for problem-solving. This research aims to advance the new science of teams' by focusing on the network micro-mechanisms that allows us to treat teams as dynamic, adaptive, task-performing systems.
Bio: Rebeka O. Szabo is a visiting Pre-Doctoral Fellow at the Kellogg School of Management. She is a PhD candidate at the Central European University's Department of Network and Data Science.
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, March 4, 2020 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Chris Bail, Duke University "Bridging Divides with Generative AI"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Chris Bail, Professor of Sociology, Political Science, and Public Policy, Duke University
Title:
Bridging Divides with Generative AI
Abstract:
Political discourse is the soul of democracy, but misunderstanding and conflict can fester in divisive conversations. The widespread shift to online discourse exacerbates many of these problems and corrodes the capacity of diverse societies to cooperate in solving social problems. Scholars and civil society groups promote interventions that make conversations less divisive or more productive, but scaling these efforts to online discourse is challenging. This talk will describe a large-scale experiment that demonstrates how online conversations about divisive topics can be improved with AI tools. Specifically, my colleagues and employ a large language model to make real-time, evidence-based recommendations intended to improve participants’ perception of feeling understood. These interventions improve reported conversation quality, promote democratic reciprocity, and improve the tone, without systematically changing the content of the conversation or moving people’s policy attitudes. These findings replicate during a half year experiment on a large social media platform.
Speaker Bio:
Chris Bail is Professor of Sociology, Political Science, and Public Policy at Duke University, where he founded the Polarization Lab. He studies how artificial intelligence shapes human behavior in a range of different settings—and social media platforms in particular. Chris is passionate about building the field of computational social science. He is the Editor of the Oxford University Press Series in Computational Social Science and the Co-Founder of the Summer Institutes in Computational Social Science. Chris received his PhD from Harvard University in 2011.
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/97722631639
Passcode: NICO2024
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, May 1, 2024 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Daniel Harris, Brown University "At the interface: physical analogy with interfacial fluid mechanics"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Daniel Harris, Assistant Professor of Engineering, Brown University
Title:
At the Interface: Physical Analogy with Interfacial Fluid Mechanics
Abstract:
Maxwell describes physical analogy as a "partial similarity between the laws of one science and those of another which makes each of them illustrate the other." Hydrodynamics has long since been a source of physical analogy, sharing similar equations with other seemingly disparate fields of physics. The focus of this talk will be on physical analogies with interfacial fluid systems, where accessible tabletop experiments can be used to investigate and communicate physical phenomena at vastly different scales. Following a brief review of some historical examples of analogy in interfacial fluid mechanics, I will describe two recent tabletop experiments developed in our lab that share similarities with certain microscopic colloidal systems. While physical analogy can be fruitfully used to advance science across disciplines, it can also be leveraged to enhance scientific communication and pedagogy.
Speaker Bio:
Daniel M. Harris is an Assistant Professor of Engineering at Brown University in the Fluids and Thermal Sciences group. Before joining Brown, Dan was a Postdoctoral Research Associate and Lecturer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Department of Mathematics. Dan received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University in 2010 and his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from MIT in 2015.
Dan’s primary research interests are in interfacial phenomena, microfluidics, and transport phenomena. His research involves an integrated experimental and theoretical approach. Dan has also received numerous awards for his scientific visualizations, including being selected as the winner of the 2016 NSF/Popular Science Visualization Challenge in Photography, as well as numerous prizes from the American Physical Society’s Gallery of Fluid Motion and Gallery of Soft Matter.
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/93585934682
Passcode: NICO2024
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, May 8, 2024 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Eleni Katifori, University of Pennsylvania "TBA"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Eleni Katifori, Associate Professor, Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania
Title:
TBA
Abstract:
TBA
Speaker Bio:
Eleni Katifori is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania. Prof Katifori’s research group are interested in understanding the physics behind the morphological and functional attributes of living organisms. They primarily focus on questions inspired by and related to biological transport networks and the elasticity and geometry of thin sheets. Professor Katifori received her Ph.D from Harvard University in 2008 and a B.S. from the University of Athens, Greece in 2002.
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/92857810876
Passcode: NICO2024
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, May 15, 2024 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Serguei Saavedra, MIT "How Do Ecological Systems Become (re)Assembled?"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Serguei Saavedra, Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, MIT
Title:
How Do Ecological Systems Become (re)Assembled?
Abstract:
One of the most iconic thought experiments in biology is what would happen if we could rewind the tape of life on Earth and play it again. Would the tape have a different story in every replay? Or is there a general order of events? The relevance of this thought experiment is not just philosophical or counterfactual, because (re)assembly processes undergone by ecological systems, from microbes to mega-fauna, are continuously replicating the experiment. By integrating theoretical and empirical work, in this talk I will provide a guideline to increase our understanding about the (re)assembly possibilities of ecological systems. Explaining and predicting the (re)assembly of ecological systems underpins our ability to develop successful interventions in bio-restoration, bio-technologies, and bio-medicine.
Speaker Bio:
Serguei Saavedra is an Associate Professor at MIT in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He is also an external faculty at Santa Fe Institute. Serguei is a theoretical ecologist focused on understanding the feasibility of observing the emergence, transformations, and regeneration of ecological systems under environmental changes. Before joining MIT in 2016, Serguei studied systems engineering in Mexico; specialized in mathematical modeling at Genoa University; completed his PhD in engineering science at Oxford University; and did his postdoctoral work at the NICO (under the mentorship of Brian Uzzi), Doñana Biological Station, and in the department of environmental systems at ETH.
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/91082510906
Passcode: NICO2024
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, May 22, 2024 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Joseph Paulsen, Syracuse University "TBA"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Joseph Paulsen, Associate Professor, Department of Physics, Syracuse University
Title:
TBA
Abstract:
TBA
Speaker Bio:
Joseph Paulsen earned a bachelor's degrees in Mathematics and Physics from St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN, and he completed his PhD in Physics at the University of Chicago with Sidney Nagel. He won a National Science Foundation CAREER Award for his work that studies connections between geometry and mechanics in thin materials. Outside of science, one of his passions is trying to squirrel away as much time as possible to ski with his 7-year-old daughter (his son and his wife are not skiers... yet).
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/94291553667
Passcode: NICO2024
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, May 29, 2024 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)