WED@NICO SEMINAR: Hamsa Bastani, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania "Challenges in Achieving Human-AI Collaboration"
12:00 PM
Chambers Hall
Hamsa Bastani is regrettably unable to join us this week and her talk is postponed. We will reschedule in the Fall 2026 term.
Speaker:
Hamsa Bastani, Associate Professor of Operations, Information, and Decisions, and Statistics and Data Science, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Title:
Challenges in Achieving Human-AI Collaboration
Abstract:
TBA
Speaker Bio:
Hamsa Sridhar Bastani is an Associate Professor of Operations, Information, and Decisions (OID) and Statistics and Data Science at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where she co-direct the Wharton Healthcare Analytics Lab. Her research sits at the intersection of machine learning, operations research, and economics. She studies how to design, deploy, and evaluate AI systems that empower human decision-makers and improve societal outcomes.
Professor Bastani aims to combine methodological depth with implementation in consequential environments. She has worked with national governments to deploy algorithms at the country scale for targeted border COVID-19 screening and essential medicine access, and has co-led one of the first large field studies of generative AI tutors in high school mathematics. She studies both the mathematical properties of algorithms and the way people respond to them.
Her research has been published in leading outlets including Nature, Management Science, Operations Research, and PNAS, and has garnered numerous recognitions, including the Wagner Prize for Excellence in Operations Research, the INFORMS Pierskalla Award for best healthcare paper, and the George Nicholson Prize. Previously, she graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 2012 with an A.M. in physics and an A.B. in physics and mathematics, completed her PhD in Stanford's Electrical Engineering department under the supervision of Mohsen Bayati, and spent a year as a Herman Goldstine postdoctoral fellow at IBM Research.
Location:
Postponed until Fall 2026
About the Speaker Series:
Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems, networks, and artificial intelligence. It brings together attendees ranging from graduate students to senior faculty who span all of the schools across Northwestern, from applied math to sociology to biology and every discipline in-between. Please visit: https://bit.ly/WedatNICO for information on future speakers.
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Lightning Talks with NU Scholars!
12:00 PM
Chambers Hall
May 20th Speakers:
Yulin Yu, Postdoctoral Fellow, Kellogg School of Management
Feihong Xu, PhD Candidate, McCormick School of Engineering
Maalvika Bhat, PhD Student, School of Communication
Rochana Chaturvedi, Postdoctoral Fellow, Kellogg School of Management
NICO Lightning talks are open to Northwestern graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and visiting scholars! If you are interested in signing up for a future session, please fill out this short survey.
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/98031689779
About the Speaker Series:
Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems, networks, and artificial intelligence. It brings together attendees ranging from graduate students to senior faculty who span all of the schools across Northwestern, from applied math to sociology to biology and every discipline in-between. Please visit: https://bit.ly/WedatNICO for information on future speakers.