northwestern university walking tour

Northwestern University

Discover Northwestern University’s stunning, wooded campus on the shore of Lake Michigan. This two-hour walking tour explores a wide variety of architectural styles, from 19th Century Collegiate Gothic buildings to cutting-edge, contemporary designs.

Premier tour*

Learn how the campus doubled in size in the 1960s following a lakefill plan developed by noted architect Walter Netsch, whose Brutalist structures transformed the feel of the university.

• Many tours sell out. To guarantee your space advance reservations are strongly recommended. 
• Your safety is our priority. The itinerary of this tour may be altered in accordance with health and safety policies and considerations.
• Ticket price includes entrance to the Chicago Architecture Center within 7 days of your tour. View the CAC's hours.
• Access to building interiors and public restrooms is currently unavailable.

*Premier tours are free for Deco members and above. Learn about our membership levels .

Photos From This Tour

Upcoming Northwestern University Tours

Friday may 10.

• 10:00am Buy Tickets

Saturday May 25

• 1:00pm Buy Tickets

Friday Jun 7

Saturday jun 22, friday jul 12, saturday jul 27, similar tours.

Evanston Along the Lake

This walk through Evanston's Lakeshore Historic District explores a variety of churches and residences…

• Parents & Families
• Faculty & Staff
• Academic Calendar

Northwestern University

• Segal Visitors Center
• Campus Experience
• Visiting Campus

Spectacular views and state-of-the-art interactive experiences greet visitors to Segal Visitors Center. Completed in 2014, the striking, modern building is the perfect start for a campus visit. 

The Visitor Experience

Our gateway to campus, open year-round, the building, a sophisticated design showcasing our landscape and location.

Designed by architects Perkins & Will, the Segal Visitors Center brings together a modern aesthetic, sustainable features and usable spaces.

On-site parking

The Visitors Center includes a parking garage with capacity for more than 400 cars.  Learn more about the garage and parking at Northwestern.

About Gordon and Carole Segal

Alumni and longtime supporters.

The Segal Visitors Center is named for alumni Gordon and Carole Segal.

Gordon Segal retired as CEO in 2008 and serves on the Northwestern University Board of Trustees. Carole Browe Segal is also a former CEO of Foodstuffs Inc. In addition to serving on the Board of Visitors of the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, she acted as president of the Northwestern Women's Board and received the Alumni Medal in 2008.  Since 1986, Segals have given annually to Northwestern, and a substantial gift in 2007 established the Segal Design Institute at the McCormick School of Engineering and Kellogg School of Management. 

• Museum Hours: Free and open to all.
• Support The Block

The Block Campus Art Walk

A collection of sculptural works, free and open to all.

These sixteen sculptures were gifts to Northwestern University by donors Mary and Leigh Block and other supporters. They are located outdoors and in indoor public spaces around Northwestern’s Arts Circle, as well as in a sculpture garden designed by renowned Chicago architect John Vinci.

You are invited to explore these campus art works and visit the Block Museum of Art—they are free and open to all. 

Download PDF Map and Audio Guide

Join our students on an audio walking tour!

Calling all art lovers, (847) 582-0651.

1 LOCATE a sculpture of interest by using the corresponding Campus Art Walk Map.

2 DIAL the audio tour number (847) 582-0651.

3 ENTER the object number listed on the map followed by the # key. Enter another sculpture number at any time. For instructions hit the star key. To leave comments about the cell phone tour press 0 #.

Tune into our Sculpture Tour on SoundCloud 

Digital sculpture map .

Campus Art Walk Family Activity Guide 

Keep touring: northwestern social justice tours.

The Block is pround to partner and support Social Justice Tours of Northwestern,  a collaborative project of the Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion, the Library, and the Women’s Center. While each tour has its own history of development, aims, and scholarship, in bringing them together Northwestern hopse to accentuate the intersections of those who have worked for equity, justice, and liberation on the campus and beyond. 

Continue your walk through campus with one of these experiences.

Indigenous Tour of Northwestern

Black Experience at Northwestern

Feminist Tour of Northwestern

Northwestern University Recreation

Campus maps & walking routes.

Northwestern Campus Maps  includes location details, photos and links to driving or walking directions. In 2014, the maps application was redesigned to improve the user experience. With feedback from maps users, we continue to refine the experience for users of Maps and Shuttles.  See what's new in our latest release. Need help finding routes to walk? Here are some suggested routes to try based on distance:

1-Mile  |  2-Mile  |  3-Mile  |  4-Mile  |  5-Mile  

Navigating the Map

Navigation menu: The navigation pane is a drawer that slides in from the left side of the maps page. To close or open the menu, click or tap on the tab with three vertical dots at the left side of the page.

Map refocusing: To move the map view, simply press the left mouse button down on top of the map and, while holding the button down, "pull" the mouse in the direction you'd like the map to move. On mobile devices, tap and hold the map image to move the map view. To zoom in or out, click or tap the + or – on the lower right side of the page. To switch between map and satellite view, use the pulldown at the upper right.

Switching Campus Views

To toggle between views of the Chicago and Evanston campuses, click on the “Go to…” option in the left navigation tray.

Finding Buildings

To find a building, you may want to utilize the search function at the top of the navigation menu. Simply type in a name or keyword and select a building from the results list. If you cannot find the building you are looking for, you may want to use the A-Z Index to peruse the list of all buildings. The A-Z list includes buildings from the Chicago and Evanston campuses.

More Info: For building details, click the More Info link from the building pop-up window.

Directions: To obtain directions to or from any location, click on Directions from the location pop-up window, enter your starting location in the Google maps application and select your mode of travel.

Sharing the location: You may send the link to buildings or locations identified on the map by clicking on the Email URL link in the location pop-up window.

In the left navigation, you can select which types of locations to display, such as buildings, parking, landmarks, etc. You can also view construction locations and bike racks.

Find shuttle routes under Shuttles in the left navigation tray. Select a route to see shuttle stops on the route for your selected campus.

Using the Your Location feature

The Your Location feature allow users to center the campus map to their location for easier navigation. You can use this feature for:

1. Getting directions based on your current location on campus. 2. Finding your current location, if you are new to campus.

Look for the Your Location drop-down menu, which appears at the top.

• Please be specific when entering the location address. Make sure to enter city name and state; for example, 2020 Ridge Ave., Evanston, IL.
• Tap  Your Location  to close it.

If you search via GPS, you will see a pop-up asking for permission to use your phone's GPS information. Click "OK" to allow Northwestern Maps to use your phone's GPS.  

Facility Notices

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Undergraduate Admissions

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Campus Tour

Monday, June 10, 2024 at 12:30 PM until 1:45 PM Central Daylight Time UTC -05:00

Segal Visitors Center 1841 Sheridan Road Evanston, IL 60208 United States

• UNIVERSITY SAFETY GUIDELINES: The student and guest(s) acknowledge that they will follow all  University guidelines .
• MASK EXPECTATIONS: Per University guidelines, masks are optional at this time. Surgical masks are available at the Segal Visitors Center and in the entryways of most buildings on campus.
• SYMPTOMS POLICY: If the student and/or guest(s) are exhibiting any symptoms of COVID-19 they will cancel their tour. For a full list of symptoms please see the  University's Health Monitoring page . 
• CAMPUS TOUR GUEST POLICY: A student may be accompanied by up to three (3) guests during their campus tour if space and registration allows. If additional guests arrive with the student, they will not be permitted to join the tour.
• If the student and/or guest(s) are not following safety guidelines and policies or staff instructions, they may be asked to leave the tour.
• Tours are available weather permitting. The Office of Undergraduate Admission reserves the right to cancel tours during inclement weather.
• We cannot accommodate walk-ins or late arrivals. You must arrive prior to your tour start time in order to join your scheduled tour. If you are late we will provide you with a self-guided tour. 
• If tour cancellations become necessary due to emerging University policy or health guidelines, students will receive a cancellation email at the address used for registration. Should we need to cancel tours, we will do so with as much advanced notice as possible. Emerging updates can also be found here . Please check the status of tours before traveling to Evanston for a guided tour.
• In the event that guided tours are cancelled because of changing conditions related to COVID-19, students may still come to campus to explore on their own. Self-guided tours will be available at all times in the Segal Visitors Center vestibule at 1841 Sheridan Road.

Note: If you would like to join our mailing list, please submit Counselor Contact List  form.

• Visit and Engage
• Meet Our Teams
• Student Admissions Teams

Tour Guides

Share your passion.

Tour guides share their enthusiasm for Northwestern and broad knowledge of our campus by leading campus tours for visiting students and their families. 

Application

Applications for the 2024-2025 school year have closed. If you are interested in applying next Spring, please fill out this Future Tour Guide Interest Form .

Questions about being a tour guide at Northwestern can be directed to our coordinators at [email protected] .

See Northwestern from a new perspective with the feminist campus tour

• Social Justice
• University News

A self-guided campus tour celebrates the achievements of women — and those who face gender oppression — all year round.

Northwestern’s Women’s Center began to develop its Feminist Campus Tour during the pandemic to allow community members to experience the University’s history as told by feminist voices.

At each stop on the tour people will learn about the staff and student leaders who contributed to the rights of women at Northwestern and discover gender resources available on campus.

Women’s Center Director Sarah Brown said the tour combines feminist history as well as stories of the present day, which are not often highlighted.

“There is a lot of feminist culture on campus, but it isn't as visible as some of the other things that we have going on,” Brown said. “Being able to create something that anyone can do, and anyone can listen to, has been really rewarding.”

Currently, the Feminist Campus Tour runs just over an hour. Its six stops feature audio from Northwestern’s archives or short recorded talks by tour guides from the Women’s Center, Deering Library and Meadow, the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center, the Bursar’s Office and Hobart House.

A tour stop at Deering Meadow gives visitors a glimpse of a historic campus event from 1970 and emphasizes the role of women in the antiwar movement.

Participants can hear an excerpt from an audio recording of Eva Jefferson Paterson , Northwestern’s first African American student government president, addressing a crowd of 5,000 Northwestern students gathered in response to the fatal shooting of four Kent State University student protestors by the National Guard in Ohio.

Students coalesced around a series of demands to protest the war including offering free legal aid to draft resisters, turning an on-campus armory into a community day care center, and funding a group of students to travel to Washington, D.C., to meet with members of Congress and the Nixon administration.

Brown says there are plans to add more stops to the tour, starting with the department of gender and sexuality studies at Kresge Centennial Hall and the history of Take Back the Night at the Rock. The Women’s Center welcomes suggestions from the community for more sites and stories to include.

“There are many people who have been influential women, nonbinary and trans folks on this campus, whose histories deserve to be celebrated,” Brown said.

Tour access and accessibility

The self-guided audio tour uses the Echoes app, which can be downloaded from App Store or Google Play .

Full directions and accessibility notes are included on the website Social Justice Tours at Northwestern .

Those who don’t have time to complete the whole tour can scan into the tour anytime they are at a site, by picking up a Feminist Campus Tour QR code card at the Women’s Center. Regular and large print PDF transcripts of the tour are available in the center’s front entry way for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Before beginning the tour, the Women’s Center encourages participants to take note that the full walk is about 1.7 miles, and the Women’s Center stop mentions domestic violence.

The Social Justice Tours website is a collaboration between CNAIR, the Women’s Center, Northwestern Libraries and the Office of the Provost. The site is home to the Indigenous, Black Experience and Feminist historical campus tours, and aims to make accessible the stories and contributions of the historically marginalized communities on campus.

Editor’s Picks

‘The Night Watchman’ named next One Book selection

Gita gopinath of the imf to deliver susan bies lecture on economics and public policy, the healing powers of theater, related stories.

Northwestern football ‘staying home’ with temporary enhancements to the Lanny and Sharon Martin facility on lakefront

Three promoted in business and finance division.

• Contact Overview

CENTER FOR NATIVE AMERICAN AND INDIGENOUS RESEARCH

Indigenous tour of northwestern.

October 14, 2019

Northwestern has a rich Indigenous history. Did you know that Carlos Montezuma, founder of the Society of American Indians and the first Native man to receive a medical degree, is a Northwestern alumnus (class of 1889)?  NU also produced the first Native dentist, James Johnson (Mohican), who was Northwestern’s first all-American quarterback.  Were you aware that NU’s new floor in the Welsh-Ryan Arena was sourced sustainably from the Menominee Reservation?  These are just a few of the stories in our new Indigenous Tour of Northwestern, available as a multimedia StoryMap here:  https://bit.ly/2n8Acr5   and as an audio GPS guided walking tour, with 14 stops, on the ECHOES app (download and search "Northwestern").

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY TRANSPORTATION CENTER

42nd Annual William A. Patterson Transportation Lecture

Shelley Simpson, President, J.B. Hunt Transport Services Wednesday, May 15, 2024 Read More

Executive Education

The NUTC 2024 Executive Education courses will be in person on the Evanston campus on June 12-14, 2024. Learn More

NUTC Awarded $2.2 million INTERMODAL Grant

The Northwestern University Transportation Center (NUTC) was competitively selected for a $2.2 million INTERMODAL grant by the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) of the U.S. Department of Energy. Read More

Telemobility UTC

Learn more about the Tier 1 University Transportation Center and collaborative research initiative from Northwestern University, UC-Berkeley and UT-Austin’s McCombs School of Business. LEARN MORE

Honoring the Career of Professor Emeritus Joseph Schofer

NUTC held a transportation symposium and banquet to honor Professor Emeritus Joseph Schofer’s career. Read more

2023 Leon N. Moses Distinguished Lecture in Transportation

Patrick T. Harker President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Read more

RESEARCH THAT MOVES YOU

Established in 1954 by industry representatives, Northwestern University Transportation Center (NUTC) was the first US-based university transportation center and has been recognized as a leading interdisciplinary education and research institution serving industry, government and the public ever since. Housed within the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, NUTC aims to influence national and international transportation policy, management, operations, and technological developments.

News & Events

Advancing Quantum Leadership and Community

Northwestern hosted a QED-C plenary meeting for academic, corporate, and government stakeholders.

Prof. Ian Savage Recently Chaired as an Expert in TRB Special Report

Transportation Center and Economics faculty member Ian Savage recently chaired an expert committee to assess regulatory standards and criteria for deciding whether automatic or remote-control shutoff valves should be installed on existing hazardous liquid and gas transmission pipelines.

NUTC Welcomes Four Business Advisory Council Members

The Northwestern University Transportation Center (NUTC) is pleased to welcome four new members to its Business Advisory Council (BAC) this winter.

The Northwestern University Transportation Center (NUTC) was competitively selected for a $2.2 million INTERMODAL grant by the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) of the U.S. Department of Energy.

View All Stories

The Art of Seeing Infrastructure: An Interactive Walking Tour wit...

April 11 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

How Infrastructure Works: A Public Lecture with Deb Chachra

April 11 2:30 PM - 4:00 PM

NUTC Seminar Series / Sandhouse Rail Group Event | BNSF Railway I...

April 11 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

NUTC Seminar Series: Hiba Baroud | Vanderbilt University | April ...

April 18 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

View All Events

Asynchronous Virtual Roundtables

Transportation, Logistics and Supply Chain Networks under COVID-19

NUTC is pleased to announce a series of Asynchronous Virtual Roundtables open to the public on Transportation, Logistics and Supply Chain Networks under COVID-19. This new AVR series, moderated by NUTC director Professor Hani S. Mahmassani, debuted Thursday, April 2nd.

May 14, 2020

Andrew boyle , boyle transportation, bill matheson , schneider, ben mclean , ruan transportation.

May 21, 2020

David arganbright , omnitrax.

• John Friedmann , Norfolk Southern

Eric Marchetto , Trinity Industries, Inc.

May 28, 2020

Sean barbour , macy's, suresh krishna , northern tool & equipment, saman saiy , dhl supply chain.

WATCH THE WEBINARS

Watch Webinars / Learn More:  Click below for additional recordings and featured speaker details.

Business Advisory Council

NUTC's Business Advisory Council (BAC) is comprised of senior-level executives representing all modes of transportation including shipper and carrier firms, freight forwarders and third party logistics providers, financial institutions, consulting firms, and trade associations. BAC members serve as advisers to NUTC, providing important real-world insights into the issues and problems they face in their businesses.

Additional Project Materials

• Power and Space: An Incomplete History of the Northwestern Prtizker School of Law Art Collection by Sydney Matrisciano, December 21, 2023.
• Northwestern School of Law Catalog of Artworks Displayed in October, 2023
• Northwestern School of Law Inventory of Artworks Displayed in October, 2023 Part I 
• Northwestern School of Law Inventory of Artworks Displayed in October, 2023 Part II 
• Changes in NLaw Collection Composition, 2013-2023 (Graph)

Related Northwestern University Collections

• Records of Union College of Law
• Northwestern University School of Law: A Short History, 1859-1959
• Hoops: The Bulletin of the Students of Northwestern Law School
• The Syllabus (yearbook), 1885-1939
• School of Law Scrapbooks
• School of Law Faculty and Staff Photograph Album
• Northwestern University : A History, 1850-1975
• Northwestern University Photographs Collection
• John Henry Wigmore Papers
• Joyce Hughes Papers 
• Dawn Clark Netsch Papers
• The Daily Northwestern

Additional Campus Tours

Black Experience Tour (Evanston)

The Block Campus Art Walk (Evanston)

Feminist Campus Tour (Evanston)

Indigenous Tour of Northwestern (Evanston)

NU History Tour (Evanston)

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AT NORTHWESTERN

• News & Events

Constant Stepsize Stochastic Methods in Min-Max and Variational Inequality Problems

Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences (IEMS)

A230, Technological Institute

Abstract: Many reinforcement/machine learning problems involve loss minimization, min-max optimization and fixed-point equations, all of which can be cast under the framework of Variational Inequalities (VIs). Stochastic methods like SGD, SEG and TD/Q Learning are prevalent, and their constant stepsize versions have gained popularity due to effectiveness and robustness. Viewing the iterates of these algorithms as a Markov chain, we study their fine-grained probabilistic behavior. In particular, we establish finite-time geometric convergence of the iterates distribution, and relate the ergodicity properties of the Markov chain to the characteristics of the VI, algorithm and data.

Using techniques of coupling and basic adjoint relationship, we characterize the limit distribution and how its bias depends on the stepsize. For smooth problems, exemplified by TD learning and smooth min-max optimization, the bias is proportional to the stepsize. For nonsmooth problems, exemplified by Q-learning and generalized linear model with nonsmooth link functions (e.g., ReLU), the bias has drastically different behavior and scales with the square root of the stepsize.

This precise probabilistic characterization allows for variance reduction via tail-averaging and bias reduction via Richardson-Romberg extrapolation. The combination of constant stepsize, averaging and extrapolation provides a favorable balance between fast mixing and low long-run error, and we demonstrate its effectiveness in statistical inference compared to traditional diminishing stepsize schemes.

Bio: Qiaomin Xie is an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests lie in the fields of reinforcement learning, applied probability, game theory and stochastic networks, with applications to computer and communication networks. She was previously a visiting assistant professor at School of Operations Research and Information Engineering at Cornell University (2019-2021). Prior to that, she was a postdoctoral researcher with LIDS at MIT. Qiaomin received her Ph.D. in Electrical and Computing Engineering from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2016. She received her B.S. in Electronic Engineering from Tsinghua University. She is a recipient of NSF CAREER Award, JPMorgan Faculty Research Award, Google Systems Research Award and UIUC CSL PhD Thesis Award.

Tuesday, April 9, 2024 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

A230, Technological Institute Map

Add to Calendar

Kendall Minta

The Art of Seeing Infrastructure: An Interactive Walking Tour with Deb Chachra

Arts + Engineering Initiatives

meet in lobby, Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center

In this interactive conversation and walk around the Ford Building, Olin College of Engineering Professor Deb Chachra will show us the interconnections between physical infrastructure and the social, creative, and care networks that sustain and transform the world we live in. This walk is connected with Dr. Chachra’s 2 p.m. talk on How Infrastructure Works in the ITW room (1.350) of the Ford Building; attendees are welcome to join both or either program.

Speaker biography: Olin College of Engineering Professor Deb Chachra is the author of How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World (Riverhead/Torva, 2023), which was named a Best Book of 2023 by Publishers Weekly. She writes, thinks, builds, and speaks widely on themes of technology and society. Her work and ideas have been supported by the Sloan Foundation, the Autodesk Foundation, and others, and she received an NSF CAREER Award for research on engineering education. She has written for outlets including the Atlantic and Nature and a regular column for the American Society for Engineering Education’s Prism magazine, as well as her own long-running online newsletter, Metafoundry.

Related Info

Register Now

Thursday, April 11, 2024 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

meet in lobby, Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center Map

Alice Boone

How Infrastructure Works: A Public Lecture with Deb Chachra

ITW (Room 1.350), Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center

Our infrastructural systems, including water, electricity, transportation, and communications, are what make our lives as we know them possible. Come learn more about why they work the way they do and how they came to be built, and what that means for our shared future. Light refreshments to follow.

Speaker biography: Olin College of Engineering Professor Deb Chachra is the author of How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World (Riverhead/Torva, 2023), which was named a Best Book of 2023 by Publishers Weekly . She writes, thinks, builds, and speaks widely on themes of technology and society. Her work and ideas have been supported by the Sloan Foundation, the Autodesk Foundation, and others, and she received an NSF CAREER Award for research on engineering education. She has written for outlets including the Atlantic and Nature and a regular column for the American Society for Engineering Education’s Prism magazine, as well as her own long-running online newsletter, Metafoundry .

Thursday, April 11, 2024 at 2:30 PM - 4:00 PM

ITW (Room 1.350), Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center Map

Visions of Tomorrow: AI-Driven Investment Strategies

The Garage, North Campus Parking Garage/Academic Building

Join us at The Garage to hear from Xiaochen Zhang , Founder & CEO at FinTech4Good, who will provide insight on the near future and the ideas pushing it forward. With over 20 years of experience in financial markets and international development, Zhang has a passion for leveraging emerging technologies to create a better world. As the Global Head of Innovation & GTM at Amazon Web Services (AWS), he led a team of technical and operational staff in developing and delivering cutting-edge solutions for our public sector customers in areas such as digital assets, central bank digital currency, green finance, and regulatory and supervisory technologies. He has also been a venture partner, mentor, advisor, and speaker for various innovation, incubation, and acceleration programs around the world.

Thursday, April 11, 2024 at 5:15 PM - 6:00 PM

The Garage, North Campus Parking Garage/Academic Building Map

AI@NU Graduate Student Group Speaker PHONT: Multi-award Winning AI Startup Envisions to "Make Subtitles as Diverse as Language Itself"

Hailing from Germany, Phont stands at the forefront of AI technology, with a mission to revolutionize the media industry through enhanced subtitles. Their groundbreaking approach aims to blend UX design with artificial intelligence to produce subtitles that go beyond text, capturing the essence of spoken language—its emotions, dialects, and nuances. This is Phont's answer to the limitations of conventional captioning, striving to make media content more accessible and enjoyable for all audiences, including those who are hard of hearing. With their vision, Phont is poised to redefine global streaming standards. Their recent accolades include presentations at the International Film Festival in Berlin, victories in startup competitions like hessian.AI, and now, they're eager to share their journey and aspirations with the AI@NU community.

Friday, April 12, 2024 at 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM

Vispi Karkaria

Statistics and Data Science Seminar: "Surprises in binary linear classification"

Department of Statistics and Data Science

Ruan Conference Room – lower level, Chambers Hall

Surprises in binary linear classification

Andrea Montanari, John D. and Sigrid Banks Professor in Statistics and Mathematics, Stanford University

Abstract: Machine learning calls into question our understanding of statistical methodology, both because of the new classes of statistical models used, and because of the new regimes and use cases. I will focus on the latter aspect by considering the (supposedly) well understood case of binary linear classification. I will discuss a certain number of phenomena that are not captured by classical statistical theory: interpolation, universality, data subsampling, tractability. High-dimensional asymptotics will be used to shed light on these behaviors.

Friday, April 12, 2024 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Ruan Conference Room – lower level, Chambers Hall Map

EES Seminar Series- Green is the New Grey: the Novel Application of Machine and Deep Learning Models to Identify Critical Structure-Function Relationships to Improve Green Infrastructure Performance and Benefits- Haley Lewis

McCormick - Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE)

A236, Technological Institute

Friday, April 12, 2024 at 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM

A236, Technological Institute Map

Andrew Liguori

STEM Careers in the Public Sector: from National Labs to Police Accountability to the Federal Government.

CIERA - CIERA Connections

8th floor, Cafe, 1800 Sherman Avenue

Eve Chase Data Scientist in the Public Sector

Title: STEM Careers in the Public Sector: from National Labs to Police Accountability to the Federal Government.

Description:

Dr. Eve Chase is a data scientist with over four years of experience in the public sector. Currently, she works in the U.S. General Service Administration’s Office of the Inspector General (GSA OIG), where she provides data-driven support for investigations of waste, fraud, and abuse involving GSA programs. Previously, she worked as a data scientist in the City of Chicago’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability, where she used data analytics to highlight patterns and practice of police misconduct in Chicago. She also worked as a data scientist on multiple U.S. government programs as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Los Alamos National Laboratory. In this talk, Eve will provide an overview of her career trajectory in government data science and offer actionable tips for scientists considering a transition from academia to the public sector. Eve completed her Ph.D. in Astronomy at Northwestern University in Vicky Kalogera’s group, where she applied data science techniques to the detection of gravitational waves and kilonovae. She also has a B.S. in Physics from the College of William & Mary.

RSVP by April 10:

Monday, April 15, 2024 at 11:45 AM - 1:00 PM

8th floor, Cafe, 1800 Sherman Avenue Map

William Vercellone

CS Seminar: Simpler Machine Learning Models for a Complicated World (Cynthia Rudin)

Department of Computer Science (CS)

KGH 1120, Kellogg Global Hub

In collaboration with the Kellogg Operations Department

Monday / CS Seminar April 15th / 12:15 PM In Person / Kellogg Global Hub 1120

Speaker Cynthia Rudin , Duke University

Talk Title Simpler Machine Learning Models for a Complicated World

Abstract While the trend in machine learning has tended towards building more complicated (black box) models, such models have not shown any performance advantages for many real-world datasets, and they are more difficult to troubleshoot and use. For these datasets, simpler models (sometimes small enough to fit on an index card) can be just as accurate. However, the design of interpretable models is quite challenging due to the "interaction bottleneck" where domain experts must interact with machine learning algorithms.

I will present a new paradigm for interpretable machine learning that solves the interaction bottleneck. In this paradigm, machine learning algorithms are not focused on finding a single optimal model, but instead capture the full collection of good (i.e., low-loss) models, which we call "the Rashomon set." Finding Rashomon sets is extremely computationally difficult, but the benefits are massive. I will present the first algorithm for finding Rashomon sets for a nontrivial function class (sparse decision trees) called TreeFARMS. TreeFARMS, along with its user interface TimberTrek, mitigate the interaction bottleneck for users. TreeFARMS also allows users to incorporate constraints (such as fairness constraints) easily.

I will also present a "path," that is, a mathematical explanation, for the existence of simpler-yet-accurate models and the circumstances under which they arise. In particular, problems where the outcome is uncertain tend to admit large Rashomon sets and simpler models. Hence, the Rashomon set can shed light on the existence of simpler models for many real-world high-stakes decisions. This conclusion has significant policy implications, as it undermines the main reason for using black box models for decisions that deeply affect people's lives.

This is joint work with my colleagues Margo Seltzer and Ron Parr, as well as our exceptional students Chudi Zhong, Lesia Semenova, Jiachang Liu, Rui Xin, Zhi Chen, and Harry Chen. It builds upon the work of many past students and collaborators over the last decade.

Here are papers I will discuss in the talk:

Rui Xin, Chudi Zhong, Zhi Chen, Takuya Takagi, Margo Seltzer, Cynthia Rudin Exploring the Whole Rashomon Set of Sparse Decision Trees, NeurIPS (oral), 2022. https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.08040

Zijie J. Wang, Chudi Zhong, Rui Xin, Takuya Takagi, Zhi Chen, Duen Horng Chau, Cynthia Rudin, Margo Seltzer TimberTrek: Exploring and Curating Sparse Decision Trees with Interactive Visualization, IEEE VIS, 2022. https://poloclub.github.io/timbertrek/

Lesia Semenova, Cynthia Rudin, and Ron Parr On the Existence of Simpler Machine Learning Models. ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (ACM FAccT), 2022. https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.01755

Lesia Semenova, Harry Chen, Ronald Parr, Cynthia Rudin A Path to Simpler Models Starts With Noise, NeurIPS, 2023. https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.19726

Biography TBA

Monday, April 15, 2024 at 12:15 PM - 1:15 PM

KGH 1120, Kellogg Global Hub Map

Wynante R Charles

Next Steps in R Workshop Series (Virtual): Predictive modeling with tidymodels: day 1

Northwestern IT Research Computing and Data Services

Expand your R skills beyond the basics at these one-hour remote lessons. You do not need to attend each session to participate - each week is a new lesson.

Each one-hour session meets via Zoom on Tuesdays at noon CDT. 

Predictive modeling with tidymodels: day 1 This workshop will cover the basics of the Tidymodels package. The tidymodels framework is a collection of R packages for modeling and machine learning using tidyverse principles. We will focus on how tidymodels can be used to perform exploratory data analysis, feature engineering, model tuning and selection, and model evaluation through simple models. The workshop is not meant to be an exhaustive description of all the tools within tidymodels or the types of models that can be made but to give a brief overview of the model creation process that can later be adapted to specific data and research questions. A second one will follow this workshop. Prerequisites:  Participants should be familiar with R at an introductory level.

Tuesday, April 16, 2024 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

Leticia Vega

James Lang's Policy to Pedagogy: Evaluating Artificial Intelligence for Teachers and Learners

Searle Center Events

Rebecca Crown Center West Tower, Rebecca Crown Center

Building upon arguments first presented in his book Distracted , Jim Lang will present a framework for guiding the use of artificial intelligence in the design of college courses and assessments. Our thinking about new technological tools often starts with making decisions about policies, which dominated the first conversations about ChatGPT in higher education. But while policy thinking should not have the first or last word in course or assessment design, it can spur reflection about our goals both as teachers and learners. This interactive lecture will provide opportunities for faculty members to review their assessment strategies, and develop new ones, in light of the recommended framework.

If you have any questions, contact Veronica Womack ([email protected])

Co-sponsored with the Office of the Provost as part of Northwestern's Generative AI Advisory Committee's efforts to promote pedagogical opportunities related to ongoing advances in related technologies. Made possible by the Klopsteg Lecture Fund

Tuesday, April 16, 2024 at 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM

Rebecca Crown Center West Tower, Rebecca Crown Center Map

Veronica Womack

WED@NICO SEMINAR: Alina Arseniev-Koehler, UC San Diego "Disease Frames and their Consequences for Stigma, Advocacy, and Research Funds"

Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)

Lower Level, Chambers Hall

Alina Arseniev-Koehler, Postdoctoral Fellow, UC San Diego in the Division of Biomedical Informatics, and Assistant Professor of Sociology, Purdue University

Disease Frames and their Consequences for Stigma, Advocacy, and Research Funds

Illnesses are often understood through frames: for instance, as battles, journeys, or even as criminal acts. Framing highlights some aspects of a condition, while hiding other aspects; this can be stigmatizing or motivating. This ongoing research with Rachel Best studies disease frames at scale, including their consequences for stigma, advocacy, and research funds. We examine 6 frames for 106 conditions in news media, using a combination of word embedding and regression methods. Our corpus includes over four million news and magazine articles and news broadcasts, about health and illness, and published between 1980 and 2018. First, we examine how diseases are framed around gender, medicalization, criminalization, and philanthropy, as well as battle and journey metaphors. Second, we examine the extent to which each frame is associated with diseases’ level of stigma, advocacy, and amount of federal research funding. Finally, we examine relationships between these frames: to what extent do illness frames compete versus cohere?

Speaker Bio:

Alina Arseniev-Koehler is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Purdue University, currently on leave for postdoctoral training in biomedical informatics at UC San Diego. She specializes in cultural sociology, the cultural determinants of heath including social stigma, and computational methods (especially, natural language processing). Her research has been featured in top tier outlets including PNAS, American Journal of Public Health, and American Sociological Review.

In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/92596866667 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.

Wednesday, April 17, 2024 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map

Emily Rosman

Text Analysis with the Gale Digital Scholar Lab (Online)

Northwestern Libraries

The Gale Digital Scholar Lab is a tool designed to introduce researchers to text analysis through the facilitation of building and cleaning data sets and providing easy to use algorithms. During this session attendees will learn how to create a data set, clean it, and then run an analysis, all using the Digital Scholar Lab.

This workshop is geared toward Northwestern students, staff, and faculty.

This workshop will be presented via Zoom by Geoff Morse, Interim Head of the Research Services work group.

A Northwestern Zoom account is required to access the session.

Wednesday, April 17, 2024 at 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Geoff Morse

SONIC Speaker Series with Hancheng Cao: Evaluating and Designing Computing Systems for the Future of Work

SOC - Department of Communication Studies

1-483, Frances Searle Building

From collaborative software to generative AI, computing technologies are redefining the way we work, communicate and collaborate. Yet with the growing complexities of computing platforms, it becomes increasingly challenging to foresee their impacts on human behavior, leading to not only poor user experience but also problematic applications that mirror and amplify societal issues. How can we better understand machine behavior and machine-mediated user behavior over computing platforms? How can we build applications that align with our needs and values with emerging computing technologies? My research aims to answer these questions through novel measurements and computational methods inspired by social science insights, such as mining increasingly available large-scale data on how people build, adopt, and interact with computing systems. In this talk, I will present my work demonstrating this approach in the future of work context, where I develop data-driven, AI-powered and human-centered methods to understand, evaluate and design sociotechnical systems at the workplace. I will present an analysis of remote meeting experience through mining millions of meetings, a study on how an AI algorithm can be built to predict team fracture, and a development and evaluation study on a generative AI-based scientific feedback system for researchers. These projects exemplify the opportunities to leverage computation to better understand, support and augment work practices.

Hancheng Cao is a final year P.h.D. candidate in computer science (with a P.h.D. minor in management science and engineering) at Stanford University working with Prof. Daniel McFarland and Prof. Michael Bernstein. He works in the field of computational social science and human computer interaction, where he mines large-scale data, develops algorithms and builds systems to study human behavior. Recognized as a Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellow, he has published 30 academic papers across fields, with three works he led recognized as Best Paper (CHI 2023) or Honorable Mention (CSCW 2020, CHI 2021) awards. His research has also appeared in leading social science journals (e.g. American Sociological Review). His research has been widely covered in the media, including Wired, Forbes, New Scientist, TED among others.

Wednesday, April 17, 2024 at 1:15 PM - 2:00 PM

1-483, Frances Searle Building Map

Scikit-Learn Workshop Series (Virtual): Part 1 - The Data Science Pipeline

Scikit-Learn is one of the major libraries for machine learning in Python. This series comprises four workshops designed to give you a map of Scikit-Learn’s different functionalities and place you on firm ground to start using it for your machine-learning projects.

Part 1 - The Data Science Pipeline This workshop introduces the fundamentals of machine learning (ML): How does ML differ from statistics? Which types of problems are best suited for ML? We will explore different real-world problems and learn to distinguish between supervised and unsupervised learning. You will become familiar with the main stages of the data science pipeline: data wrangling, cleaning and pre-processing, modeling, optimization and model validation, and post-processing and visualization.

Prerequisites: Basic familiarity with Python is required. Familiarity with NumPy is highly recommended. No previous machine learning or statistics experience is necessary, but it will be helpful.

Monday, April 22, 2024 at 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Jennifer A. Petersen - "From Voice to Information: A Media History of Speech in the Law"

Science in Human Culture Program - Klopsteg Lecture Series

Hagstrum 201, University Hall

Jennifer A. Petersen

"From Voice to Information: A Media History of Speech in the Law"

When we protect freedom of speech, just what forms of expression are included? Do we mean the expression of people engaged in advocacy, art, or entertainment? Or do we include the circulation of artifacts such as money, receipts, and lists? Questions such as these ask for a definition of speech as a legal category. This talk will draw on media theory and legal history to explore the history of this category and its linkage to changes in the media of communication. What was once a category bounded by the human voice, the talk will argue, has become a more abstract, disembodied one centered not on voice but rather on information. To understand how this happened, we need to examine how media technologies and the knowledges associated with them have shaped what we mean by “speech”.

Jennifer A. Petersen researches the implications of media technologies for the law and the historical constitution of emotion and reason in communication research, law, technology and public culture. She has written extensively on hate speech, the First Amendment and media technologies, and the history of media technologies and communication research. Her current research focuses on the history of conceptions of agency and intelligence in artificial intelligence, and the implications of AI for legal constructions of personhood.

Monday, April 22, 2024 at 4:30 PM - 6:00 PM

Hagstrum 201, University Hall Map

Janet Hundrieser

TechTIME Lecture - April 2024 - Teaching and Learning AI / Machine Learning Research on Unstructured Health Data

Feinberg Academy of Medical Educators - FAME

James Lee, PhD Associate Professor & Associate University Librarian of Academic Innovation Learning Objectives

1) Discuss using AI with unstructured health data.

2) Introduce health science students to AI research projects.

3) Visualize large health data sets in a variety of contexts.

Tuesday, April 23, 2024 at 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

SPREE Seminar Series - From Dots In Space To Space-Time-Magnitude Connections: Evolution of Energy Release Research As Applied to Damage Mechanics and Induced Seismicity- Jesse Hampton

Abstract: Current understanding of using energy releases for both fields of experimental damage mechanics or induced seismicity primarily focuses on parametric analysis, e.g., individual traits of energy releases such as magnitude and rate of release. But the extensive information embedded in the organizational patterns of energy releases has hardly been explored. Here we study the specific organizational signatures that they possess. A key theme to this work is to show that energy release organizational signatures (topology) are physically connected to fundamental mechanisms of fracture and slip—but demands a perspective shift to an interdisciplinary approach that combines mechanics and data science. We move from understanding energy releases in time only, to connecting them in space-time-magnitude-mechanism and understanding the shape of these multi-dimensional networks as tree structures and their evolution. This presentation will demonstrate the analyses that extend single scale acoustic emission (AE) data into multi-scale connected networks that can inform our understanding of stress evolution.

Bio: Jesse Hampton is an Assistant Professor in Civil and Geological Engineering (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. At the intersection of humanity, Earth systems, and the infrastructure needed for travel and power generation, there exists an interdisciplinary field where civil engineering, geological engineering, sustainability, geophysics, and data science are inextricably linked. At this intersection, Dr. Hampton's research focuses on a few cross-cutting themes including multiscale damage (e.g., from microcracks to earthquakes), nondestructive evaluation (NDE) techniques (e.g., from acoustic emissions (AEs) to distributed fiber optic sensing), and artificial intelligence (e.g., from optimization to deep learning). The goal of Dr. Hampton's research is to predict and mitigate damage in Earth and Civil Engineering systems from the micro- to field-scales to enhance infrastructure sustainability. Prior to joining the UW-Madison faculty, Dr. Hampton worked in geomechanics and geophysics research for both Halliburton and New England Research. He obtained his PhD in 2015 from Colorado School of Mines. Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=mbTGfxsAAAAJ&hl=en. Research Group Website:https://geod.wisc.edu/

Wednesday, April 24, 2024 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

WED@NICO SEMINAR: Simbarashe Nkomo, Emory University "Exploring the Emergence of Complex Dynamics in Networks of Belousov-Zhabotinsky Oscillators"

Simbarashe Nkomo, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Oxford College of Emory University

Exploring the Emergence of Complex Dynamics in Networks of Belousov-Zhabotinsky Oscillators

Simbarashe Nkomo is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Oxford College of Emory University. His research interests include the synchronization behavior in networks of coupled chemical oscillators. He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from West Virginia University in 2014 and a Master of Science from the University of Zimbabwe in 2007.

In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/97359095225 Passcode: NICO2024

Wednesday, April 24, 2024 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

Generative Artificial Intelligence (ChatGPT): What Students Need to Know (Hybrid)

Forum Room, 2nd floor, University Library

Students are grappling with questions about generative artificial intelligence (e.g. ChatGPT, Dall-E, Gemini): Is everyone else using it? Does my instructor use it? Can I use it for course assignments? Is it considered cheating? What are any drawbacks to using it? This session will give students answers to these questions. We will demonstrate how to use some of these new tools and will point out the pros and cons of using them. This session is geared toward students and assumes participants have little-to-no familiarity with generative artificial intelligence.

This workshop will be presented in a hybrid format, online via Zoom and in person in the University Library's Forum Room, by Tracy Coyne, Distance Learning and Professional Studies Librarian; Frank Sweis, User Experience Librarian; and Jeannette Moss, User Education Librarian.

This workshop is geared toward Northwestern students. A Northwestern Zoom account is required to access the online session.

Thursday, April 25, 2024 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

Forum Room, 2nd floor, University Library Map

Tracy Coyne

NUTC Seminar Series: "Robust CAV Coordinated In-Vehicle Routing leveraging Game Theories, Machine Learning, and Distributed Optimization"- Dr. Lili Du | University of Florida | April 25, 2024

Northwestern University Transportation Center

Ruan Conference Room, Chambers Hall

Dr. Lili Du

University of Florida

In recent years, wireless communication, onboard computation facilities, and advanced sensor techniques have enabled a well-connected and data-rich transportation system, i.e., connected vehicle systems (CVS). Even though the CVS has been granted a great potential to smartly route travelers (or CVs) to avoid traffic congestion, scholars have recognized that as the majority of vehicles become CVs, current real-time information provision and routing methods may worsen traffic congestion, given each CV still selfishly and independently chooses its own shortest path (independent routing). This inherent deficiency of the current routing methods is rooted in the inconsistency between system performance and individual vehicles' route choice behavior. Motivated by this view, our studies have introduced a novel Coordinated In-Vehicle Routing Mechanism (CRM), which used various game theories to coordinate CVs' routing decisions en route to address the overreaction phenomenon and the associated flash crowds. Drawing upon the foundational seed model, our research delved deeper into the development of information perturbation-aided CRM (IP-CRM) and correlated game-based CRM (CeRM), which strategically alter traffic information provision (travel time or route choice preferences) to CVs for mitigating network-wide congestion. Our investigations embraced a multidisciplinary approach, including computer simulation, machine learning, distributed optimization, and gradient coding schemes, to identify optimal information perturbation schemes, recommend optimal route choice preferences, tackle scalability challenges, and enhance the robustness of the CRMs against communication failures. Numerical experiments built upon the Sioux Falls network validated and confirmed the merits of our approaches. Bio:

Dr. Lili Du is currently working as an NRC renowned Research Associate at the Federal Highway Administration-Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center, and she is also a Professor in the Civil and Coastal Engineering Department, University of Florida. She received her Ph.D. degree in Decision Sciences and Engineering Systems with a minor in Operations Research and Statistics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2008. Dr. Du's research is characterized by integrating operations research, network modeling, game theory, control theory, AI, and statistical methods into traffic flow analysis, transportation system analysis, urban planning, and network modeling. Her current research mainly focuses on the impacts of connected and/or autonomous vehicles and electric vehicles, mobility on demand, smart curb, network resilience, and traffic flow analysis. Dr. Du's research has been published in Transportation Research Part B, Part C, and Part D, IEEE Transactions on ITS, Networks, and Spatial Economics. Her research has been funded by NSF, State DOTs, STRIDE UTC, FMRI UTC, and Toyota InfoTechnology Center. Dr. Du was a recipient of the NSF CAREER award in 2016. Her project, "Driverless City" won the First Nayar Prize at IIT. She is the founding and active chair of both TRB AEP40-4 subcommittee on Emerging Technologies in Network Modeling and ASCE-T&DI Artificial Intelligence in Transportation Committee. She serves as an editor for Transportation Research Part B: Methodological and an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems.

Thursday, April 25, 2024 at 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Ruan Conference Room, Chambers Hall Map

Andrea Cehaic

Visions of Tomorrow: AI's Healthcare Disruption

Join us at The Garage to hear from Dr. Yuan Lu , Chief AI Officer & Associate Professor at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, who will provide insight on the near future and the ideas pushing it forward.

Dr. Yuan Luo is an established researcher and thought leader in biomedical machine learning, natural language processing, time series analysis, computational phenotyping and integrative genomics. He has demonstrated records of leading and managing AI/ML R&D with multimillion dollar budget.

Thursday, April 25, 2024 at 5:15 PM - 6:00 PM

Statistics and Data Science Seminar: "t-SNE and Local 1D Structures"

t-SNE and Local 1D Structures

Anna Ma, Assistant Professor, UC Irvine, Department of Mathematics

Abstract: Data visualization is a vital task in data exploration, especially in the presence of large-scale data sets. Rudimentary approaches for data visualization, such as scatter plots, histograms, and pie charts, can only represent a small number (typically, 1-2) of features at a time. Furthermore, such methods often lack the sophistication to capture higher dimensional structures in their representations. Fortunately, new approaches to high-dimensional data visualization, such as the t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE) algorithm, have been proposed in recent years. One of t-SNE’s more interesting properties is its tendency to preserve local linear data structures while successfully representing clusterable data. Despite its wide success, there is limited mathematical understanding of the algorithm. In this talk, we will discuss the t-SNE algorithm and present theoretical guarantees for t-SNE’s output to answer the question: does t-SNE preserve 1-dimensional curves? The work presented is joint with Kat Dover and Roman Vershynin.

Friday, April 26, 2024 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Colloquium: Shih-Chieh Hsu: "Unravelling Dark Universe with Artificial Intelligence"

Physics and Astronomy Colloquia

L211, Technological Institute

Compelling experimental evidence strongly supports searches for new particles predicted by theories Beyond the Standard Model (BSM). Such searches are connected to fundamental questions among the highest priorities of particle physics like dark matter, baryogengesis and hierarchy problems. At the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the ATLAS experiment is ideally suited for detecting heavy states like heavy Higgs and dark scalars that decay to particles with high transverse momentum (pT) to the beam. In this talk I will present the state-of-the-art heavy Higgs and dark scalar searches in ATLAS. Specifically I will highlight how Artificial Intelligence plays a role to advance and expand the LHC physics program. This includes the improvement of on-going analyses through novel algorithm developments and new opportunities for discovery with accelerated Machine Learning which can address big data challenges from the upcoming High-Luminosity LHC.

Shih-Chieh Hsu, Professor, University of Washington

Host: Ian Low

Friday, April 26, 2024 at 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

L211, Technological Institute Map

Scikit-Learn Workshop Series (Virtual): Part 2 - Supervised Learning – Regression

Part 2 - Supervised Learning – Regression Regression analysis is a powerful tool for uncovering the associations between features of your data (known as independent variables) and dependent variables (usually denoted by Y). In this workshop, you will learn to identify ML tasks suited for regression analysis, appropriately process independent variables, train and evaluate models, and generate predictions. We will also discuss some common pitfalls and assumptions of the chosen modeling techniques.

Monday, April 29, 2024 at 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Panel | Division of Cardiology

Feinberg School of Medicine Events

Hughes Auditorium, Robert H Lurie Medical Research Center

Enjoy this dynamic panel discussion with scholars and researchers, Northwestern's top early career physician-scientists who are dramatically changing the landscape of cardiovascular science. Expect a provocative and inspiring exchange of new ideas: data science, aging, augmented intelligence, gene therapy and metabolism. Learn more about how philanthropic support of their research improves patient care and engage with our panelists in a conversation about these breakthroughs.

Tuesday, April 30, 2024 at 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM

Hughes Auditorium, Robert H Lurie Medical Research Center Map

Kathleen Praznowski

McC Engineering Master of Science Program Fair May 2024

Office of Professional Education (OPE)

Main Lobby, Technological Institute

Please join us for a casual fair to learn about grad school opportunities here at Northwestern!

Admissions teams and other program faculty and staff will be there to share information and answer questions. We will have materials to hand out and will be open to speaking one-on-one and looking at resumes. You are welcome to join whether you know which program interests you or you’d just like to learn more about the possibilities!

Lunch will be provided. We look forward to seeing you there!

The Master of Science programs featured:

- Master of Science in Biotechnology (MBP)

- Master of Science in Machine Learning and Data Science (MLDS)

- Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence (MSAI)

- Master of Science in Project Management (MPM)

- Master of Science in Robotics (MSR)

- Master of Science in Engineering Design Innovation (EDI)

- Master of Science in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (TAM)

- Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering

- Master of Science in Material Science and Engineering

- Master of Science in Computer Engineering

- Master of Science in Computer Science

- Master of Science in Electrical Engineering

- Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering

- MS in Chemical and Biological Engineering

- Master of Science in Energy and Sustainability (MSES)

- Master of Science in Law Program

Wednesday, May 1, 2024 at 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Main Lobby, Technological Institute Map

Svetlana Korzeniowski

WED@NICO SEMINAR: Chris Bail, Duke University "TBA"

Chris Bail, Professor of Sociology, Political Science, and Public Policy, Duke University

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. A Guggenheim Fellow and Carnegie Fellow, Chris's writing appears in leading outlets such as Science, Nature, the New York Times, and Harvard Business Review. His 2021 book, Breaking the Social Media Prism, was featured in the New York Times, the New Yorker, and described as “masterful,” by Science Magazine. 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.

In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/97722631639 Passcode: NICO2024

Wednesday, May 1, 2024 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

Scikit-Learn Workshop Series (Virtual): Part 3 - Supervised Learning – Classification

Part 3 - Supervised Learning – Classification Classification is the problem of identifying which class or category (label) an observation (features) belongs to within a pre-defined set of categories. In this workshop, you will learn to identify classification problems, prepare the features and label data for modeling, train and evaluate models, and generate predictions. We will also discuss some common pitfalls and assumptions of the chosen modeling techniques.

Monday, May 6, 2024 at 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM

WED@NICO SEMINAR: Daniel Harris, Brown University "At the interface: physical analogy with interfacial fluid mechanics"

Daniel Harris, Assistant Professor of Engineering, Brown University

At the Interface: Physical Analogy with Interfacial Fluid Mechanics

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.

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.

In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/93585934682 Passcode: NICO2024

Wednesday, May 8, 2024 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

Introduction to the HathiTrust Research Center (Online)

The HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC) enables beginner-to-advanced text analysis on the HathiTrust Digital Library collection. This workshop will focus on the beginner features of the HTRC, including building a workset and running the built-in algorithms.

This workshop is presented online via Zoom by Jamie Carlstone, Authority Metadata Librarian.

A Northwestern Zoom account is required to access this session.

Wednesday, May 8, 2024 at 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Jamie Carlstone

Visions of Tomorrow: Building Responsible AI

Join us at The Garage to hear from Arjun Ravi Kannan , Director of Data Science Research at Discover, who will provide insight on the near future and the ideas pushing it forward.

Thursday, May 9, 2024 at 5:15 PM - 6:00 PM

Statistics and Data Science Seminar: "T-Stochastic Graphs"

T-Stochastic Graphs

Karl Rohe, Professor of Statistics, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Abstract: Previous statistical approaches to hierarchical clustering for social network analysis all construct an "ultrametric" hierarchy. While the assumption of ultrametricity has been discussed and studied in the phylogenetics literature, it has not yet been acknowledged in the social network literature. We show that "non-ultrametric structure" in the network introduces significant instabilities in the existing top-down recovery algorithms. To address this issue, we introduce an instability diagnostic plot and use it to examine a collection of empirical networks. These networks appear to violate the "ultrametric" assumption. We propose a deceptively simple class of probabilistic models called T-Stochastic Graphs which impose no topological restrictions on the latent hierarchy. Perhaps surprisingly, this model generalizes the previous models. To illustrate this model, we propose six alternative forms of hierarchical network models and then show that all six are equivalent to the T-Stochastic Graph model. These alternative models motivate a novel approach to hierarchical clustering that combines spectral techniques with the well-known Neighbor-Joining algorithm from phylogenetic reconstruction. We prove this spectral approach is statistically consistent.

Friday, May 10, 2024 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM