#AcademicRunPlaylist - 2/19/25

A new record for me! Despite starting a bit late I snaked around Tokyo and Chiba, logging 50.3 miles (81 km)! And you better believe I listened to a bunch of talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was a compelling talk by Raphaël Millière on determining if/how transformers can learn variable bindings at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsOMuWD58N0

Next was an interesting talk by Il Memming Park on the persistence of working memory computation without continuous attractors at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3Fbk3-to7s

Next was an excellent talk by Prof. Dr. Alexander Maedche on using biosignal data to understand and influence remote meetings at UCLIC. This work points to novel ways we can develop subtle changes to meeting environments to improve them, although I would love to see more integration of conversational dynamics a la Taemie Kim's pioneering work in the space. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPWSoPD9r6Q

Next was an intriguing talk by Jim Berg on how neuron types, connections, and neurochemicals lead to decisions at OIST https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5yXqpu24LI

Last was "World of Our Fathers" by Irving Howe. I'm biased because this book is about my ancestors, but this is an incredible work of scholarship that is still relevant today both because of the insight it offers into the American Jewish community and the challenges immigrants face more broadly. Beginning in the 1880s in Eastern Europe and ending in the 1970s, Howe traces the factors that pushed Jews to the US, the deplorable conditions they experienced on the trip over and upon arrival, and their gradual but unique integration into American life. As one might expect from a book that clocks in at 768 pages, there is ample room to cover nearly every facet of Jewish life in the US. Later chapters particularly resonated with me personally and felt deeply true of my own experience. Highly recommend https://nyupress.org/9780814736852/world-of-our-fathers/