How Data Happened: A History from the Age of Reason to the Age of AI

Chris Wiggins, chief data scientist at The New York Times and associate professor of applied mathematics at Columbia University, presented a Distinguished Lecturer Seminar on Wednesday, May 29, 2024 at Northeastern University's EXP, Room 202 and online.

After an introduction from Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Northeastern University, David Madigan, Wiggins delivered his talk "How Data Happened: A History from the Age of Reason to the Age of AI."

Following the seminar, our Executive Director Usama Fayyad joined Wiggins for a special fireside chat and audience Q&A.

Abstract:

Data-empowered products and decision automated decision systems increasingly determine our political, professional, and personal realities. How did we come to this data moment? How do we shape its future as scholars and educators, consumers, and members of the electorate? Chris briefly shared lessons learned from a class investigating these questions, co-developed with Matthew L. Jones, a historian of science, technology, and mathematics at Columbia University, and the resulting book published in 2023. Additional material, syllabus, readings, and code (in Python) can be found here.

Fireside Chat:

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Flip through the slides from Chris' presentation here:

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‍Bios:

Chris Wiggins is an associate professor of applied mathematics at Columbia University and the Chief Data Scientist at The New York Times. At Columbia he is a founding member of the executive committee of the Data Science Institute and of the Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, as well as the Department of Systems Biology, and is affiliated faculty in Statistics. He is a co-founder and co-organizer of hackNY, a nonprofit which since 2010, has organized once-a-semester student hackathons and the hackNY Fellows Program, a structured summer internship at NYC startups. Prior to joining the faculty at Columbia he was a Courant Instructor at NYU (1998-2001) and earned his PhD at Princeton University (1993-1998) in theoretical physics. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and is a recipient of Columbia's Avanessians Diversity Award.

Usama Fayyad is the executive director of the Institute for Experiential AI. Usama joined Northeastern University Khoury College of Computer Sciences as professor of the practice and the Office of the Provost as the Inaugural Executive Director of the Institute for Experiential AI. He continues as Chairman of Open Insights, a company he founded as a technology and consulting firm in 2008 after leaving Yahoo to enable enterprises to get value out of their data assets and optimize or create new business models based on the evolving economy of interactions. Leveraging open-source and Big Data technology with strategic consulting, Open Insights deploys data-driven solutions to grow revenue from data assets through Big Data strategy, new business models, data science, and AI/ML solutions...Read More.