SONIC and ATLAS Labs Training Teams for SIRIUS Space Mission

SONIC is proud to partner with the ATLAS lab in training the Northwestern University twin teams for the SIRIUS 21 240-day simulated space mission which “launched” on Thursday November 4, 2021 at the Nazemnyy Eksperimental’nyy Kompleks in Moscow! These Martian analysis teams will work with SIRIUS 21 crew to find water on Mars, bringing us all closer to seeing humans set off for the red planet!

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Contractor Presenting at Segal Design at the Intersections Series on November 15th

Join Segal Design Institute for the third talk in the “Design at the Intersections” series, featuring Wei Chen, chair and professor of mechanical engineering, and Noshir Contractor, Jane S. & William J. White Professor of Behavioral Sciences. This talk will be on November 15th, from 4PM to 5PM CT. In this talk, Chen and Contractor will discuss their view of design as a system that incorporates the people (designers and customers), the processes and methods designers use, the artifacts or outcomes of design, and the socio-technical environment in which design takes place. They will introduce their research journey, in which they work across the disciplines of engineering and social sciences using network modeling to understand design complexity. They will demonstrate how data-driven network science is an effective approach for analyzing such complexity, to support product design decisions and assemble design teams. Specific examples will include the use of multidimensional network analysis and graph neural networks for understanding customer preferences, and the use of a social network approach to studying the design of teams composed of humans as well as teams composed of human and autonomous agents.

Register here: https://forms.gle/daAaUUcFtHNTZLZ17

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SONIC Fall 2021 Recruitment

SONIC is excited to look for more data science interns to add to our team! If you are interested in advancing the social network theory through the development of cutting-edge techniques alongside a passionate team of individuals, check out the form here and see how to get involved!

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Diego Gómez-Zará defends dissertation

A huge congratulations goes out to Diego Gómez-Zará for his PhD defense! His dissertation focuses on examining how recommender systems help people assemble teams. The dissertation committee included SONIC’s own Noshir Contractor, as well as Leslie DeChurch and Haoqi Zhang of Northwestern University, in addition to Melissa Valentine of Stanford University.

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