[Colloquium] Seminar Announcement: Making sense of the big data of science

[Ninfa Mayorga]

~Reminder~

Computation Institute Presentation - Data Lunch Seminar (DLS)

Speaker: Feng "Bill" Shi, Postdoctoral Scholar, University of Chicago
Host:  Kyle Chard
Date:  January 22, 2016
Time: 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM 
Location: The University of Chicago, Searle 240A, 5735 S. Ellis Ave.

Title: Making sense of the big data of science
 
Abstract: 
The explosion of digital information provides an unprecedented opportunity to study the dynamics that shape human understanding, investigation and certainty. This talk presents two studies that leverage large data to gain insights into the processes that shape the landscape of science: how the public thinks of science, and how science “thinks” as a system. The first study uses data on millions of online book purchases to examine popular perceptions of science in the context of U.S. political polarization. The main finding suggests that the perception of science is polarized in an unexpected way: liberals are more interested in basic and “central” topics while conservatives are more interested in focused and applied topics. In the second study, I introduce a complex system framework for scientific knowledge and apply it to the modeling of millions of papers in PubMed. The model reveals how chemicals, methods and other pieces of knowledge are combined into discoveries over time, and provides a machinery to investigate the biases, preferences and institutional forces that influence how people search in this complex space of science. 

Bio:  
Feng "Bill" Shi is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Chicago’s Knowledge Lab, working with Dr. James Evans on the modeling and analysis of knowledge generating processes, with a particular focus on the underlying forces, preferences and strategies that guide scientists in their exploration of the natural world. Bill received his PhD from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a specialty on complex networks.
 
Information:  Lunch will be provided


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