Catalyzing Computing

This episode of the podcast is taken from a video interview with Peter Mirski, the chair in Management and IT at the Management Center Innsbruck or MCI. This interview was recorded as part of traversing separation with the Heidelberg Laureate Forum Foundation, a non-profit which was established in 2013 to foster mathematics and computer science. The foundation organizes the annual Heidelberg Laureate Forum (HLF), a networking conference where 200 outstanding young researchers in mathematics and computer science interact with the recipients of the most renowned prizes in the fields. In this episode, Peter Mirski discusses digital learning particularly with regards to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The video version of the interview can be found on the Heidelberg Laureate Forum’s Youtube channel.

Khari Douglas interviews Dr. Nadya Bliss, the Executive Director of Arizona State's Global Security Initiative. Before joining ASU in 2012, Bliss spent 10 years at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, most recently as a founding group leader of the Computing and Analytics Group. In this episode, she discusses the work of Arizona State University's Global Security Initiative, how to combat the spread of misinformation and the impact of sustainability on security.

Timestamps to jump to certain topics below:

Intro - (00:00)

Nadya’s Academic Background - (01:06)

Vice President for Research Strategy at ASU - (05:07)

ASU’s Global Security Initiative - (13:13)

Combating Minformation - (18:45)

National Security and Sustainability - (34:02)

Outro - (40:46)

Khari Douglas interviews Dr. Nadya Bliss, the Executive Director of Arizona State's Global Security Initiative. Before joining ASU in 2012, Bliss spent 10 years at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, most recently as a founding group leader of the Computing and Analytics Group. In this episode, she discusses her time at Lincoln Lab, what a federally funded Research and Development Center does, and the history of graph analytics.

Timestamps to jump to certain topics below:

Intro - (00:00)

Moving to the USA from the USSR -(01:00)

Working at Lincoln Laboratory - (06:30)

High Performance Computing -(13:13)

Graph Analytics - (20:47)

Deciding to Pursue a Ph.D. - (34:39)

Outro - (41:23)

This episode of the podcast was recorded live at the “This Study Shows” Sci-Mic stage at the 2020 AAAS Annual Meeting in Seattle, Washington. Khari Douglas interviews Dr. John Beieler, a former program manager at IARPA and currently the Director of Science and Technology in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. In this episode they discuss working in national security and the technical challenges the intelligence community is facing.

This is part 3 of Khari Douglas’ interview with Dr. Erik Verlage, a research scientist at MIT who creates digital learning tools for photonics education. He is developing 3-D virtual lab environments that allow users to interact with micron-scale photonic circuit components, enabling self-directed learning for the emerging photonics workforce. His research areas include integrated photonics, photovoltaic materials, and photoelectrochemistry. In this episode we discuss integrated photonics and how optical fibers work.

This is part 2 of Khari Douglas' interview with Dr. Erik Verlage, a research scientist at MIT who creates digital learning tools for photonics education. He is developing 3-D virtual lab environments that allow users to interact with micron-scale photonic circuit components, enabling self-directed learning for the emerging photonics workforce. His research areas include integrated photonics, photovoltaic materials, and photoelectrochemistry. In this episode, Erik continues to discuss building educational games and using games, virtual reality, and augmented reality for job training. If you're interested in playing one of the games mentioned on the podcast, you can reach Erik Verlage at [email protected].

Khari Douglas interviews Erik Verlage, a research scientist at MIT who creates digital learning tools for photonics education. He is developing 3-D virtual lab environments that allow users to interact with micron-scale photonic circuit components, enabling self-directed learning for the emerging photonics workforce. His research areas include integrated photonics, photovoltaic materials, and photoelectrochemistry. In this episode we discuss building educational games and using games, virtual reality, and augmented reality for job training.

This is part 2 of Khari Douglas' interview with Dr. Liz Bradley, the current Vice-chair of the CCC Council. Bradley has been with the Department of Computer Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder since January of 1993, and her current research focuses on nonlinear dynamics and chaos, as well as scientific computation and AI. In this episode we discuss nonlinear dynamics, chaos theory in pop culture, and the future of artificial intelligence.

Khari Douglas interviews Dr. Liz Bradley, the current Vice-chair of the CCC Council. Bradley has been with the Department of Computer Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder since January of 1993, and her current research focuses on nonlinear dynamics and chaos, as well as scientific computation and AI. In this episode we discuss teaching computational thinking, participating in the olympics, and using math and computing to analyze ice cores.

This is part two of Khari Douglas’ interview with Natesh Ganesh, a recent PhD graduate from the University of Massachussetts at Amherst and a current Research Fellow at the University of Colorado, Boulder through the NIST Professional Research Experience Program (PREP). Natesh's research interest lie in the fields of AI, neuromorphic hardware, thermodynamics, and the emergence of consciousness. In this episode we talk about some of the key contributors to the space of artificial consciousness and discuss the ethics of artificial consciousness.