From the Economic Times:

IIT Madras has tied up with Northwestern University, US, for carrying out broad-based research collaboration in data science, web science, network science and computational social science.

The institutes signed an MoU recently to launch a joint project on the development of features for three web-based software platforms that focus on network-based approaches to facilitate team assembly and processes. Professor Ravindra Gettu, dean (Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research), IIT Madras, and Dr. Jonathan Holloway, Provost, Northwestern University, U.S., signed the MoU on behalf of their respective Institutions.
Speaking about the importance of this collaboration, Prof. B. Ravindran, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Madras, and one of the principal collaborators in this project, said, “The SONIC research group at Northwestern University is a world leader in the field of network science. This MoU will allow us to collaborate closely and work on problems that will have a global impact”

Further, Prof Ravindran added, “The Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and AI at IIT Madras has a significant expertise in the area of network science and this collaboration is the first of our initiatives to reach out to international partners with similar interests”.

The first project under this collaboration is a web-based platform called “My Dream Team” that focuses on assembling people with harmonising skillsets together. Concretely, these platforms take advantage of the survey and the digital trace data generated through sources like enterprise social media platforms to help recommend potential teammates to an individual or make managerial decisions using features rooted in the theories of network science and machine learning.

The principal collaborators on this project are: Prof. B. Ravindran, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Madras, and Head, Robert Bosch Center for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, IIT Madras; and IIT Madras Distinguished Alumnus Prof. Noshir Contractor, Jane S. and William J. White Professor of Behavioural Sciences and Director of the Science of Networks in Communities (SONIC) Research Group at Northwestern University.

Aaron M. Schecter, SONIC alumnus and Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Management Science, received the 2018 J. Richard Hackman Award for his Ph.D. dissertation at INGroup 2018. The conference recognizes recent graduate students whose dissertation shows the greatest potential to advance the study of groups.

The SONIC research group and ATLAS laboratory at Northwestern University invite applications for a research lab manager to support lab directors Noshir Contractor (SONIC) and Leslie DeChurch (ATLAS) on administrative and operational aspects of their research portfolios.

The lab manager will be responsible for supporting a variety of lab operations, including reporting and compliance requirements, communication of findings through digital displays and online materials, and organization and updating of research materials and files. In addition, the lab manager will assist in training new lab members and other research related activities.

Responsibilities:

• Preparation and submission of grant reports and other administrative documents needed for compliance.
• Preparation of materials to promote our research on digital displays and lab websites.
• Regularly update lab databases tracking publications, presentations, personnel, and other information needed for laboratory operations.
• Oversee IRB procedures and maintain confidentiality of participant information; ensures compliance with institutional, state and federal regulatory policies, procedures, directives and mandates.
• Miscellaneous laboratory management tasks such as ordering supplies and maintaining equipment.

Required Competencies:

• Strong project management skills with exceptional attention to detail.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Outstanding interpersonal skills and ability to maintain positive relationships with various stakeholders.
• Strong time management skills with a proven ability to multitask and to prioritize activities to successfully complete projects on tight deadlines with little supervision.
• Knowledge of Microsoft Office, Dropbox, and Google Drive required.
• Willingness to learn scientific formatting requirements (e.g., APA format) in preparing research materials.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team.

Education and Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree required, preferably in Communication, Psychology, Sociology, Business, Industrial Engineering, or a social science field.
• Experience in an interdisciplinary research environment preferred.
• Experience with IRB or grant-writing preferred.

Applicants should send a cover letter, resume, and references to Michael Schultz (michael.schultz@northwestern.edu).

On July 19-21, Professor Noshir Contractor, the SONIC doctoral students Diego Gómez-Zará and Brennan Antone, and the SONIC Research Assistant Professor Alina Lungeanu presented at the 13th Annual INGRoup Conference held in Bethesda, Maryland.

Koustav Rudra presented his work on “Identifying Sub-events and Summarizing Disaster-Related Information from Microblogs” in The 41st International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval. The conference was held at Ann Arbor, Michigan from 8th to 12th July, 2018.

The SONIC Ph.D. students, Kyouske Tanaka and Diego Gómez-Zará, participated at the Summer Institute in Computational Social Science, in Chicago. The purpose of the Summer Institute was to bring together graduate students and early career researchers in both social science and data science. Content included live-streamed lectures from the main site at Duke University as well as guest speakers who presented on cutting-edge computational research and methods. Topics covered include text analysis, digital data collection, experimental design, non-probability sampling, agent-based modeling, and ethics.

Noshir Contractor co-authored a paper titled, “Generative Modeling of Human Behavior and Social Interactions Using Abductive Analysis”, with Yihui Ren, Vanessa Cedeno-Mieles, Zhihao Hu, Xinwei Deng, Abhjijin Adiga, Christopher Barrett, Saliya Ekanayake, Joshua Epstein, Brian Goode, Gizem Korkmaz, Christopher Kuhlman, Dustin Machi, Michael Macy, Madhav Marathe, Naren Ramakrishnan, Sekharipuram Ravi, Parang Saraf and Nathan Self.

The paper was accepted at EEE/ACM International Conference on Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM 2018), held in Barcelona, Spain.

Noshir Contractor’s presentation, titled “Deep Space Collaboration: Impact of Social Networks on Task Switching in Collaborative Work”, was co-authored with Alina Lungeanu, Patrick Park, and Leslie A. DeChurch.  This was presented at a NetSci 2018 satellite workshop in Paris, France on June 12, 2018.  The paper can be found here.