Too Lazy to Read the Paper

I am super excited to have David Lazer (1,2) on the pod today. David Lazer needs no introduction. But here at lazypod we’re polite, so he get’s one anyway. David Lazer is a University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Computer Sciences, Northeastern University, and Co-Director, NULab for Texts, Maps, and Networks. Prior to coming to Northeastern University, he was on the faculty at the Harvard Kennedy School (1998-2009). In 2019, he was elected a fellow to the National Ac...

Holy cow, it was great to chat with Brennan Klein (1). It’s another renaissance person on the Pod. In his research, Brennan attempts to understand how complex systems are able to represent, predict, and intervene on their surroundings across a number of different scales—all in ways that appear to maintain the statistical boundary between them and their environment. He uses this approach to study a range of phenomena from decision making, to experimental design, to causation and emergence in n...

Today we’re in for something a little bit different. Our guest is “Erik Hoel”, who’s not only a scientist, but also an exciting writer of books and essays. I read his fantastic first book “The Revelations” (1,2) last winters … and when I visited Boston this summer, I took a chance and sought him out. He graciously agreed to chat.For this interview I traveled out to Erik’s house that’s placed down along a long gravel road and surrounded by lakes and trees on Cape Cod. And we chatted in his fir...

Today on the Pod we are lucky to have Laura Alessandretti (1) visiting us.Laura is an Assistant Professor in Modelling of Human Dynamics at the Technical University of Denmark. She is interested in Computational Social Science, Data Science and Complex Networks. She studies aspects of human behavior combining analysis of large-scale datasets, analytical models and numerical simulations. Previously, she was a PostDoctoral researcher at the Copenhagen Centre for Social Data Science and at DTU C...

Hey Everyone, Today, we have another amazing guest. It’s Esteban Moro (1)!Esteban is a researcher, data scientist and professor at Universidad Carlos III (UC3M) in Spain and Visiting Professor at MIT Media Lab and MIT Connection Science at IDSS. Previously, I was researcher at University of Oxford. He is a native of Salamanca (Spain) … we talk about that … and hold a PhD in Physics.Esteban’s work lies in the intersection of big data and computational social science, with special attention to ...

Today’s guest on the pod is Baruch Barzel (1).Baruch has a wikipedia page (2), which summarizes his work very nicely. It says that he’s known for his work in the research of complex and stochastic systems, specifically on stochastic moment equations and universality in network dynamics.Then it says: “Also a public lecturer in Israel, and presents a weekly corner on Jewish thought in Israel National Radio.” And you’ll hear it when we talk! He’s a born communicator, a great interview.I would sa...

Today’s guest on the pod is Piotr Sapiezynski!Piotr (1) is an Associate Research Scientist at Northeastern University in Boston, MA.My interview with Piotr is part two of my three part series on of algorithms & filter bubbles. And today’s is a great conversation, not to be missed. Piotr really explain the logic and strong evidence that he (& a team of collaborators) has discovered around filter bubbles. I already knew a lot of this, but my mind was still blown.The core of Piotr’s work...

Today’s guest is Aniko Hannak. But for reasons I forgot to ask her in the podcast, everyone calls her Ancsa.Anyway, Ansca is an Assistant Professor at the computer science department of the University of Zürich (1). Ancsa’s work investigates a variety of content serving websites such as Search Engines, Online Stores, Job Search Sites or Freelance Marketplaces. In this quickly changing online ecosystem, companies track users' every move and feed the collected data into big data algorithms in o...

Today's guest is Rosemary Braun, an associate professor at the Department of Molecular Biosciences at Northwestern University.Rosemary works at the interface between mathematics, statistics, physics, and biology, where she develops and applies powerful computational methods to investigate living systems at multiple scales — from the atomic level, to the gene level, to the systems level, to the tissue/organismal level, and finally to the population level. We talk abou her 2018 paper "Uni...

It's a new season! And LazyPod is back with a strong line-up of guests. Today on the pod, for the inaugural episode of season 2, is Tina Eliassi-Rad. Tina is an incredibly accomplished scientist. She is a Professor of Computer Science at Northeastern University. She is also a core faculty member at Northeastern's Network Science Institute and the Institute for Experiential AI. In addition, she is an external faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute and the Vermont Complex Systems Center. Her ...