Congrats, Emilio!

The Complex Systems Society (CSS), which promotes development of complex systems science in and beyond Europe, has granted its junior scientific award to ISD’s Emilio Ferrara.  The award recognizes extraordinary scientific achievements by CSS researchers within seven years of completing their PhDs.

Pedro Szekely on NOVA site

ISI research lead and USC research associate professor Pedro Szekely is quoted on the PBS NOVA science show’s website about AI’s potential for disrupting sex trafficking. The September 21, 2016 NOVA Next article, "How Artificial Intelligence Can Stop Sex Trafficking," cites the DIG open-source system that transforms web pages into searchable escort ads.

WHAT'S GOING ON: LERMAN'S LIVING DATA LAB

In late July, Kristina Lerman gave the latest in ISI's "What's Going On" research breakfast series: a dive into social media via her Living Data Lab, which conducts computational analysis of behavioral data. This Friday, August 26, Aram Galstyan will continue the series on forecasting research.

WHAT'S GOING ON: TEACHING DATA SCIENCE WITH DATA SCIENCE

Call it (data science)2. In a February, 2017 seminar, Jose Luis Ambite described a project that uses data science—a concept unifying statistics, data analysis, related methods and their results—to teach biomedical researchers about data science.

Farshad Kooti is Newest ISI Ph.D.

On July 27, 2016, Farshad Kooti executed what his advisor Kristina Lerman calls “a masterful job” of defending his dissertation, “Predicting and Modeling Human Behavioral Changes Using Digital Traces.”  Emilio Ferrara, who also participated, echoed that sentiment.

Yolanda Gil elected AAAI President

Yolanda Gil has been elected president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), the world’s premiere organization of AI researchers.  A AAAI fellow since 2012, Yolanda will be the organization’s 24^th president and its fourth female leader when her term begins in two years. Until then she will serve as President-Elect.

Welcome to our 2016 Summer Intern and visitors

Nada Aldarrab

Nada Aldarrab is a graduate student at USC, working on her thesis under the supervision of Prof. Kevin Knight. She is currently working on the decipherment of historical documents (joint project with Uppsala University, Sweden). Read More

Two ISD Summer Students Recognized as this year's Director's Interns

Beginning this year, ISI has awarded the recognition of Director’s Intern to a small number of outstanding individuals participating in the summer internship program.  The ISI Director’s Interns Committee is pleased to announce that Laura Alessandretti and Keith Burghardt have been selected as this year’s Director’s Interns.  

NPR reports on computer-generated poetry created by ISDers

NPR featured a sonnet submitted by Marjan GhazviniNejad, Xing Shi, Yejin Choi, and Kevin Knight of the USC Information Sciences Institute that won a competition calling for computer-generated poems to fool judges.

DIG Sheds Light onto the Dark Web’s Shadows, Connects the Dots on Gun Traffickers

An article on the DIG project was published in the recent Viterbi Magazine by Craig Knoblock and Pedro Szekely.

http://magazine.viterbi.usc.edu/spring-2016/whats-next/dig-sheds-light-onto-the-dark-webs-shadows-connects-the-dots-on-gun-traffickers/