Computation Workshop

This weekly workshop highlights the work of those pioneering data science analytical techniques and social science and computation methods while bringing together graduate students, post-docs, and faculty all working at the nexus of computation and big, social science questions. The workshop also allows regular participants to share works in progress for feedback, fosters robust dialogue between young scholars in these emerging fields, and showcases local scholars leading pedagogical seminars on new papers or methods.

The 2022-2023 Computational Social Science Workshop will now meet each Thursday from 9:30 am to 10:50 am. 

You can join our official listserv here. Students in the Masters of Computational Social Science program are expected to attend and join the discussion by posting a comment on the first issues page of the workshop’s public repository.

Spring 2023

March 30: Structure-Function Relationships in Brain Networks                                                                          Bratislav Misic, Associate Professor & Canada Research Chair, Montreal Neurological Institute and McGill University The talk will be held in person in CLSC 101. This week’s recommended readings: (Required)  Linking Structure and Function in Marcoscale Brain Networks

March 23: Novel Dynamical Models of Wealth and Cooperation Using Information Theory                                                                          Jordan Kemp, Physics Graduate Student, Univeristy of Chicago The talk will be held in person in CLSC 101. This week’s recommended readings: (Required) Novel Dynamical Models of Wealth and Cooperation Using Information Theory (Optional) Statistical dynamics of wealth inequality in stochastic models of growth

Winter 2023

March 2: Making Amends with the Audience: Manager Use of Public Apologies and Other Amends-Making Strategies        Shereen Chaudhry, Assistant Professor of Behavioral Science, Univeristy of Chicago The talk will be held in person in Kent Hall Room 107. This week’s recommended readings: (required) Extended abstract - Public apologies - for CSS (optional) The Risk of Apologizing First
Februay 9: Causes and Consequences of Coalitional Cognition        Mina Cikara, Associate Professor of Psychology, Harvard University The talk will be held in person in Kent Hall Room 107. This week’s recommended readings: (Required) Discovering Social Groups via Latent Structure Learning
Februay 2: The Pointillistic City: Well-being and Equity in Communities and their Places        Dan O' Brien, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and Criminology and Criminal Justice, Northeastern University The talk will be held in person in Kent Hall Room 107. This week’s recommended readings: [Required] Whence the Action? the Persistence and Aggravation of Violent Crime at Addresses, Streets, and Neighborhoods
January 12: Nature, Neighborhoods, Networks and Neurons: The Relationships Between Brain Functioning and the Environment        Marc G. Berman, Associate Professor, Associate Chair, Department of Psychology, University of Chicago The talk will be held in person in Kent Hall Room 107. This week’s recommended readings: (Required) Effects of Racial Segregation on Economic Productivity in U.S. Cities (Optional) Evidence and theory for lower rates of depression in larger US urban areas (Optional) The promise of environmental neuroscience

Autumn 2022

November 17: Modelling Impressions from Faces Alexander Todorov, Professor of Behavioral Science, University of Chicago The talk will be held in person in Kent Hall Room 107. This week’s recommended readings: 'Deep models of superficial face judgments' (Optional -- review of odder methods) 'The structure and perceptual basis of social judgments from faces' (Optional -- most recent work but not fully developed) 'A data-driven, hyper-realistic method for visualizing individual mental representations of faces'
November 10: Workplace Networks and the Dynamics of Labor Organizing Suresh Naidu, Associate Professor of International and Public Affairs and Economics, Columbia University The talk will be held in person in Kent Hall Room 107. This week’s recommended readings: ‘Workplace Networks and the Dynamics of Labor Organizing’ 'Is There Any Future for a US Labor Movement?'
November 03: Could a Neuroscientist Understand A Microprocessor? Eric Jonas, Assistant Professor for the Department of Computer Science, University of Chicago The talk will be held in person in Kent Hall Room 107. This week’s recommended readings: Eric Jonas. 2022. ‘Could a Neuroscientist Understand a Microprocessor?’, Criticism for the paper on PubPeer Krakauer’s similar note on behaviour
Ocotober 27: Toward a Unifying Framework for Combining Strengths of Humans and ML Toward Better Predictive Decision- Making Hoda Heidari, Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University The talk will be held in person in Kent Hall Room 107. This week’s recommended readings: Hoda Heidari. 2022. ‘A Unifying Framework for Combining Complementary Strengths of Humans and ML toward Better Predictive Decision-Making.’