Monday
Pamela Prickett – Pomona College
America’s Rising Number of Unclaimed Deaths
Pamela Prickett is an associate professor of sociology at Pomona College and former journalist. She is the author of two books about Los Angeles, including The Unclaimed: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels and Believing in South Central: Everyday Islam in the City of Angels.
Tuesday
Jo Hardin – Pomona College
A Unified Framework for Random Forest Error Estimation
Jo Hardin is Professor of Mathematics & Statistics and Hardison Chair of Analytical Thinking at Pomona College. Her research areas include machine learning, methods development for biological high throughput data, and statistics & data science education. She has an active undergraduate research group and seeks to find ways to make statistics and data science more accessible. She recently co-authored the online and complete free introductory statistics textbook, Introduction to Modern Statistics. When not working with students or on her research, she loves running, hiking, and jigsaw puzzles.
Wednesday
Char Miller – Pomona College
Why is California on Fire?
Char Miller is the W. M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis and History at Pomona College, where he teaches classes on public lands, water, fire, urbanization.
Thursday
Charlotte Chang – Pomona College
Mapping the Local Impacts of Global Nature-Based Carbon Mitigation
Charlotte Chang is a computational sustainability scientist whose work focuses on finding solutions for nature and people to thrive together. Chang is the inaugural One Conservancy Visiting Science Fellow at The Nature Conservancy and leads the NLP for Environmental Solutions Lab at Pomona College, which uses text as a critical data modality to synthesize evidence on nature-based climate solutions, analyze public opinion on conservation policies, and evaluate social-ecological systems through machine learning, bioacoustics, and mechanistic models.
Friday
Ryan Engley – Pomona College
Seriality and Our Psyches
Ryan Engley researches the intersection of psychoanalytic theory and media studies. His current book manuscript, Seriality: Media and the Psychic Form of Everyday Life, casts the notion of seriality as a social and cultural formation, claiming that the serial has a primary place in psychic life. The book explores this by looking to varied forms of serial media, from Victorian serials to video games, podcasts to streaming television’s binge culture, to film serials past and present, and to social media. Along with Todd McGowan, Engley co-hosts the podcast Why Theory, which brings Continental philosophy and psychoanalytic theory together to examine contemporary phenomena.
