Less than a year before its slated opening as Yale’s newest professional school, the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs is starting up the hiring process for new faculty members and updating academic programming.
The Jackson Institute, which is currently part of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, began its transformation into the Jackson School of Global Affairs in 2019. According to Director James Levinsohn, as of now, the school is expected to open in fall 2022, becoming Yale’s first new professional school since the School of Management opened in 1976.
ESPN College Football, Paula Lavigne and Mark Schlabach
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According to an ESPN analysis of financial records of athletics departments at public universities, FBS programs spent more than $533.6 million in dead money in an 11-year period from Jan. 1, 2010, to Jan. 31, 2021. That’s money those programs owed coaches in football and men’s and women’s basketball who were fired without cause with time left on their contracts. The severance payments were made over several years or, in a few cases, in one lump sum.
Through its “Accelerating Research through International Network-to-Network Collaborations” (AccelNet) program, the National Science Foundation is funding a team led by the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at UT Austin to implement a Deep-Ocean Observing Strategy (iDOOS). The initiative brings together U.S. and international networks engaged in deep-ocean observing, mapping, exploration, modeling, research and sustainable management to leverage each other’s efforts, knowledge and resources.
“By connecting deep-ocean observers across disciplines, expanding the observing community to include nontraditional partners, and linking data providers to users, iDOOS will enhance the deep-ocean capabilities of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) and target societal needs,” said project lead Patrick Heimbach, director of the Computational Research in Ice and Ocean Systems group at the Oden Institute and faculty member at the Jackson School of Geosciences.
The National Security Agency has been told to reevaluate a secret $10 billion cloud contract with Amazon Web Services.
The Government Accountability Office sided with rival Microsoft in a protest of the ‘WildandStormy’ contract and called for a reevaluation.
“GAO found certain aspects of the agency’s evaluation to be unreasonable and, in light thereof, recommended that NSA reevaluate the proposals consistent with the decision and make a new source selection determination,” Ralph O. White, managing associate general counsel for the Procurement Law Division at GAO, said.
According to a study from the tech-focused nonprofit Educause, noted in the Brookings report, about 75 percent of higher-ed institutions were already using predictive data analytics to choose student applicants by 2015, representing a 15 percent jump over the previous decade and making it the most common form of data analytics used by universities. As a result of the growing popularity of enrollment algorithms, outside tech vendors that create and implement them, such as EAB and Ruffalo Noel Levitz, have served over 100 and 300 institutions, respectively.
The Brookings report noted that implementing such systems to boost overall enrollment and improve fiscal planning could prove counterproductive to diversity goals without the proper oversights in place. It said companies who make these systems often advertise their services as a way to increase revenues from tuition, and it works. The report pointed to a 2019 study from the University of Washington that found, for one unnamed university, the use of algorithms to disburse financial aid helped increase enrollment yields for out-of-state students by over 23 percent.
“Higher education is already suffering from low graduation rates, high student debt, and stagnant inequality for racial minorities—crises that enrollment algorithms may be making worse,” wrote Alex Engler, policy analyst and author of the Brookings Institution report.
According to a study published in the Journal of Sex Research, relationship characteristics like relationship satisfaction, relationship length, and romantic love are among the top predictors of cheating within a relationship. The researchers used a machine learning algorithm to pinpoint the top predictors of infidelity among over 95 different variables.
While a host of studies have investigated predictors of infidelity, the research has largely revealed mixed and often contradictory findings. Study authors Laura M. Vowels and her colleagues aimed to improve on these inconsistencies by using machine learning models. This approach would allow them to compare the relative predictability of various relationship factors within the same analyses.
Today’s college students grew up steeped in social media and the internet, leading some observers to assume that they’re unconcerned about all the data they generate online. But it turns out that young people today care a lot about their data privacy, even though they sometimes act in ways that jeopardize that privacy.
That’s according to a new report from the nonprofit Future of Privacy Forum, which analyzed recent research about young adults from the U.S., China, Germany and Japan.
Many people in their late teens and early 20s say they try to be careful about the information they share online. One reason why is that they don’t want to leave a bad impression that could hurt their college admissions or job prospects, according to the report. As one study participant put it, she tries to make sure that when people look at her online profiles, “they’re not going to see anything that’s going to ruin my life.”
Former Google employee Meredith Whittaker could soon be working at the Federal Trade Commission as an AI policy advisor, according to a report by The Information. Whittaker may be best known for helping to organize a 2018 walkout at Google, where 20,000 employees protested against how the company handled alleged sexual harassment, and for leaving Google afterward, claiming that it had retaliated against her and other organizers. Now, the FTC seems to be in the process of hiring her to help shape regulations around AI and Big Tech.
Launched in 2020, the Common Ground for Computing Education was created through the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing to meet the growing need for enhanced curricula that connect computer science and artificial intelligence with different domains. In order to advance this mission, the Common Ground is bringing experts across MIT together and facilitating collaborations among multiple departments to develop new classes and approaches that blend computing topics with other disciplines.
Dan Huttenlocher, dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, and the chairs of the Common Ground Standing Committee — Jeff Grossman, head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Morton and Claire Goulder and Family Professor of Environmental Systems; and Asu Ozdaglar, deputy dean of academics for the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and the MathWorks Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science — discuss here the objectives of the Common Ground, pilot subjects that are underway, and ways they’re engaging faculty to create new curricula for MIT’s class of “computing bilinguals.”
A long-anticipated road map for the next ten years of US astronomy is here — and it’s nothing if not ambitious.
It recommends that NASA coordinate, build and launch three flagship space observatories capable of detecting light over a broad range of wavelengths. It suggests that the US National Science Foundation (NSF) fund two enormous ground-based telescopes in Chile and possibly Hawaii, to try to catch up with an advanced European telescope that’s under construction. And for the first time, it issues recommendations for how federal agencies should fight systemic racism, sexism and other structural issues that drive people out of astronomy, weakening the quality of the science.
Honeybees dance to direct hive mates to new food sources. Guppies negotiate leadership with their schoolmates. Flocks of homing pigeons take evasive action when a falcon attacks. Since the dawn of animal behavior research, scientists have studied social interactions like these. But now there’s a new twist to their research: Here, one of the actors is not a real animal, but a robot. Under the control of researchers, these bots socialize with flesh and blood creatures in experiments that scientists hope will yield fresh insights into what it means to be a socially competent guppy, how bees educate their hive mates and other features of animal social life.
The notion isn’t as peculiar as it sounds. Advances in robotics technology and computing power mean that engineers can build robots realistic enough that animals respond to them as if they were real. (How realistic is “realistic enough” varies with the animals being studied. Sometimes the robot has to look right, sometimes it has to smell right and sometimes all it has to do is move.)
And robots offer one big advantage over live animals: They do what researchers tell them to do, in exactly the same way, time after time.
Using the NSF infrastructure funding, [Brent Seales] has gathered a team of experts from the College of Engineering and the College of Arts and Sciences to build EduceLab — UK’s vision for next-generation heritage science. The collaborative facility will focus on developing innovative artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for the unique challenges presented by cultural heritage objects.
Heritage science draws on engineering, the humanities and the sciences to enhance the understanding of our past, inform the present and guide our future. Ultimately, the goal is to enrich people’s lives and celebrate both the commonality and diversity of the human experience.
A WSU research team has received a $1.2 million U.S. Department of Education grant to train graduate students at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI), data science, and engineering to address challenges of the future electric power grid.
Led by Assefaw Gebremedhin, associate professor in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, the Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) grant aims to enhance teaching and research in areas of national need.
The state is sending $10 million to CSU Monterey Bay to support the school’s ongoing goal of improving the quality, diversity and capacity of higher education computer science programs statewide.
Granted as a one-time investment from the California Legislature in its 2021-22 budget, the funds will bolster and expand CSUMB’s Computing Talent Initiative, a developing program started earlier this year that currently helps over 250 students from 40 institutions throughout California in their pursuit of a computer science degree.
Stanford University, Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence
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Stanford AI researchers map out the technology for adding voice to the decentralized web that can be accessed openly by any virtual assistant.
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The eScience Institute’s Data Science for Social Good program is now accepting applications for student fellows and project leads for the 2021 summer session. Fellows will work with academic researchers, data scientists and public stakeholder groups on data-intensive research projects that will leverage data science approaches to address societal challenges in areas such as public policy, environmental impacts and more. Student applications due 2/15 – learn more and apply here. DSSG is also soliciting project proposals from academic researchers, public agencies, nonprofit entities and industry who are looking for an opportunity to work closely with data science professionals and students on focused, collaborative projects to make better use of their data. Proposal submissions are due 2/22.
