Invited Speakers

Opening Remarks Dr. Vincent Traag is a senior researcher at the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) of Leiden University in the Netherlands. He is coordinating the Focal Area of Engagement & Inclusion and is leading the flagship project on science in societal contention. He has a Master in sociology from the University of Amsterdam (2008) and a PhD in applied mathematics from Université catholique de Louvain (2013). His main interests are mathematical models in the social sciences with a focus on (social) networks, including topics such as complex networks, social influence (as in opinion dynamics and the like), and conflict. In particular he is interested in how science and society interact on contentious issues.

Invited Talk Dr. Ana Maria Jaramillo (she/her) has been a postdoctoral research fellow at the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna and TÜ Graz in Austria working for the project on Multi-attribute, Multimodal Bias Mitigation in AI Systems (MAMMOth) specifically on fairness metrics for citation rankings.

Ana finished here PhD in Computer Science at the University of Exeter. During her doctoral training she studied the effect of segregation and socio-demographic diversity on scientific impact in Computer Science, applying sociology of science theories with computer science methodologies. Ana’s research focuses on applying the complex systems paradigm to the science of science, education, and public health. She is interested in developing models to study social behaviours using complex systems, especially network science analysis, and inform data-driven interventions. The ultimate goal of her research is to create support, academic, and caring networks that help the knighting towards cognitive justice and democratisation of knowledge.

Talk title: “The persistent underrepresentation of minority groups in Academia: a systematic analysis of the scientific rankings rigidity and core/periphery structure in scientific networks”

Invited Talk Dr. Lucila Alvarez Zuzek is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento, Italy. As an interdisciplinary physicist, she is interested in complex systems science, with a focus on human social behavior at the intersection of decision-making, disease spread, and online misinformation. She holds a PhD in Physics from Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata (Argentina), where she studied dynamical processes on multilayer networks. She later conducted a postdoctoral research at Bansal Lab in Washington, DC (USA), we she explored the social mechanisms driving vaccine hesitancy and its impact on spatial under-vaccination. Currently, she is studying the intersection between misinformation and science in societal debates during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Talk title: TBA

Bart Thijs, KU Leuven