Data Skeptic

Alex Bisberg, a PhD candidate at the University of Southern California, specializes in network science and game analytics, with a focus on understanding social and competitive success in multiplayer online games. In this episode, listeners can expect to learn from a network perspective about players interactions and patterns of behavior. Through his research on games, Alex sheds light on how netwo...

In this episode we discuss the GitHub Collaboration Network with Behnaz Moradi-Jamei, assistant professor at James Madison University.  As a network scientist, Behnaz created and analyzed a network of about 700,000 contributors to Github's repository.  The network of collaborators on GitHub was created by identifying developers (nodes) and linking them with edges based on shared contributions to t...

We are joined by Abhishek Paudel, a PhD Student at George Mason University with a research focus on robotics, machine learning, and planning under uncertainty, using graph-based methods to enhance robot behavior. He explains how graph-based approaches can model environments, capture spatial relationships, and provide a framework for integrating multiple levels of planning and decision-making.

We are joined by Maciej Besta, a senior researcher of sparse graph computations and large language models at the Scalable Parallel Computing Lab (SPCL). In this episode, we explore the intersection of graph theory and high-performance computing (HPC), Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) and LLMs.

In this episode, we sit down with Yuanyuan Tian, a principal scientist manager at Microsoft Gray Systems Lab, to discuss the evolving role of graph databases in various industries such as fraud detection in finance and insurance, security, healthcare, and supply chain optimization. 

Our new season "Graphs and Networks" begins here!  We are joined by new co-host Asaf Shapira, a network analysis consultant and the podcaster of NETfrix – the network science podcast. Kyle and Asaf discuss ideas to cover in the season and explore Asaf's work in the field.

Join us for our capstone episode on the Animal Intelligence season. We recap what we loved, what we learned, and things we wish we had gotten to spend more time on. This is a great episode to see how the podcast is produced. Now that the season is ending, our current co-host, Becky, is moving to emeritus status. In this last installment we got to spend a little more time getting to know Becky and...

David Obembe, a recent University of Tartu graduate, discussed his Masters thesis on integrating LLMs with process mining tools. He explained how process mining uses event logs to create maps that identify inefficiencies in business processes. David shared his research on LLMs' potential to enhance process mining, including experiments evaluating their performance and future improvements using Ret...

Our guest today is Risa Shinoda, a PhD student at Kyoto University Agricultural Systems Engineering Lab, where she applies computer vision techniques. She talked about the OpenAnimalTracks dataset and what it was used for. The dataset helps researchers predict animal footprint. She also discussed how she built a model for predicting tracks of animals. She shared the algorithms used and the accurac...

This episode features an interview with Mélisande Teng, a PhD candidate at Université de Montréal. Her research lies in the intersection of remote sensing and computer vision for biodiversity monitoring.

In this interview with author Deborah Gordon, Kyle asks questions about the mechanisms at work in an ant colony and what ants might teach us about how to build artificial intelligence. Ants are surprisingly adaptive creatures whose behavior emerges from their complex interactions. Aspects of network theory and the statistical nature of ant behavior are just some of the interesting details you'll g...

This season it's become clear that computing skills are vital for working in the natural sciences. In this episode, we were fortunate to speak with Madlen Wilmes, co-author of the book "Computing Skills for Biologists: A Toolbox". We discussed the book and why it's a great resource for students and teachers. In addition to the book, Madlen shared her experience and advice on transitioning from aca...

In this episode, we talked shop with Hager Radi about her biodiversity monitoring work. While biodiversity modeling may sound simple, count organisms and mark their location, there is a lot more to it than that! Incomplete and biased data can make estimations hard. There are also many species with very few observations in the wild. Using machine learning and remote sensing data, scientists can bui...

Today, Ashay Aswale and Tony Lopez shared their work on swarm robotics and what they have learned from ants. Robotic swarms must solve the same problems that eusocial insects do. What if your pheromone trail goes cold? What if you're getting bad information from a bad-actor within the swarm? Answering these questions can help tackle serious robotic challenges. For example, a swarm of robots can lo...

During this season we have talked with researchers working to utilize machine learning for behavioral observations. In previous episodes, you have heard about the software people like Richard use, but you haven't heard much from scientists modifying and using these tools for specific research cases. PhD student, Richard Vogg, is working with multi-camera set-ups to track lemurs and macaques solvin...

Generative AI can struggle to create realistic animals and 2D representations often have mistakes like extra limbs and tails. If 2D wasn't hard enough, there are researchers working on generative 3D models. 3D models present an extra challenge because there is paucity of training datasets. In this episode, PhD students Sandeep and Oindrila walked us through their work on creating 3D animals using...

Today, we sat down with Dr. Ignacio Escalante Meza to learn about opiliones and treehoppers. Opiliones, known as "daddy long legs" in the US, are understudied arachnids known for their tenacious locomotor behavior, sociality, and chemical communication. Treehoppers communicate through the stems of plants using vibrations. They can signal danger, attract mates, and communicate with their offspring....

Human shipping operations have increased significantly in the past few decades.  While that means international trade and cheap goods for humans, it also means the ocean has experienced an increase in noise pollution.  This has a measurable negative impact on marine mammals and other aquatic life.  Could mathematics be the solution?  This interview explores how optimization techniques can guide vo...

Robbie Moon from the Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business joins us to discuss the analysis of unstructured data and the application of NLP methodologies towards financial data.

Have you ever participated in citizen science? Do you want to? One of the most popular platforms for crowdsourcing biodiversity data is iNaturalist. In addition to being a great science tool, the iNaturalist app can help you identify the organisms you encounter every day. We talked to Executive Director Scott Laurie about how scientists use iNaturalist. We also got to discuss what makes iNaturalis...

Do you code or are you interested in learning to code? Join us today and hear from three individuals that are at very different stages of their coding journeys. Becky Hansis-O'Neill (also our co-host this season) shares her experiences as a newbie who wants to learn more. Dr. Malia Gehan, a self-taught developer interested in studying plant phenotypes, explains why and how she and her colleagues l...

You've heard of Human Computer Interaction (HCI), now get ready for Animal Computer Interaction (ACI). Ilyena has made a career developing computer interfaces for non-human animals. She has worked with dogs, parrots, primates, and even giraffes. This is challenging because animals have a wide range of abilities and preferences. Parrots, for example, use their tongues to make selections on touchscr...

Cat observes great apes in the wild and in the lab to crack the code of their gestural communication. We discussed the challenges and benefits of studying apes in the wild vs in the lab. Cat also shared how her lab identifies and studies ape gestures. It turns out that humans are pretty good at guessing what apes are trying to communicate with one another. Join us in this episode to learn more abo...

In this episode, Kozzy discusses his endeavors to compare the cognitive abilities of humans, animals, and AI programs. Specifically, we discussed object permanence, the ability to understand an object still exists in space even when you can't see it. Our conversation traverses both philosophical and practical questions surrounding AI evaluation. We also learned about Animal AI 3, a gaming environm...

Théo Michelot has made a career out of tackling tough ecological questions using time-series data. How do scientists turn a series of GPS location observations over time into useful behavioral data? GPS tech has improved to the point that modern data sets are large and complex. In this episode, Théo takes us through his research and the application of Hidden Markov Models to complex time series da...