[Colloquium] JOB TALK TODAY: Aron Culotta, SELU

[Katie Casey]

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Date: Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Time: 2:30 p.m.
Place: RY 251

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Speaker:		Aron Culotta

From:		Southeastern Louisiana University

Web page:	http://www2.selu.edu/Academics/Faculty/aculotta/

Title: 		Health Informatics and Disaster Planning using Social Media Analysis

Abstract: The proliferation of social media (Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc.)
has created an unprecedented, continuous stream of messages containing
the thoughts of millions of people. The nascent field of Social Media
Analysis (SMA) combines natural language processing, data mining,
machine learning, and statistics to explore what we can infer from the
behavior of social media users. Recent research suggests that such
analysis can provide insights into public health, finance, politics,
social unrest, and natural disasters. In this sense, SMA can be
understood as an alternative to slower and more costly data collection
methods, such as surveys and opinion polls.

In this talk I will first give an overview of SMA methodology, then
present results from three recent applications: (1) estimating
national influenza rates, (2) estimating alcohol consumption volume,
(3) assessing personal risk perception prior to an impeding natural
disaster. These results suggest that relatively simple methods can
extract socially valuable insights from this rich source of data. I
will conclude with a discussion of open problems and discuss how more
sophisticated machine learning algorithms (graphical models,
semi-supervised learning) may expand the capabilities of this emerging
field of study.

Bio:  Aron Culotta obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the
University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2008, advised by Dr. Andrew
McCallum; he was a Microsoft Live Labs Fellow from 2006-2008. He
is currently an Assistant Professor at Southeastern Louisiana
University.

Host: John Goldsmith

Refreshments will be served in Ryerson 255 following the talk at 3:30.
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