Monday
Jon Rawski –San Jose State University
A Blueprint for Designing Intelligent Learning Systems
Jon Rawski is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Language Development at San José State University in San Jose, California, where he teaches courses on general and computational linguistics.
Professor Rawski’s research aims to understand the fundamental laws of language and learning. He seeks to mathematically understand how humans, unlike other species, are capable of learning at least one or more of the 7,200 languages that exist with so little data so soon after being born. Understanding how humans learn language provides a blueprint for designing other intelligent learning systems such as modern AI systems. His work spans linguistics, cognitive science, philosophy, and theoretical computer science.
Tuesday
Jonathan Losos – Washington University in St. Louis
Copycat Evolution Between Certain Breeds of Cats and Dogs
Jonathan Losos is a renowned evolutionary biologist at Washington University in St. Louis. His lab researches the behavioral and evolutionary ecology of lizards as well as the evolutionary adaptation of wild species to urban habitats. Losos also leads the Living Earth Collaborative, a partnership between WashU, the Missouri Botanical Garden, and the St. Louis Zoo to advance the study of biodiversity. He is the author of three books, including most recently “The Cat’s Meow: How Cats Evolved from the Savannah to Your Sofa” (Penguin Random House, May 2, 2023).
Wednesday
Robert Cheatham – Florida Institute of Technology
Growing Food on Mars
Robert Cheatham is a PhD student and researcher pursuing a doctoral degree in chemical engineering at Florida Institute of Technology (Florida Tech) in Melbourne, Florida. An award-winning researcher, Cheatham earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering with a minor in nanotechnology and nanoscience from Florida Tech, where he served as president of the student chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. He won best in show at the 2024 Northrup Grumman Showcase for his work on methanol conversion from cruise ship food waste, earned first place for his research in advanced chemically activated biochar, and was selected as the outstanding student of the year by Florida Tech’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.
Thursday
Samuel Pizelo – University of Toronto Mississauga
Games as System-Modeling Tools
Samuel Pizelo is an Assistant Professor of Game Studies at the Institute for Communication, Culture, Information and Technology at the University of Toronto, Mississauga. He completed his PhD at the University of California, Davis, and has formerly held a visiting professorship at New York University. His research argues that games are modeling technologies that have been centrally important to the global development of computing technology, technoscientific research, artificial intelligence, and neoliberal capitalism itself. He is also a founding member of the Degrowth Game Design Project, a multi-campus research cluster that uses game design to help us imagine a post-growth future.
Friday
Jack Chapel – University of Southern California
The Diabetes Paradox
Jack Chapel is an assistant professor (research) of health policy and management at the University of Southern California’s (USC) Price School of Public Policy and a scholar at the USC Schaeffer Institute for Public Policy & Government Service. He is an applied microeconomist specializing in health and labor economics, with a diverse range of research interests unified by the goal of informing public policy decisions that foster societal well-being. His current research focuses on estimating the economic impacts of chronic diseases and quantifying the societal value of chronic disease prevention strategies.
Jack earned his PhD in economics from USC in 2024 and BS in economics from Tulane University in 2015. Prior to his current role, he worked in both academic and government research settings, including at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Labor, and the Center for Economic and Social Research.
