#AcademicRunPlaylist - 11/18/24

It was great grabbing lunch with Thomas Stackpole, and I also enjoyed listening to some talks today for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was an intriguing talk by Clayton Scott on modeling label noise at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSemlmImA_o

Next was an important talk by Tendayi Achiume on how companies define international borders at the UCL Faculty of Laws https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahKuVyZDQxc

Next was an interesting talk by Robin Jia on distribution shift and LLM performance at the Simons Institute https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=405NJQm38BQ

Next was a fascinating talk by Axel Krieger on creating autonomous surgical robots at the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF8CvhMHmL4

Next was a compelling talk by Irene Chen on how to estimate the benefits/downsides of adding particular datasets into model training regimes at the Simons Institute https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEdFK9FZdyM

Next was an excellent talk by Massimo Riva on simulation as a paradigm for digital humanism, going through historical models to the transformer-driven ones of today, at Brown University https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKk7WPIyUBA

Next was a thought-provoking talk by Kaizheng Wang on pseudo-labeling for covariate shift adaptation at the Simons Institute https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB3RNarr4bA

Last was "Braiding Sweetgrass" by Robin Wall Kimmerer. This book deftly mixes personal stories with an introduction to a wide variety of Native American creation stories, cultural practices, foodways, agricultural practices, and epistemologies (seriously). I also appreciated the academic botanical knowledge that Kimmerer brings here adds a solid additional dimension to the book. I was hoping for much less of a focus on the anecdotal stories here, but if that's what you're looking for you'll like the book even more than I did. https://milkweed.org/book/braiding-sweetgrass