<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; 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-webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div class=""><span class="" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2; font-size: large;">UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO</span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div class=""><span class=""><font size="4" class="">DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE</font></span></div><div class="" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span class=""><font size="4" class="">PRESENTS</font></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class=""><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p class=""> </o:p><img apple-inline="yes" id="91CB3199-5E5F-4FFB-8819-0A74259D55B9" src="cid:EA50FFFD-62AE-4E4A-8B90-1DFB0C49FBB6" class=""></p><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div class="" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><font size="4" class=""><b class="">Justine Zhang</b></font></div><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div class="" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><font size="4" class=""><i class="">Cornell University</i></font></div><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><i class=""><p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><o:p class=""></o:p></p></i></span><div class=""><br class=""></div></div><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class=""><span class=""><font class=""><font size="4" class=""><b class="">Thursday, February 11th at 1:00 pm</b></font></font></span></span></div><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class=""><br class=""></span></div><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;">Join via zoom (enables questions):</span></span></div><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;"><a href="https://uchicago.zoom.us/j/99184287344?pwd=YkIrMEhwY3VhcVVEN1c5K2xhZ3p2Zz09" class="">https://uchicago.zoom.us/j/99184287344?pwd=YkIrMEhwY3VhcVVEN1c5K2xhZ3p2Zz09</a><br class="">Passcode: uccs2021<span class=""><br class=""> </span></span></div><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;">Or</span></span></div><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;"><br class="">Watch via live stream:<br class=""></span></span></div><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="http://live.cs.uchicago.edu/justinezhang/" style="font-size: 15px;" class="">http://live.cs.uchicago.edu/justinezhang/</a></div></div><div class=""><div class=""><font class=""><font class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;"><b class="" style="color: rgb(33, 33, 33);"><br class=""></b></span></font></font></div><div class=""><span style="font-size: 15px;" class=""><span class=""><font class=""><font class=""><span class=""><b class="" style="color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">Title: </b></span></font></font></span>Towards an Actionable Understanding of Conversations</span></div><div class=""><font color="#212121" class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;"><b class=""><br class=""></b></span></font></div><div class=""><span style="font-size: 15px;" class=""><span class="" style="color: rgb(33, 33, 33);"><b class="">Abstract: </b></span>Conversations are central to our social systems. Understanding how conversationalists navigate through them could unlock great improvements in domains like public health, where the provision of social support is crucial. To this end, I develop computational frameworks that can capture and systematically examine aspects of conversations that are difficult, interesting and meaningful for conversationalists and the jobs they do. Importantly, these frameworks aim to yield actionable understandings—ones that reflect the choices that conversationalists make and their consequences, beyond the inert linguistic patterns that are produced in the interaction.</span></div><span style="font-size: 15px;" class=""><br class="">In this talk, I will describe two complementary efforts in this direction, addressing the internal dynamics of conversations and their broader impacts. First, I will present an unsupervised methodology to model conversationalists' interactional choices; I will then formally describe the problem of drawing causal links between conversational behaviours and outcomes. I will talk about these projects in the context of a crisis counseling service, where the conversational stakes and challenges faced by counselors are especially salient.<br class=""><font color="#212121" class=""><span class="" style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class=""></span></font></span><div class=""><font class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;"><div class="" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class=""><font class=""><b class="" style="color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">Bio: </b></font>Justine Zhang is a PhD Candidate in the Information Science department at Cornell University. She focuses on developing computational frameworks to study conversations. Her research engages with a wide range of fields, spanning natural language processing, computational social science, political science, psychological counseling, and economics. Previously, she completed a bachelor's degree in computer science at Stanford University. She is a recipient of the Microsoft PhD Fellowship.</div><div class=""><font class=""><b class="" style="color: rgb(33, 33, 33);"><br class=""></b></font></div></div></span></font></div><div class=""><div class="" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#222222" class=""><i class=""><b class=""><font class="" style="font-size: 15px;">Host: Ben Zhao</font></b></i></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>